We’re all for personal expression through clothing. You want to wear a neon green miniskirt with a faux fur crop top out to dinner? Live your life!
But there’s a general rule of thumb that if you’re going to a job interview, the idea is to look half-way presentable.
Which is why we’re a bit baffled by this story from Burnley, a town in Lancashire, England. The unemployed man you see to the right, Shaun Clark, 28, is claiming discrimination after wearing a t-shirt with the slogan “Nobody knows I’m gay” to a local job center.
Normally we stick up for someone enduring harassment, but this just seems a bit much. If the goal is to go on interviews and land a job, the shirt choice seems counterproductive. It could just as easily say “My wife is hot,” and chances are the job center would still find a problem.
How about we take this to the next level?
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According to Clark, there’s a bigger issue:
“I am proud to be gay and I don’t think there is anything wrong with the T-shirt. I have always worn a shirt and tie to an interview but I feel there is nothing wrong in wearing the T-shirt to the Jobcentre. It is discrimination.”
Here’s the center’s take:
“Our Jobcentre Plus advisers up and down the country work hard every day supporting people into jobs and treating everyone fairly. Staff in our Burnley branch encourage all job-seekers to dress in smart interview attire, as employers regularly attend and recruit directly from the Jobcentre.”
Sorry Clark, gotta side with the center on this one. We’re sure your shirt kills at happy hour, but it isn’t going to land you a job anytime soon.
Though seeing as it’s also been reported that he’s been on Job Seekers Allowance for the past four years, maybe that’s the idea.
darian
Mountains out of molehills. This kind of behavior is really regressive.
Milk
When you wear a T-shirt with message you are making a statement. It might be Salvation Army that you pick up the shirt from , it would not matter. There are social circumstances that is not appropriate to wear them. I like to think that job interview has not change much. How you present yourself count as important as your job skills. It reflects a certain attitude. A job interview or at work should be as neutral as possible. To make a social or political statement would deter potential employers assumption of difficult employees for hiring. Just as the Douchebag & Garbage are allow to make a political statement and are now face with backlash on the business front. Marketing yourself to potential employers are not different.
Giancarlo85
Um, if you are trying to get a job, at least be a bit more presentable. I don’t own ANY shirts that say that. Going to potential employers it is important to give a good impression. A tshirt regardless of the message just seems lazy to me. Sorry.
Saint Law
Good for him.
Raphael
He is cute, hope he gets a job soon.
Ruhlmann
This guy wants to suck the welfare tit as long as he can.
scotshot
A Job Centre in the UK is a government office where unemployed can go for advice and information about jobs. What one wears to the place doesn’t make a bit of a difference. This article must have been released by the UK’s equivalent of F**N***.
1EqualityUSA
He’s too young to be unemployed and hanging around the house. Clean up, shave, wear appropriate attire, and go get a job.
Glücklich
I’m with the job center. And four years unemployed as a presumably able-bodied twenty-eight year-old? Dump him…cut off the allowance.
Being from San Francisco, I see all sorts of casual attire worn by employees of the nearby tech firms (I’m in banking myself). Whatever your field, at a job center or any kind of recruiting event, adhere to tradition. Even if you don’t own a suit, clean and pressed slacks, NO SNEAKERS, and a grown-up shirt are steps in the right direction.
@Raphael, yeah, I can see it. He’d probably clean up nicely therefore all the more reason for him to do it.
Alan down in Florida
I’m going to agree with scotshot here. Unless this Job Centre sends you immediately out to interviews than what he wears to the Job Centre. He gets a job lead/interview and he gets appropriately addressed for the interview. My guess is he is not looking for a white collar job so he doesn’t need to be dressed to the nines (or even the 7 1/2s) to be eligible for unskilled or manual labor. There are some places where that T-shirt might even give him a leg up amongst the applicants.
Alan down in Florida
I’m going to agree with scotshot here. Unless this Job Centre sends you immediately out to interviews then what he wears to the Job Centre is irrelevant. He gets a job lead/interview and he gets appropriately addressed for the interview. My guess is he is not looking for a white collar job so he doesn’t need to be dressed to the nines (or even the 7 1/2s) to be eligible for unskilled or manual labor. There are some places where that T-shirt might even give him a leg up amongst the applicants.
eclecticstarz
Lost in translation: as scotshot says in the UK job centres are where you go to sign on for payment and look for a job. It was not an interview. In the full article he points out that he does put on a shirt and tie for job interviews. It is a government office and the staff have no right to mention what people ware and they do not do interviews on the premises. The job centres response that employers regularly attend and recruit from these places is utter piffle. I have never heard of this happening. I have friends who used to work in them but left as under our present government finding a job has become a secondary task for many job centre staff; it is more about finding ways to sanction and intimidate in some of these places.
Giancarlo85
Well I didn’t really know what a job center was in the UK. I just thought “staffing agency” (which you need to wear at least business-casual typically). I guess I’ll retract my last remark… but even for a job center he should be a little more presentable.
Realitycheck
Be a person first and be gay second……dhu!!!
Bob LaBlah
I’ve said before and will say again, one dresses appropriately (or should at least) for the type of work they seek. Now in his case, were I the job counselor, I would have recommended a bathhouse, an x-rated video arcade dirty-condom-picker-upper or cum drenched floor mopper or something along those lines. Dressed as he was I sure as hell would not have sent him on an office job interview. Case closed. Jury dismissed.
Cagnazzo82
The shirt should actually read *Nobody Cares I’m Gay*.
I’m gay as F and even I could not give two craps about this guy being gay or not.
What a literal drama queen. No wonder no one’s employed him.
Giancarlo85
@Cagnazzo82: Funny thing is he looks like he’s 38. Not 28. LOL. He just looks like a slob to me.
polarisfashion
Most of the time I am a jeans and T-shirt type of guy. Having said that, if I go to a wedding or a job interview, I know how to wear a shirt and tie and dress pants. I also own a Navy sport jacket if necessary.
Will L
Well, that’s one way to guarantee continued unemployment benefits. Is the guy really that simple minded that he just doesn’t get it? He needs to lose his benefits until he dresses appropriately.
Plus, being an unemployed loser is no way to snag the man of your dreams. Unless this guy is hung like a pony.
robho3
Just another clueless 20 something that has know idea how things work.
Bob LaBlah
@Will L: “Plus, being an unemployed loser is no way to snag the man of your dreams. Unless this guy is hung like a pony.”
It wouldn’t last even if he were on the scale of John Holmes. The English being themselves his keeper would sooner or later notice just how much toilet paper and air freshener he was using and NOT replacing. He doesn’t look the type who would even reach for the toilet brush unless told to do so.
No girls, this one is a loser. Pass on him. Not even for a one night stand that HE will try his dam nest to turn into a weekend stay over. lol
jwtraveler
After reading these comments, there is one thing that I’m absolutely sure of: everyone has an opinion about something that nobody knows anything about.
Saint Law
Either most of the commentators on this thread have fulfilling well paid careers or they’re spiritual serfs.
“Sucking the welfare teat” is preferable to slogging through some arduous low-wage slavery in order to make some already wealthy shit-bag richer. And it is certainly more dignified.
scotshot
@Bob LaBlah: Have you worked at the places you listed, or are you a frequent habitué of those establishments? Or both?
Giancarlo85
@polarisfashion: There are jeans and then there are jeans. What do I mean by that? There are nice jeans, and there are jeans that should be doused with lighter fluid and set on fire. This guy kinda looks like he’s wearing the latter.
SFHarry
@Giancarlo85: I’m getting the feeling it is like being reprimanded for not looking your best when going to the DMV.
Kwisatz Haderach
The thought that any employers would EVER turn up at a job center in the UK is laughable. If they somehow managed to set up something for his weekly appointment (which is when you present the ten job search related actions you did that week) then they would of told him.
What he is wearing is exactly the type of attire that you would wear to a jobcentre, some of the thing I saw other people wearing when I went would make you think that whoever told him off about this had a problem with him being gay and nothing else.
I personally wore just as scruffy attire to the centre every week and now i’m working in a high powered research centre at the university and my boss has offered me a very well funded PhD. I found this with very little support from the centre
1EqualityUSA
Saint Law said, ““Sucking the welfare teat” is preferable to slogging through some arduous low-wage slavery in order to make some already wealthy shit-bag richer. And it is certainly more dignified.”
I so disagree with you on this one.
Sluggo2007
“I feel there is nothing wrong in wearing the T-shirt to the Jobcentre. It is discrimination.” He reminds me of Sharpton inciting a race riot. You don’t wear ANY KIND of a tee shirt to a job interview.
Giancarlo85
@Kwisatz Haderach: Um well when I thought job centre I thought like a staffing agency (and they recommend at least business casual). Now I’ve seen slobs show up to staffing agencies and not get much in the way of help. I didn’t really know what a job centre was exactly. The article was vague.
scotshot
@Sluggo2007: Exactly how many race riots has Al Sharpton started? How many 12 year old white kids have been gunned down in public parks lately?
Bob LaBlah
@scotshot: “Have you worked at the places you listed, or are you a frequent habitué of those establishments? Or both?”
Was it the part about the toilet paper or the air freshener that got you riled up?
Bob LaBlah
@scotshot: “Exactly how many race riots has Al Sharpton started? How many 12 year old white kids have been gunned down in public parks lately?”
To date, only ONE riot that resulted in death can be attributed to ol” brother Al. It happened in the late 1990’s up in Harlem during a demonstration outside a clothing store. One of the people demonstrating was deranged and threw a firebomb into the store. One person was killed but since Sharpton didn’t throw it it was ruled he had no control over the actions of the man and got off. It was a mess but he wiggled out of it. As a matter of fact that was the last demo he held outside of a business. What’s even sadder is the fact that the NYPD needs people like Sharpton to justify it’s Gestapo mentality toward blacks, darker skinned latinos and gays, the new blacks.
But enough for your history lesson for today. So are you still working “security” at the video arcade or what?
scotshot
The arsonist had been part of a group of picketers led by Al Sharpton during the time leading up to the fire. Sharpton’s rhetoric and anti-semitism may have fueled his actions (add his own pre-existing prejudices), those taken the day of the fire were entirely his own – there were no pickets, no demonstrations, no Al Sharpton present. The killer murdered seven people, and died in the fire himself.
Know your subject before attempting to school others.
jimstoic
When a U.S. court examines whether someone’s freedom of speech has been trampled by the government, one factor it considers is whether the government abridged speech based on its content. The same wisdom applies here. It’s not the content of the message on the t-shirt that is at issue. Any t-shirt with a message on it is inappropriate for a job interview.
Bob LaBlah
@scotshot: At least something motivated you to do something else today other than criticize me, huh? I couldn’t care less one way or the other but to go back to your previous statement about NOT causing….
scotshot
(yawn)
Kwisatz Haderach
How are people not getting this, I have never in my life ever heard of people interviewing at a Jobcentre, not from friends who are unemployed and still have to go nor from the people WHO WORK THERE when I went myself. They are similar to what I understand a staffing agency to be like but they are mainly there to check that you are doing the mandated number of actions every week and to help you get access to appropriate training etc, not that they are very good at it. I have never in my life heard of people being asked to wear smart clothing at one.
Giancarlo85
@Kwisatz Haderach: Relax. Most people here are not from or in the UK.