Well...
It is either epic win or epic fail I guess. We'll find out in a hour or so. Ballsy.
With a beard, garish Hawaiian shirt and hideous tattoos, the ESA's Dr Matt Taylor looks more like a hipster hobo than lead scientist on a historic space mission. But in spite of his questionable dress sense, Dr Taylor remains science boffin on the Rosetta mission, which will see the European Space Agency spaceship attempt to …
Take your pic really.
I had a similar argument with a company director who was adamant that anyone of 'consultant' or above grade (IT, not medical) must look the part even down to the hanky in ones pocket. Yep he wanted me to force this kind of dress code on the guys working in my team, whereas I'd rather judge people on their ability. Of course I wouldn't recommend anyone get a tattoo of something obscene on their forehead or prison tattoos on their necks, but otherwise see no problem.
And yes for the record I have a couple of tattoos myself that cannot be seen under sleeves etc and once had a wonderful conversation about the [lack of] intelligence of people who choose to do this to themselves. The guy even went on to say "funny...you seem brighter than that" after finding out I have them myself.
> I had a similar argument with a company director who was adamant that anyone of 'consultant' or above grade (IT, not medical) must look the part even down to the hanky in ones pocket
Well, to be fair, that is a separate discussion. Much as one may hate it (or not, horses for courses), dress code is in some cases what we could call a "marketing" aspect. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with that and, as I do, I imagine Dr. Taylor does wear a suit when he has to do the rounds for raising funds or similar. In the same way, I don't expect anybody to wear a suit when going to a heavy metal concert or playing rugby.
The problem that I have with this article is that it appears to strongly imply that this man's competence or lack thereof is somehow related to his aesthetic tastes. That, in my opinion and with all respect to the author, is the sort of "form above substance" idiocy that leads to this: School sends 152 pupils home over uniform dispute.