I looked up my cc history just for you. 
Mine cost $53:
Goddamnit, there was half a page that I forgot to read. This changes EVERYTHING! No, not really.
I looked at the things you quoted, and I think your argument has very little merit. I offered my opinion in threads where general opinions were asked for or a general discussion was going on; I don’t think I’ve ever gone into a thread where people are having a discussion about how much they love tattoos and dropped a load in it. You can go search if you like, and if you find two or more examples of me doing this, I will apologize for doing so and try not to do so in the future.
The common saying, about most tattoo work, is that good tattoos aren’t cheap and cheap tattoos aren’t good.
The minimum at my shop is $60. My girl charges $120 an hour, so anything that takes less than an hour would be $60, basically. A name, a kanji character.
Because I wear a uniform at work, and go so far out of my way to make sure that my “clients” don’t see them, many of my partner’s don’t see them, either. Like you, I’ve shocked more than a few people when they’ve discovered that I have tattoos, especially once they find out how many. I think that dichotomy makes having tattoos a little more fun.
No, of course it’s not anywhere as extreme. It’s on the low end, but it’s the same continuum: hatred for something unfamiliar that you don’t understand.
No one is saying that you have to *get *a tattoo, or *like *it when other people get them, or even be *indifferent *to them. You can hate them all you want. The point is that you shouldn’t be (even theoretically) making *hiring decisions *based on them in a situation where they will not negatively impact the person’s job performance. That’s attempting to force your personal cultural and aesthetic choices onto other people, and to me (and a lot of other people) it’s both immature and unethical.
Here’s another (non-racial) comparison. Would you factor someone’s weight into whether or not to hire them, if it wouldn’t affect their ability to perform the job?
I thought the hypothetical was that we were interviewing two people of equal value, one of whom has visible tattoos. Why shouldn’t we go with our own preference in that case?
Oh, see, I wouldn’t like someone who charges X amount an hour. And I don’t really agree that cost is the only factor you should look for - not all expensive things are automatically good. I did a lot of research on the woman that did mine, and looked at a lot of her art, but in the end it came down to - I was very uncomfortable and shy about the actual fact of having a tat done, and she was so down-to-earth and easy-going she put all my worries aside. I really got the feeling she did it because she wanted to. Whether that was the case or not, it didn’t matter.
Mine took 15 minutes, literally, btw.
I hang out with quite a few tattoo artists from different studios, and I don’t know any who don’t have an hourly rate and a set minimum. I mean, otherwise, what is their pricing scale based on? Size? You can get a big, simply tat that takes less time, effort, and skill than a small elaborate piece.
I didn’t realize until the last few years, but it seems that, around here, by the hour is how most shops work. I get the impression that most artists just don’t mention that when they’re quoting a piece. They simply decide how long a piece will take, they quote the price based on that. The five? best known shops around here run from $120-180 an hour, ish, but they still quote each piece, as far as I know.
I’ve become really close to my regular girl, so I don’t go anywhere else anymore. She’s done my last six pieces and a lot of touch up work for me. I’ve referred tons of people to her. We’ve hung out some outside of tattooing. She doesn’t do free work for me, but her hourly rate isn’t as hard and fast for me as it is for others, anymore.
You’re definitely right that cost isn’t the only factor. I’ve paid a lot for a tattoo from an artist that was just not as high quality as the one I have now when I was younger and feeling itchy for ink. I’ll be having it covered. It isn’t terrible, just not the high quality of the rest of my work.
I’ve asked her about some of the stuff I’ve seen on here before, like whether she’s ever refused to do certain tattoos. White Power, for instance. She told me that her mentor told her that, eventually, those people that want those tats will find someone to do them, so she may as well profit from it. Charge them double, do the tat twice as big as they want, and mark them for the world to see. Expensive and offensive!
Well, I don’t have a lot of experience with artists, so I defer to your wisdom. I was just making the point that it doesn’t have to be super-expensive to be good. Mine might work by the hour, too; she just gave me a quote by the size or whatever.
It’s moot to me, since I am not looking to get any more tattoos done.
Okay, so let’s go back to my example of Susan and LaShonette. Let’s even say both of them are Black women. Would it make you uncomfortable if I said I’d always pick Susan?
Another person chiming in to say that I’ve only ever heard of tattoos being priced by the time it takes to do them.
My wife’s experience was that she and the artist worked out a design from her concept and his expertise (vis-a-vis “what looks good on actual body contours”), and then he quoted her an estimate based on how long it would take on average to do it.
Well, I’d assume LaShonette didn’t name herself…
Or how about I happened to see both applicants’ cars, and one had a McCain/Palin sticker while the other had an Obama/Biden, and I said I’d always choose the latter person.
ETA:
Yes, but LaShonette chose to keep her name. Just as the person with tattoos might no longer make the same choice to get them today, but chose not to have them removed or cover them with makeup.
I don’t think it is; I think we’ll have to agree to disagree on this one.
I don’t agree with this, either. I see it in the same general area as making a hiring decision based on whether or not someone chose to wear clean, appropriate clothes to the interview. A person with visible, obvious tattoos has chosen to wear them to an interview. The interviewer will choose to hire them or not with that as one of the many factors in the hiring decision. For me, personally, that would probably be a mark in the negative column for that candidate. I assume that for you it wouldn’t be. Isn’t it great that people are different from each other?
You keep trying to force the hypothetical to go places it won’t realistically go. The comparable hypothetical might be someone who has chosen to permanently, at significant cost, make themselves overweight, knowing that it might affect how other people view them as potential employees.
This isn’t a Political Correctness thing, is it, where people aren’t even allowed to notice things, much less make any kind of meaningful statement on them? If it is, then I change my answer to, “All tattoos are good. All people who have tattoos are good. I don’t even notice tattoos. Everyone is the same and equal and I love everyone equally.”
Further thoughts:
Racism isn’t bad because someone’s ethnic background is a protected class. Racism is bad because you’re judging someone based on something that has no bearing on their abilities and is no actual indicator of their personality, intelligence, or skill.
Tattoos differ from race in that they’re something you choose rather than something you’re born with, but like race, they have no bearing on someone’s abilities and are no actual indicator of their personality, intelligence, or skill.
It has less to do with having an opinion on them and more to do with how you express that opinion. You refer to all tattoos as “scribbling” and have suggested in a past post that body dysmorphic disorders are a valid explanation for most or all women who are tattooed.
Though I normally like you as a person, I’m bothered by the fact that you can’t describe your dislike of tattoos in a way that doesn’t imply that I’m the retarded child who sits in the corner and draws on herself all day. At one point, you were a little more polite about your dislike of tattoos and reluctance for that level of permanence for yourself; what made you change your mind and decide that we’re all criminal twits for being tattooed?
I don’t see Cat saying anything remotely close to that. 
Not really. I’m happy to keep talking about this, because I think you hold a really unfortunate opinion.
Not when that “difference” means that someone is proud of prejudging people and punishing them because that person has different taste, no.
Not really. In both cases, the person clearly made a decision in the past (to get a permanently visible tattoo or to seriously overeat) that says nothing about (a) their *current *status or (b) their ability to perform the job, regardless of their current status.
Oh, yes, you’re such a martyr, dear. No. I think it’s fine if you hate tattoos. I think it’s fine if you refuse to get a tattoo. I think it’s fine if you refuse to be friends with people who have tattoos. I think you can think tattoos are the stupidest thing since New Kids on the Block. I just think that when you turn that *personal preference *into a *hiring decision *that it crosses the line from “something I don’t personally agree with but will support your right to believe” to “unethical.”
Getting back to the crux of the OP, I think the discussion makes it safe to say that yes, a visible tattoo can have a damaging effect on a person’s employment opportunities. If that is a concern for you, you might want to consider getting your ink somewhere where your employer won’t see it.
Another vote for get one that can be hidden if needed. I have a band on my wrist that can easily be displayed or not as I choose. When I am interviewing for a job or attending a Board meeting it is covered. I also usually keep it covered at work (I am Finance Director for an opera company at present). I don’t know if it would cost me a job any more than I know if wearing patchouli and pagan jewelry to an interview would cost me a job because I don’t consider them job-appropriate wear.
On the upside, people at work usually find out fairly quickly that I have the tattoo and it has never seemed to hurt their opinion of me once they know what I can do. People who know I have a tattoo still recruit me to sit on Boards, ask me to run non-profit finanace workshops and make professional presentations to groups, so I can’t see that having one and having it known has harmed me at all. If anything I usually get a reaction along the lines of “you’re pretty cool for an accountant”.