General Update/Rumour thread

[YOWflier]

Originally Posted by McC

I'm a fan of professionals dressing professionally no matter which colour's team is in charge. Dress for the job one wants, and don't be surprised if others make assumptions based on the way one chooses to present oneself.

But I also prefer monetary to in-kind compensation and perks and deciding for myself how to dispose of the extra cash, so I guess I'm pretty old school.

Agree with this. Old school or not, you're much less likely to be taken seriously by coworkers, management, clients, and suppliers if you are poorly put together.

[Uhuniau]

I have worked with enough dress-to-impressers over the years to know that they are, in general terms, stupid, incompetent, overcompensating douchewagons.

[1overcosc]

At many of the "new-style" tech companies in Ottawa, like Shopify and Klipfolio, wearing casual clothing to work is part of the company culture. You'll look weird and out of touch if you come in wearing a dress shirt and a tie.

I dress casually whenever I go into the office. Often in the summer I'll wear cargo shorts and a polo shirt. I find that it actually makes people open up to me and thus makes collaboration easier. A useful thing in my job half of which involves meetings with other teams.

[YOWflier]

Generally, I think the following items should be prohibited in the workplace (speaking about men's dress now):

Sneakers
Sandals, especially when worn with socks
Shorts, no matter how "nice"
Shirts with no collar
Ball caps
Denim, unless very dark

Some exceptions may be appropriate depending on the overall getup.

[HighwayStar]

Originally Posted by ac888yow

Generally, I think the following items should be prohibited in the workplace (speaking about men's dress now):

Sneakers
Sandals, especially when worn with socks
Shorts, no matter how "nice"
Shirts with no collar
Ball caps
Denim, unless very dark

Some exceptions may be appropriate depending on the overall getup.

I'm having trouble reconciling this opinion with barely there professional attire of your avitar 😳 😉

[MarkR]

Originally Posted by rocketphish

Storied Sussex address to become 2017 pavilion, home of Royal Canadian Geographical Society

Megan Gillis, Postmedia
Published on: October 24, 2016 | Last Updated: October 24, 2016 8:22 PM EDT



[/url]

(rest snipped)

This building has been another fabulous example of the NCC's ineptitude. They spent $6 million to build it, and it closed only four years later! (http://nccwatch.org/tombstones/worldpavilion.htm) It has now been vacant for a decade and lord knows how much they are going to have to spend (from what I've read elsewhere) to take care of mold and other issues.

[TheGoods]

Originally Posted by ac888yow

Generally, I think the following items should be prohibited in the workplace (speaking about men's dress now):

Sneakers
Sandals, especially when worn with socks
Shorts, no matter how "nice"
Shirts with no collar
Ball caps
Denim, unless very dark

Some exceptions may be appropriate depending on the overall getup.

I agree with your list with the exception of denim (maybe this is the exception part). If your work environment is business casual or allow business casual on a Friday, and then denim, no matter what the colour, is ok. There are no real dress codes were I work but I will wear jeans with a blazer, a shirt with a collar and nice shoes on a Friday.

[YOWflier]

Originally Posted by HighwayStar

I'm having trouble reconciling this opinion with barely there professional attire of your avitar 😳 😉

Ha! Well, I did mention men's dress. As for Melissa, well, she can do little wrong in my mind.

[YOWflier]

Originally Posted by TheGoods

I agree with your list with the exception of denim (maybe this is the exception part). If your work environment is business casual or allow business casual on a Friday, and then denim, no matter what the colour, is ok. There are no real dress codes were I work but I will wear jeans with a blazer, a shirt with a collar and nice shoes on a Friday.

Yeah, denim is a tricky one. Lots of lighter denim can look nice and be appropriate too. It just sort of "depends". As you described it the blazer (and shoes) elevates the overall getup nicely.

I worked at a place where all denim was strictly forbidden, so perhaps I've been brainwashed a bit much.

[1overcosc]

These sorts of strict dress rules are now considered outdated and they're dying off. There's a very strong generation gap in this for male office workers; most men in their 40s and 50s dress up at work but most men in their 20s and 30s don't.

One problem with strict dress codes is financial. Abiding by these strict clothing rules can be prohibitively expensive for lower paid employees (like receptionists), or for people who are just entering the workforce for the first time. In fact, the inability to afford nice clothing has actually been identified as one of the barriers to workforce re-entry for social assistance recipients.

[acottawa]

It depends what your job is. If your job is to fix computers or sort the mail or fill out tps reports then wear all the shorts you want. If your job is to persuade people then you best be wearing pants.

[YOWflier]

I don't buy the expense argument. Nice clothing does not have to mean expensive clothing. Winners, Marshalls, Sears, Walmart, Mark's, even grocery stores offer very affordable, and attractive clothing.

[HighwayStar]

Originally Posted by ac888yow

I don't buy the expense argument. Nice clothing does not have to mean expensive clothing. Winners, Marshalls, Sears, Walmart, Mark's, even grocery stores offer very affordable, and attractive clothing.

Most of my dress clothes are from Costco....

[TheGoods]

Originally Posted by ac888yow

I don't buy the expense argument. Nice clothing does not have to mean expensive clothing. Winners, Marshalls, Sears, Walmart, Mark's, even grocery stores offer very affordable, and attractive clothing.

Totally agree and that is just an excuse. Actually, jeans are more expensive then dress pants and I have seem dress pants and dress shirts at the mentioned stores for $20 each. With the way that the clothing market is changing, most of the stores are decently priced, anyone can get a reasonable priced Khakis, dress pants, women skirts and shirts at H&M, Forever 21, Joe Fresh and even stores like Giant Tiger.

[ars]

Wow, some extremely outdated ideas about workplace dress in this thread

For what it's worth, some of the most valuable corporations on this planet have a casual dress code and it hasn't hurt them one bit in getting business

There's no reason why a computer programmer who only has to interact with his or her coworkers should have to dress up like they're about to go into an executive meeting.

Originally Posted by ac888yow

Agree with this. Old school or not, you're much less likely to be taken seriously by coworkers, management, clients, and suppliers if you are poorly put together.

What if the coworkers, management, clients and suppliers all have the same dress code? What if they simply don't care about what the individual they're meeting with is dressed like and care more about the product they're offering(which is how the high tech industry works).

Heck, even a lot of Fortune 500 CEOs, when they are giving keynotes or presentations, dress up semi casual(collared shirt with jeans), it definitely hasn't hurt them or the companies they work for, and actually makes them more relatable to the average person.

Also, this trend against a formal and semi formal dress code has nothing to do with the cost of clothing, it has all to do with wearing what makes you comfortable while doing your job.

[acottawa]

Those CEOs dress for their audience. When Mark Zuckerberg speaks at a university campus he wears a tshirt. When he meets government officials in China he wears a suit.

I think what people are complaining about is people who dress out of context (i.e. show up at a government office dressed like they never bothered to get changed after the gym or the nightclub or like they don't want to get changed before their tee time).

[Marcus CLS]

Posted on the development application Web site. Zoning amendment and Site plan control. 24 story rental Apartment tower to be placed in between the two office towers and connected to the Adelaide apartments. The existing Adelaide building to have an additional floor added . Since this is a rental project I imagine it should start quickly once approved by the city.

Present zoning is 15 stories. Given it is right next to the Queensway I do not see why this should not get approved.

[rocketphish]

Originally Posted by Marcus CLS

Posted on the development application Web site. Zoning amendment and Site plan control. 24 story rental Apartment tower to be placed in between the two office towers and connected to the Adelaide apartments. The existing Adelaide building to have an additional floor added . Since this is a rental project I imagine it should start quickly once approved by the city.

Present zoning is 15 stories. Given it is right next to the Queensway I do not see why this should not get approved.

Well spotted. I've started a thread for this project over here:
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=225628

[rocketphish]

How you can help StatCan test crowdsourcing in mapping Ottawa's buildings

Andrew Duffy, Ottawa Citizen
Published on: November 14, 2016 | Last Updated: November 14, 2016 8:45 PM EST



Canada’s national statistics agency is testing the power of crowdsourcing through an unusual project that aims to map Ottawa’s buildings.

As part of its pilot project, Statistics Canada is asking people who live in Ottawa-Gatineau to contribute information about local buildings to an open source map. The project was launched online last month.

“We’re going to see whether crowdsourcing can be used as an additional tool of data collection,” said Alessandro Alasia, chief of the Data Exploration and Integration Lab at Statistics Canada. “We’re in an exploratory phase. At this point, it’s not going to replace any of our traditional surveying.”

Statistics Canada has partnered with a popular open source platform, OpenStreetMap, to map the location and physical attributes of both public and private buildings in Ottawa-Gatineau. Among other things, the agency wants to know the size of each building, whether it’s residential or commercial and what kind of stores or shops it holds.

Statistics Canada officials will assess the reliability of the open source information as part of the two-year pilot project.

The idea grew out of the Big Ideas conference, an initiative designed to encourage innovation within the statistics agency. Alasia’s idea was one of those awarded project funding. “The potential is vast — and that’s why there’s a lot of curiosity about this project,” he said.

Alasia said the database could feed information into a future national building registry or into other Statistics Canada reports. All of the data collected will remain accessible to the public and could prove helpful to a developer or entrepreneur, for instance, in search of a neighbourhood underserved by restaurants or grocery stores.

The database could also prove useful in a crisis.

Open source mapping has been successfully deployed after natural disasters in Haiti and Nepal.

When an earthquake struck Haiti in January 2010, thousands of trapped victims sent out pleas for help by text, Facebook and Twitter. Online volunteers around the world pitched in to help by mapping their locations; they produced digital “crisis maps” to guide relief workers to people in need.

During last year’s devastating earthquake in Nepal, crisis maps — developed on OpenStreetMap with the help of satellite images, GPS devices and people on the ground — were able to pinpoint broken bridges, collapsed buildings and stranded populations.

Founded in 2004, OpenStreetMap has been called the Wikipedia of mapping because its platform allows anyone to update and edit online maps. It boasts more than two million volunteer mapmakers worldwide and is supported by a not-for-profit foundation based in Sutton Coldfield, England. The open source platform has also proved to be an important tool for mapping remote parts of Africa and Asia.

Alasia said the challenge for Statistics Canada is to understand whether the platform can produce the kind of complete, high quality data on which the agency can rely.

Already, about 200 people have signed up for updates on the open source project.

http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-...cing-in-ottawa

[1overcosc]

Stats Can revised metropolitan area boundaries to account for changes in commuting patterns in the 2016 census.

As a result of today's change, North Grenville Township (which contains Kemptville) has been officially added to Ottawa's CMA, becoming the third Ontario municipality besides Ottawa to be included (the other two are Clarence-Rockland and Russell Township).

On the Quebec side, Thurso, Lochaber, and Lochaber-Partie-Ouest have also been added.

In total, the Ottawa-Gatineau metropolitan area has officially gained 20,000 additional people from these additions.