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They believe that because that's how it used to work (and still does in some industries). That's their lived experience.
it definitely didn't work that way for Black boomers
Maybe not in general, but it IS the reason that if you look at photos of the million man march, they're all dressed up. Reason being, they were afraid any media coverage would paint them as degdnerates, thugs, and vandals. It's much harder to paint that picture if they're marching in unison wearing 3 piece suits, and their sunday best.
This in the middle of the summer when that was wildly uncomfortable.
That was also a time when a man wouldn't dare leave his house without wearing a hat.
Times have changed. The only people who care about the shit anymore are boomers. People can go to work in the pajamas for all I care.
I like that a lot. I'm GenX but I always hated the suit & tie bullshit. These days I don't even own a suit that fits. The last time I wore one was at a wedding in 2005 or so.
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Lived experience and/or delusion. Many can't seem to absorb that the labour market didn't stop changing in 19-fucking-73, and it shows.
I couldn't believe how dogshit so much of their advice was the last time I was searching for new work, and how irate they were that I wouldn't take it - because it was useless and/or hazardous to my financial stability in the situation at hand. That coffee drinks-avocado toast shit seemed like satire at first, but some of them actually believe it, and had I been spineless/stupid enough to allow them to push me into the courses of action they were insisting on I think that it might have killed me.
“Naughty corporations” made me chuckle, but “I don’t know what the solution is” definitely rang true.
Most boomers actually don’t know where to begin, even though many of the solutions would be a 6-year-old’s first guess, and are actually proven to work, simply because they grew up being told that every single one of those obvious, proven solutions were “socialist” and that socialism was anti-American.
That indoctrination was so thorough that these solutions can be put right in front of them, gift-wrapped, with a neon arrow pointing at an easy button labeled “fix that shit,” and they’ll still shrug and say “we’re all out of ideas, maybe ask a billionaire what to do, surely they know how to fix the system.”
And the sad part is that they do and, in fact, already did.
Children, when given appropriate tools and knowledge can function well together, that is until the parents get involved. The kid cities in Mexico (more of a theme park parents weren't allowed to interfere in) proved this. Kids can get shit right because they're not clouded by the dirt and crap by everyone around them yet.
By the way those aforementioned kid cities, they always seemed to fall into chaos when parents were allowed to to put their direct involvement in them.
and had I been spineless/stupid enough to allow them to push me into the courses of action they were insisting on I think that it might have killed me.
yep, my experience exactly
Glad to hear that you made it out the other side as well. I'm worried about contemporaries stuck eating shit, or worse living back at home with Boomer parents eating shit.
yep that is definitely happening. development is a slow progress.
That's what happened to them. If they were white.
only works for white people, it only works for POCs if they are rich or very affluent, so they have EXTRA fluff on thier resume. i assume its for job hunting, there was less competition for jobs like 30-50+years ago, now its oversaturated.
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Because that's how it worked for pretty much everything back in the day when your chances of getting a loan from the bank depended on the impression of trustworthiness you projected on the bank manager when you asked for it, rather than some obscure algorithm running in the bank's systems that didn't take in account any feedback from an actual human.
Amongst large companies automation removed humans from the loop, at least at an early stage, so now your machine processable input and/or information about you extracted from some other sources about what you've done so far, matching whatever the algorithm is configured to favor is all that matters. Sure, beyond that you'll almost certainly end up with a person making a final decision (for hiring, not for bank loans), but you first have to pass that big initial automated hurdle that's supposed to separate the wheat from the chaff.
Amongst other things this has killed "being judged as having potential" as a way to get a foot on the door, unless you have a high score on a metric supposedly correlated to it such as good grades at a supposedly elite university, since unlike "impression" such metrics can be mathematically evaluated and compared by algorithms.
Mind you, when looking for work in smaller companies that haven't outsourced their hiring, impressions still work since your first point of contact is going to be a person whose opinion counts rather than an algorithm or a person too low on the pecking scale for their judgement to be taken in account.
This works for small businesses. Sending them an email will just wind up in spam. But show up in person, and you might get to talk to an actual person. This distinguishes you from some random, semi-anonymous piece of paper or text header.
If you're applying at some gigantic mega-corporation, then none of that matters. They won't have time to see you anyway, and will only look at your application if they specifically asked you to give them one.
Yeah I was going to say the same. Currently work at a small business run by a boomer so if the random person walking in looking for a job happens to catch him there's a 50/50 chance that person will get hired. Bonus if the person looking for work has a degree from a ivy league university, boomers love that shit. I don't know why someone with that sort of degree would be applying for a low wage small business job but the job market is a bit crazy nowadays.
The practice can backfire of course - I've seen the same boomer boss hire other boomers that barely know how to use a computer and then proceed to fail at his/her job spectacularly. It's interesting when you run into boomers looking for work and it turns out they spent most of their career relying on others to deal with the mundane tasks of dealing with email, spreadsheets, etc. So many of them spent their careers falling upwards into management roles until they were laid off/fired/whatever.
This distinguishes you from some random, semi-anonymous piece of paper or text header.
It also just gives them a lot more information about who you are as a person. A list of skills or lived experience can be misleading in all kinds of ways. And they only allow inferring personality traits indirectly, like someone with good grades is less likely to be a slacker, but ultimately you don't know.
Probably, yeah.
It's how I found internship a year ago. It was really just vague "something related to computers", so I ended up in a small PC repair and sale shop. I just asked the owner, and that was that. Although, since that was for free...
On the other hand, the large company where someone else went in the past... they just told me "write an email to this person".
But also, that was kinda rare. He usually wasn't there, especially soon before I left, as he apparently ended up receiving some threats and a few mad people showed up after he helped organize some protests.
That's what they did the last time they searched for a job. It used to work.
This.
It’s old advice that used to work, and it worked very well.
It still kind of works in some industries. I got my last 3 jobs, and 2 of them "weren't hiring", by walking into the joint and asking to talk to the boss and saying I can start in 2 weeks I juat have to give my current biss notice. In demanding industries, showing up in person makes an impression, another app on a stack of applications gets you nowhere. Lots of people apply, few can talk the talk and walk the walk or actually do the work. I the auto industry you show up and impress the foreman or manager with your knowledge and your pretty much in. I know people that work in welding and a construction that this also works for. I also have siblings that are white collar that this absolutely does nothing for. Supposeit also depends on how much of a giant corp you work for, as I never work for monolithic corporations. If I can't meet my boss I can't work there.
You can get into a lotta places wearing a hard hat and reflective vest while carrying a ladder.
Or a clip board with some technical papers on it, in case you don't want to lug a ladder.
It's highly depends on a situation. But generally speaking it does work in a lot of situations.
You want work? Clean up, print a dozen resumes - apply online (if they have a website), then go and show up in the physical location. You will be noticed waaay more than a silent application.
You want to solve a service issue: even with big probiders atnt, T-Mobile there is a chance that a corporate store manager can do something.
Sometimes even between offices it can help if you show up in addition to the regular channels.
Being proactive, clean and respectful can take you long way.
Fundamentally, it's hard to overstate how much assertiveness skills can help you meet your needs. Just because it doesn't always work doesn't mean it never works. (When I say assertiveness, I mean confidently and respectfully seeking what you want)
The respect is the key word. Nowadays most people don't give a shit. So when you do, you stand out. And if you treat someone with courtesy they will be much more favorably towards you.
I'll agree that there are instances where it works, but the tricky part is knowing who those were. I love your second example because I worked at one of those stores and the manager could definitely get things done if you were polite and got the employees to advocate for you.
But, we wouldn't be much use in the first example because all applications were online, and the GM didn't interview anyone until HR told them to.
They have since closed that store, so there are only authorized agents in my town, and there's not a damn thing they can do for your billing issues.
I believe that asking respectfully won't hurt. And if you are lucky you can get ahead of people who do not show up.
Ok, I agree with you, I do, buuuuut
If someone shows up to an interview wearing pajamas, they are probably less likely to get a job. So you do have to dress up a little bit, depending on what the job is.
Not even just job stuff, its as impractical as pushing you to apply for something government related and that your dressing up and showing up in person will somehow override literal requirements you know you dont meet
Movie recommendation - Catch me if you can (2002)! Apparently Jobs used to work like that so much that in the late 1960's a 16 year old just conned his way into becoming a pilot, a doctor and a lawyer with no previous qualifications.
You should probably know the best con that Abagnale pulled is making people believe he actually did all of those things. Journalists have discovered that the vast majority of his claims are completely fabricated.
If I remember correctly he was also kinda a creep. Stalking women and what not.
If you want a good con look up the story about England’s brief #1 restaurant the shed at dulwich
Dude made a fake restaurant that became #1 on trip advisor even though it never existed. He then did one fake day of operation where he served microwave tv diners. Then when he was found out he did a bunch of interviews…. Except he didn’t, he hired actors to pretend to be him.
That’s the kinda con man I like.
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The only time showing up in person works in the UK is if you're a teenager looking for part time or apprenticeship work in independent shops/hospitality/mechanics etc.
What
I think they mean in the context of getting a job. At least that’s what most of the reactions seem to assume. The post really doesn’t have enough detail.
Exactly
with job sites being the primary source of job hunting, you wont even get a chance in most cases to even an interview. and you can just show up to a business with a suit on, and demand to see a interviewer.
Not so much the dress up. But yeah. You need to show up. Also, it doesn't help to be a bitch about people trying to give solicited advice by sharing their experiences.
If you want to make $350K working 10 hours a week in your underwear, go find out how all those other wildly successful folks in your generation are doing it.
What is this strawman? Weirdly specific.
It's about respect, it goes a long way. If you didn't come across as an entitled little cunt, and oh you very much do, you could garner some respect. But you are and so you don't and as such you will probably be lost at honor.
Good clothes used to be expensive and a signifier of wealth. Someone who could wear a suit likely had money and someone who had a fashionable suit likely had more money. Over the past generation, as clothing became cheaper and large parts of the richer segments have up on dressing well, the value of wearing a suit dropped.
Wearing a suit is still valuable in some circumstances, but nowhere near as much as before.
Must be localized, doesn't happen here. Where?
Maybe more of a north american thing
fun fact, in the medieval times it was custom that you could not sentence a person in front of court without their consent. yes, the consent of the person about to be judged. how times have changed.
That place you were going to will owe to give you the thing you want as a reward for your effort. This is exactly how the world works.
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this post was submitted on 18 Oct 2025
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