Thanks Quantum, I like to think I come across well, in fact given that I'll be teaching in a big northern city, I'll most likely be regarded as the fancy, posh southerner, lol, but the reading glasses are a very good tip. I'll probably try that in my second year, when I pluck up the courage to buzz my hair down fully.
I'm sure you can understand why I'm so paranoid though lol, I'm a pretty well educated, mainly liberal guy, but with all the middle-class, hyper-liberal, ultra-pc women that work in education, I don't want to be judged as a "thug" before I've even had a chance to show them I can do the job properly.
Also I think the kids and people in general take me a lot more seriously with shorter hair. Earlier this year I had a couple of year 8s taking the p*ss out of me for my combforward hairstyle in class, so since then I always have it short and swept back and no one, not even the kids have given me any sh*t...
Again last week coming back on the train, my hair was long and overgrown as I was up north training and literally had no money for a haircut, this bunch of young northern lads started smirking and taking the p*ss out of my hair under their breath right to my face, it was similar to Fred's experience... If I didn't work in a profession where I have to have my criminal records checked every 5 minutes, lol, then I would have dragged the guy out onto the platform and killed him, lol, but as it was I just had to walk away raging as I knew things would have escalated very quickly otherwise and I would lose my career,
Ultimately, these guys were just a bunch of shtmunchers all probably working for minumum wage in retail or manual labouring, but there were about a dozen other shaved bald guys on the train that day and I didn't see them getting any sht, so I'm sure if I'd had my hair shorter, they wouldn't have bothered saying anything to me... In my experience it's the grown out, fake looking combforward look, that attracts more ridicule than anything else. With the buzzed look it's less unsettling visually and has more symmetry and frame.
Oh be careful when you say things like "then I would have dragged the guy out onto the platform and killed him, lol" round quantum cat he will probably think you ACTUALLY going to kill him...LOL.