This reminds me of the attitude of a former employer. It was a small tech company, the CEO/owner was an old school business type. Always well groomed, nice suits, the car, etc.
He often had visitors come in to the office to see him, and he'd give a short tour on the way to his office. He'd stop by the sales area and introduce whoever was around and then he'd bring the visitor to the entry of the open office style room that had 4 of us software developers and say something like "And this is the bigger room, with a couple programmers" in such a way that it was as if he was showing off exotic pets or automated machinery. As if we were literally sitting there punching in the correct sequence of buttons in order to program a VCR.
"Programmers" are low status, and now when we are at the White House it'll be easier to tell who we are.
I think in some ways programmers have brought this low status upon ourselves. If you want to be taken seriously in a business setting, like it or not how you dress affects your credibility. When a coder complains that the executives at the company are not taking their ideas seriously, maybe they should switch out of the t-shirt that says "talk nerdy to me" on the front. Dressing professionally isn't just about corporate conformity, it also signals that you take your job seriously.
He often had visitors come in to the office to see him, and he'd give a short tour on the way to his office. He'd stop by the sales area and introduce whoever was around and then he'd bring the visitor to the entry of the open office style room that had 4 of us software developers and say something like "And this is the bigger room, with a couple programmers" in such a way that it was as if he was showing off exotic pets or automated machinery. As if we were literally sitting there punching in the correct sequence of buttons in order to program a VCR.
"Programmers" are low status, and now when we are at the White House it'll be easier to tell who we are.