There’s just something about being on top of a Google search that gives me a warm feeling.

Currently, the Gleeson Bloglomerate is the first result for highly intelligent! No, really!

Also Ed Klein interview, crime poverty beer, and (of course) diaphanous peignoir.

Best of all, we are the one and only result for pastaphagous.

I just read a post on the blog of a woman named Mac, pondering whether to wear a skirt to a job interview. She prefers pants, see, and while there is no de jure requirement to wear a skirt to the interview, she read somewhere about an unscientific survey which said “25 percent of employers would think twice about hiring a woman who wore a pantsuit to a first interview,” the implication being that wearing pants would reduce her chances of getting an offer.

In subsequent posts, she submits to donning the skirt, but not graciously. (Language not suitable for children.)

Being a man, I’m trying to think of what would be an analagous worry for a man. I’ve heard some guys rant about having to wear a necktie for a job. This sort of fellow will generally say something like, “I don’t see what having a piece of cloth around my neck has to do with my abilities to perform… [etc.]” Therein is a kernel of truth, because most jobs can be done equally well regardless of clothing. (Exceptions would be protective gear for hazardous environments.) Clothing is a social convention, and one must wear specific sorts of clothing to “fit in” with, or conform to, specific societies, and it has ever been thus.

I’ll agree with all that. But that’s where a lot of you rebellious types think you’ve ended the discussion, because you hold as an axiom that “conformity” is evil. I don’t think it is. Civilization is impossible without some amount of conformity (and I would venture to guess that we could stand just a little more of it lately, but I’ll demur on that for now).

Now, I’ve never minded wearing a tie, and I don’t think that wearing what your boss wants you to wear somehow equals sacrificing your identity, or self-conception, or whatever those guys think it means. Once, in college, I wore a “lobster man” costume to promote a seafood restaurant on Oak Street in Chicago, which I didn’t like, but only because it was August, and the big padded lobster head was suffocating me. I would have preferred a jacket and tie, I’ll tell you what.

Not that my opinions should be the last word on the matter. Comments on this are encouraged. (If photos of legs are central to your thesis, they may be e-mailed to sean@gleeson.us, and I’ll post them with your comment.)

(Hat tip: Wizbang.)