Tattoos and Piercings in the Workplace

[EnderD_503]

Originally Posted by SassyLeo

Erin says that we as a society need to progress, to be more accepting and progressive about what is considered a professional appearance. Or what is considered “OK” attire for an office. If someone is great at their job and/or highly regarded, what should it matter if they have tattoos or piercings?

So what do you think?

I agree with the above. To me your appearance has absolutely nothing to do with how you do your job. Obviously if you're working in a hospital you want to be hygenic (hygene is always important unless you're a student and its exam time ) because you don't want to risk infecting anyone/getting infected. However, beyond general hygene (which, to me, has little to do with physical appearance) it shouldn't matter what a person looks like. Thoreau was right when he said that a man can walk into town with a patch on the knee of his pants and be looked down upon. That attitude still exists today, and is something that should change in my opinion. Someone can be dressed up to the nines and be completely incompetent and be given a job solely based on appearance, while someone with a mohawk will often be automatically shot down as incomptetent when the opposite may very well be true. Actually, that's how I feel about quite a few of the heads in my own company...very little knowledge, very little competence and riding off the success of their employees rather than having anything to offer. And why? Because they look "professional" and have learned the art of bullshitting.

Things are definitely changing these days, thankfully, and I hope they continue to. I don't think appearance has anything to do with how well you do your job. I also think tattoos/piercings have less of an impact on the customer's opinion of the employee than many people think, and I think that's being proven daily.