Tie? You want me to wear a TIE?ÿListen: There’s only one time in a man’s life when he should have a rope knotted around his neck, and that time ain’t yet come for me.

— Canada Bill Jones

If men can run the world, why can’t they stop wearing neckties? How intelligent is it to start the day by tying a noose around your neck?

— Linda Ellerbee

For many students across campus, this time of year involves planning for next summer. Interviews for internships and real jobs will soon be in full swing, and what you show the interviewer will determine what will happen and where you will go.

Unfortunately, this interview is also an introduction into the uncomfortable, stuffy world of The Man. And that means wearing a suit, or at least good pants and shirt, and probably even a tie.

I hate dressing up. If I am wearing anything besides jeans, I feel too dressed up.

The trend of khakis as “everyday” wear has passed me by. And the idea of wearing a suit to be “productive” and “professional” rings hollow. Does providing a facade really do me or my prospective employer any good? It’s just a superficial judgment.

If I can show some great work, it shouldn’t matter whether I show up in a suit or a nice pair of jeans.

It’s something that almost makes me sad that I missed employment in the tech boom of the late 1990s.

A revolutionary concept drove those years: It doesn’t matter what you look like — as long as you can do the job you’re hired to do, we’ll take you.

However, the bursting of that bubble has led many companies, tech or not, to remove things like “casual Fridays” from their dress codes. The sigh of relief from the “brick-and-mortar” companies upon the decline that signaled the return to stodginess was almost audible.

A Sept. 29 article on ABCNews. com reported that “a survey by the Men’s Apparel Alliance, a group representing menswear retailers and manufacturers, found that one in five of the big companies with a formal dress code reinstituted their policy in the past year.”

It might be (and probably is) construed by some to mean that the Decline and Fall of the Dot-Com Empire was directly tied to the casual dress, but they’re missing the point.

The industry had trouble because sound business practices weren’t being followed and employees were too laid-back with game tables and other frills.

The clothes they wore had nothing to do with it. One can still do excellent work while not being dressed up, as long as the objective is work and not goofing off.

And on the flip side of the coin, wearing suits all the time didn’t exactly make for “professional” workers at Enron, Global Crossing, or any other firm in trouble with the law. Those criminals being hauled away in expensive three-piece suits and ties elicited cheers from the more casual audience as the high and mighty were brought down.

The “blue-collar” workers in this country do their job and do it well every day, many without being encumbered by clothes designed to provide discomfort to the wearer. Maybe that’s what we need to do to bridge the gap between management and labor: If management isn’t dressing and acting superior to the laborers (clothing-induced or not), a better work environment for all might be found.

A man in London has decided to fight back against dress code policies by a somewhat unique tactic: sexual discrimination.

Ian Jarman, a government worker who has been productive for 26 years without wearing a tie, is suing Job Center Plus for its new dress code requiring men to wear ties.

The management says the tie is needed to project a professional image. Jarman says not only does clothing have nothing to do with professionalism, it’s discrimination because women don’t have to endure the same requirements he does.

“The dress code says that female members of staff can wear an open-necked blouse. Why should male members of staff have to wear a tie?” he told The Associated Press.

Now women, of course, don’t have a free ride when it comes to dress codes, but they do have a lot more flexibility, and many more choices than men, for whom the only “choice” is what color tie to wear with a drab suit.

But maybe the women should fight back too. An all-encompassing “workers’ lib” movement could have an impact — but that may be about five years too late.

With the economy in the shape it’s in, dressing up for a job is preferable to the no job at all. Even if new clothes take up a chunk of your salary, at least you are getting one.

So, until something gives, all of us on campus preparing for interviews will suck it up and show The Man our best “professional” look.

But if clothes really made the (wo)man, and not the work he or she has done, or the ethics he or she has, then scandals in the business world and many complaints against politicians would cease to exist.

Jeff Morrison

is a junior in journalism

and mass communication and political science from Traer. He is a copy editor at the Daily.