You sure you didn’t drop spitting just because you realized it was a terrible analogy, since it wasn’t actually circular?
You can make a much bigger argument for clothes and hairstyle in interviews than you can for visible tattoos. There are agreed-upon standards of dress for interviews; there are no such standards for how much ink may be visible. The very fact that clothes and hair can be easily changed makes them a better candidate for something you can require from your employees. Things like vehicles and housing are perhaps a better analogy. What if you discovered that an employee drove a car that had highly inefficient fuel consumption? What if the employee’s address was in a high-crime area of the city? What if it was in a very rural area?
How would you feel if someone covered up a tattoo for an interview (with clothes or makeup) and then left it visible on their first day at the job?
So, if an employer won’t (or is less likely) to hire you because he/she thinks you’ve exhibited bad judgement because of that hideous tatoo, whatcha bitching about then?
They didn’t hire you (because they think your judgement is bad) and you don’t have to work for such a judgemental asshole.
So, if an employer won’t (or is less likely) to hire you because he/she thinks you’ve exhibited bad judgement because you’re dating a Black man, whatcha bitching about then?
They didn’t hire you (because they think your judgement is bad) and you don’t have to work for such a judgemental asshole.
So you’re describing someone who IS conforming to a (Jersey Shore) culture, and then using him as an argument about nonconformists? You’re really batting 0-2 on the analogies today.
As for your example? I’d tell him to turn down the cologne, but frankly I’ve hired guys almost that bad because they could drive a database and show up to work on time–and I’ve had straight-laced 40-something slacks-and-ties guys fail on both of those counts. Best DBA I’ve ever hired was a heavily tattooed retired Marine who wore tank-tops and shorts (after, admittedly, politely asking if there was a dress code) and swore like a proverbial sailor anytime the office door was closed. Worst was a guy in slacks and a tie. Best sysadmin I’ve ever hired was a self-taught highly-motivated 19-yr-old chainsmoker with no degree and a penchant for black trenchcoats and bad 4chan jokes. Worst was a Brooks Brothers khakis and polos guy.
Appearance that doesn’t affect other people is 100% irrelevant. If I were to use my own experience in a decade of hiring, the straight-laced guys are generally worse in reliability and job performance. Does that mean I give a preference to the tattooed guy? No, because appearance isn’t relevant.
Yeah, unlike those brave people with tattoos, who refuse to conform to any kind of culture at all. They’re all precious little snowflakes, unlike those Jersey Shore wannabes, who are all the same (and who with almost 100% certainty have a tattoo, it’s just that not even Jersey Shore rejects are stupid enough to get it on their face).
In all seriousness, do you really not think that getting a face tattoo says something about the person who gets it?
To me a face tattoo says that the person is stupid, has poor judgement, probably addicted to meth, probably a criminal. Find me one person who doesn’t meet at least one of those criteria, and I will consider changing my mind.
Depends. How many qualified candidates are there? Is this person the most qualified person by a significant margin, or are there other people who are pretty much equal? How much room is there for this person to advance in the organization and still have zero client interaction?
If this is head and shoulders the most qualified candidate and there’s a decent amount of room for him to grow at this company, the job is his if he wants it. If there are multiple pretty equally qualified candidates who aren’t visibly tattooed and/or there’s little to no room for this person to advance before they start having to interact with clients, he’s absolutely not going to be the first choice.
Honestly, which scenario seems more likely to you?
By the way, when searching for funny pictures of people with tattoos on their faces, Google’s number one suggestion was “Face tattoo removal.” Guess being a free-thinking non-conformist can get a little tiring, what with the man not understanding how special and free-thinking people with tattoos on their faces are.
There may or may not be. However, even if there’s just a fraction of them like Cat Whisperer, or even just one, it’s still a really poor decision. Anything that limits your opportunities to earn a living, by any percentage, isn’t a particularly wise choice and could become a catastrophic one.
Hell, I make decisions that limit my opportunity to earn a living (or at least a good living) all the time. I didn’t get an MBA. I got married and had a kid. I live in a rural area because I like the ambiance. I work for smaller companies because I don’t care to rat race.
To me, judging people based on tattos says that the person is stupid, has poor judgment, wants for force everyone to conform to their own personal aesthetic, needs to live in an echo chamber, and doesn’t have the capacity to make decisions based on relevant criteria, so they just go for the easiest and most superficial ones. Find me one person who doesn’t meet at least one of those criteria, and I will consider changing my mind.
In both scenarios, HBB and visible tattoos, I’m being judged for making a poor decision… because people who don’t like the decision will disapprove. Circular reasoning all around. In either case, you remove the intolerance and the barrier to employment also evaporates. So, please explain to me why refusing to hire me for having tattoos is any better than refusing to hire me because of my HBB.
We’re not talking about likely scenarios, because that’s not what you posited. You simply said, flat-out, that you wouldn’t hire someone with tattoos given the choice, even if it wouldn’t affect their performance (e.g., client interactions). If all you would have said was, “Our clients would never go for it,” we wouldn’t have had this discussion. Instead, you revealed yourself as one of the people who thinks it’s their entitlement to force everyone else to conform to their personal style.
How would you feel about someone who said that, given the choice between a woman who’d never had an abortion and one who had, all things being equal, they’d pick the woman who hadn’t had the abortion, every time? After all, I’m sure we *all *know that abortions are *totally *a sign of poor judgment.
Yes, but those choices came with significant and tangible upsides (or at least the avoidance of downsides). No grueling MBA school or its costs. You get shagged regularly (AKA have a “soulmate”). You got a mini me to torture for a couple of decades. You get to live in the country and avoid the rat race which you apparently like.
So, yeah, you’ve “limited your opportunities” for some serious other reasons.
OTOH whats SO life/lifestyle changing about having a major tatoo? Other than a very small percentage of the population thinks “its cool” and another small (but probably greater percentage) population thinks it makes you look the fool rather than cool.
IMO a major tatoo is in most cases just a cry for attention in one form or another.
Right, my understanding is that her “arrest record” is for trivial things like “violated open container rules, having just crossed a national border to a place with slightly different rules”. I thought you were talking about, y’know, criminals, as in people who’ve done time for actual crimes that hurt actual people.
Those aren’t actually universal. For example, when I type “face tattoo,” the suggestions I get after that are:
face tattoos
face tattoo girl
face tattoo tumblr
face tattoo lawsuit
face tattoo pictures
face tattoo designs
face tattoo women
face tattoo fail
face tattoo stars
face tattoo guy
“Face tattoo removal” doesn’t even make it on my list.
Time to go tell my little brother that getting a Master’s in community counseling, getting married, and buying a house weren’t particularly wise choices and could become catastrophic ones. If only he’d been sure to get a degree in something with maximum earning potential, stayed single or married someone with equally high income, and kept renting so that he could move across the country for the best-paying job at a moment’s notice!
If society agreed with you, such that my opinion was damaging to my career, I would reconsider (unlike those poor bastards who get tattoos on their faces that they can never change).
Also, WTF is up with this defense of people with face tattoos? Those people made a stupid decision, and they have to live with it themselves, no matter how much you want to white knight.
Or do you have a face tattoo, and this discussion is making you feel bad? In that case, good luck at your interview. Wear makeup.
