Tattoos and the workplace

[soraya]

I suppose there are some brand-new baby lawyers with zero experience out there that don't have in excess of $100K in student loans to pay off and that are independently wealthy, and that can afford to test the waters during an interview, but I would assume those people are very few and far between.

I agree! Although I respect the view of some who say, "I'd never work at a place where they wouldn't accept tattoos," and admire their willingness to take a stand, I think the reality is something closer to the quote above. During the recession my husband was out of a job for about 2 years. We went into "survival mode" and really cut back, and just scraped by, and he did free-lance work here and there, until he found permanent work when the economy recovered. It was a very difficult time. My husband only has a couple of tattoos that would never be seen in the workplace, but if he did, and turned down a job on principle because they wouldn't allow them to show his tattoos, there would have been trouble in paradise. When you have a family, mortgage, bills to pay, you you have to think very carefully before you jeopardize all of that on principle.

[Colored Guy]

It was always in the back of my mind that I had to be able to cover my tattoo work when I wanted to. So I stayed away from my hands, neck areas. I never wanted it to be a barrier to me feeding my family.

[Paulus]

Although I currently only have a single small tattoo that's well out of sight I am starting on a sleeve in June. I'm intending it to extend to being visible even when wearing a long sleeve shirt eventually.

Even though I don't need to worry about work, we are currently mid way through the process of registering as foster parents.

My wife was concerned about me having tattoos getting in the way of that.

So early in the process I asked if visible tattoos would be a problem and was told a resounding "no". Not even worthy of further discussion apparently :-)

Even so I'll be keeping everything coverable until we are through the process. Just to be sure.

Sent from my MediaPad T1 8.0 Pro using Tapatalk

[Mark Bee]

I used to cover up at work, but I recently just said fuck it.

Literally no one cared.

lol.

[rufio]

I used to cover up at work, but I recently just said fuck it.

Literally no one cared.

lol.

Hahah you sound somewhat disapointed :D?

[pidjones]

Not workplace, but.... I plan to travel to India next January to visit friends and maybe speak in several gatherings about my faith. Since the last time I was there, I seem to have acquired a few tattoos. We normally wear long-sleeved shirts there anyway, and leave them for native preachers when we leave. I'll be sure to wear only long-sleeves this time. Not for my hosts, as I believe they will understand and accept the ink, but I don't want to cause other disturbance in fairly simple remote farming villages.

[Devious6]

I spent 26 years on active duty in the Army, retired in 2004, as an officer. During the majority of my career, officers did not have tattoos...at least any that showed unless they had come up through the ranks (there were some Vietnam vets who had done that during the first third or so of my career). Then I entered the civilian workforce in private higher education. Over the past 12 years I've been with the college, we've had more employees get inked and have hired some who showed their tattoos during interviews. For me, even before I got my first...10 days ago...that wasn't an issue. We expect people to be clean and neat - at least as much as their job allows - and showing their artwork is not an issue. I wish I could say that is the case at all colleges and universities.