My Support Forums - View Single Post - Unable to find work due to self expression

Crescent Moon · 07:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sadpeanut

I have a lot of tattoos, including my hands, knuckles, and neck. I understand that most professional places will never accept this form of self expression and i knew that when I got them. However, I'm a bartender or I work in retail. Those are the jobs I apply for, not jobs that I feel will deny me employment due to self expression. It sucks to not be able to work because I made a personal choice. I hate that because I chose to decorate my skin, people see me as a criminal/gang member/trouble maker (I'm not any of those, I promise). I also feel like it has something to do with the fact that I'm a woman. And I've actually been told that by interviewers. I got these tattoos for me and now I'm beginning to regret them... And I really shouldn't be.

It might seem unfair, but that's the reality. When we're young, we often rebel against societal norms. The lengths we sometimes go to to establish an identity, though, can haunt us for a long time. The reality is that image does count. An employer justifiably looks at it as "will it help my profits?" That is at the core of capitalistic economics in the U.S. If an employer believes that its customers will be reluctant to trust his business, or buy from him, etc., if the business' representative (you, the employee) has some characteristic that might turn-off customers, they justifiably won't want to hire that person. Perception is everything, and it doesn't matter that it's unfairly judgmental of people in general to assume that a woman with a lot of visible tattoos is probably involved in a socially unacceptable lifestyle. There is no way to change the perceptions of society, and business knows that. So, when they look to hire someone, especially at a time of high unemployment with lots of available workers to choose from, they will always pick the people they think will best draw and keep the trust and loyalty of customers.

You may ask friends who have tattoos what kind of work they've been successful in finding. There very well could be employers that don't care about tattoos. Perhaps behind the scenes work - like warehouse, or factory work, Another option, would be to look into getting at least the visible tattoos removed.