Oh, that’s much more appealing…
By Shannon • Jan 17th, 2008 • Category: ModBlogDan writes me, saying, “I’ve run into some what I feel is an unfair treatment in my work place recently,” with the following picture attached:
I couldn’t agree more, and he explains,
I work at a grocery store as a cashier and have been working there for almost two years. I was hired with my lip pierced, and up until recently has never been a problem. We recently received two new managers and a lot of things have started to change — one of these things is the enforcement of a “NO FACIAL PIERCINGS” policy. We are forced to take them out or cover them up while at work. Taking them out is not a convenient solution since I have seamless rings, and as anyone who has used them in the past, they are a bitch to remove. I am forced to cover my rings with a disgusting band-aid or medical tape. This draws even more attention to them than not covering them at all. The band aid barely even covers anything and irritates my skin terribly. I feel that they are trying to humiliate us into taking our piercings out. I talked to the union and human resources about the issue and apparently the piercing rule was in the employee handbook that we signed when we were hired, though I have yet to see one of these handbooks.
You know, outside of “right and wrong” issues, and in my view of the world, the store is very much in the wrong here, there’s a real aura of idiocy that embraces this policy. As Dan points out, a couple piercings with an obnoxious bandage placed over them is far more upsetting looking to customers (whether they like or dislike piercings) because it sends the message that there’s something wrong with the piercing. And, as he also points out, being forced to do this daily endangers his health, so it’s ridiculous, offensive, and counter-productive on every level… but, sadly, in most States, it’s a fact of life for all-too-many people.
Finally, Dan asks,
I just wanted to know if anyone else has had similar problems in the workplace with their mods, and if anyone else has any more ideas that I could try to sway their policies?
Shannon is the founder and former Editor of BME.
Copyright © Shannon Larratt. Reproduced under license by BMEzine.com LLC
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thats sad ,its too bad that all jobs aren’t mod friendly
i worked at mcds for a long time and they made me cover up my ear piercings with bandaids…. and i am allergic to them… finally i said fuck them and put in the least noticble earings… and they still gave me shit… most annoying thing ever
I have. I used to work as an assistant manager at a bagel bakery. I had to have my snake bites pierced with a labret stud instead of a ring so I could cover the metal ball with a square of band-aid that I cut myself. It was terrible, but I wasn’t ready to take them out. Many of the customers just asked what was wrong with my lip, and I told them exactly what I had to do. They thought it was silly.
When they healed, I was able to keep them out the few hours the bosses were there, but when they left the store for me to tend to for the rest of the day, I took off the adhesive and/or put my studs back in.
It was a hassle, but my down time outside of work was much more important to me than not having my jewelry in during working hours.
However, I had to take out all my piercings because I became a Surgical Technologist, and the “no facial piercings” policy there makes sense.
I’ve had the same issue.
I work in a hospital, in the clean room as an IV Pharmacy Tech to be precise, and I was hired 3 years ago with my nose pierced as well my nape (which is less visible, I know). Just recently I was told that I would have to remove my nostril piercing in order to work, which is way harder than it sounds. I don’t know if anyone else has the same issue with nostril screws, but it hurts like hell to take out and since it is such a small gauge, it hurts even worse trying to put it back in.
I was told by my boss, who is somewhat understanding, that I would have to wear a mask at all times when I work, not for sanity reasons, but just so the “administration” doesn’t see it and get her in trouble.
I kind of understand where they are coming from, since I am working in an environment in which sterility is necessary for the safety of the patients, but it is completely healed. Taking it in and out would actually make it worse.
I’ve always wanted more facial piercings, but I’m limited because of my job. I know if i showed up with an eyebrow or lip piercing, I’d be sent home, even though there is nothing in our “handbook” about piercings. I guess they say that “professional dress” doesn’t include piercings, and the idea of that fundamentally pisses me off even more.
I have to wear silicon plugs to work because my hairs up constantly and i see people the whole time.
i think its dumb, either way people notice this weird circle on my ear.
I used to have to put band aids over them but it cause too much problems.
im slowly gettin my boss to not care about it, i proved to her that many places in the mall have that. so i guess prove to your managers no one cares if you have them, and the band-aid idea is so dumb
I work at a pharmacy that is ridiculously understaffed. Recently, a well qualified tech was overlooked because he had facial piercings even though he had taken out all of his piercings.
I went to VOLUNTEER at our local animal shelter and after 7 hours of training I was told I couldn’t because my piercings weren’t professional. Ugh.
Yeah, the animals would be offended.
I worked @ McD’s for 5 years and had my ears pierced when they hired me. I after 1 year streched them to 5/8. The owner of the store would hassle me everytime he would see me…by hassle I mean “Take them out or I will fire you.” All I had to do was prove that I was a good worker, regardles of my piercings. Since then I have had my labret pierced and became the store managers assistant. Just keep on fighting, as long as your a good worker they should keep you around. Also keep in mind if they can’t give you a copy of the handbook you signed thier isn’t anything they can do about it anyway.
I was going job hunting recently and my friend who works at Disneyland (happiest place in the world… allegedly…) said that they paid fairly well for starting and had good hours. I looked at their “requirements” (or something like that, i forget what they called it) and one was that you could not have any “non traditional piercings”. This rule applied to both men and women. Men could not have any piercings at all, and had to have hair that wouldn’t touch the collar and a bunch of other crap. Screw them, I am looking elsewhere.
how about some sort of petition from customers saying they dont care about your lip rings or facial piercings in general. If you can prove that the people dont care about it- it might sway the higher ups to give a little. You could also get regular customers to come forward and say something on your behalf- you’ve been there 2 years you must be doing something right - lip rings and all !!
I work for panera bread who has the same policy. I’m suppose to cover my tattoos and facial piercings. I worked very hard to learn everything and become a very important asset to my store. So now I cover nothing and they say nothing while they still bother others about there mods. I happen to be naturally be a very hard worker but I find it very unfair that I have no choice but to be the best of the best or my home life would have to suffer. Nothing I do hurts others. In fact all I ever get from customers is compliments and friendly inquiry so clearly it isn’t bother to many people. Who gets to choose what looks professional and what doesn’t?
I refuse to work anywhere that dictates how my modifications should appear.
Though i work in a tattoo and piercing shop now, so it would be ridiculous if they limited anything.
Though, last year i work for a low key body jewellery manufacturer in the Okanagan, and was in sales for them at a mall kiosk, and theY asked if i could keep my piercings to a minimum.
IT’S A BODY JEWELLERY COMPANY!!?!?!?! ARGHHGHRHGHGHGHGH.
I’ve applied for numerous jobs, non customer facing work too.
I couldn’t even get a job stacking shelves in a dew local supermarkets during the night when there are NO customers around because of my piercings.
I removed all my piercings for the interviews except my forehead microdermal.
Thats rejected now, but a friend who I have who is deputy manager at another local store said even if I took my piercings out I still wouldn’t get a job because I have bleached blonde hair thats very short.
Apparently I don’t look liek a girl and it’s not a suitable hairstyle either!
I did have a job for a year that I took all my piercings out for the interview for.
First day I went in with all my piercings back in and blue hair, they were a bit shocked but I worked well so they didn’t mind.
Though they did tell me if I had had piercings at the interview they wouldn’t have hired me even though I was the most qualified and non of the other applicants came close -_-
It was working making curtains nowhere near people, no uniform or anything.
It’s rediculous tbh.
I am a hairstylist/makeup artist…and go figure but i have to cover all my tattoos for work and can only have 1 visible piercing which they say includes more than 1 earring per ear…:/ lame
I haven’t had many retail jobs, but last summer I did. My boss didn’t mention my facial piercings at all, which I realized two months later was because she didn’t notice that they were there. I came into work one day and she looked at my face and started questioning me about my new piercings and I informed her that they were there when she hired me. She never mentioned them again after that.
On an interesting note, I had the same problem with two nostril piercings and I contacted the corporate office via e-mail about it after local management mentioned that I had to take it out. As it turns out, the “piercing policy” was a store to store issue meaning that each store made it’s own dress code policies. I mentioned that to the local assistant manager and never heard about it again. I would tell you to contact the corporate office. In my experience, most retail stores, restaurants, etc. have such a high turn over rate, that as long as the corporate office or owner knows that you are doing a good job, they should not have a problem with piercings…I would tell you to write the corporate office if you can…..
a couple of my strategies over the years
- I always and I mean ALWAYS ask to speak to the manager in establishments that employ visibly modified people and I tell them how important it is to me as a customer that they aren’t losing quality workers over something as silly as piercings and tattoos.
- I have many times applied for, interviewed and been offered jobs where they won’t tell me that my piercings (stretched 3/4 lobes, two vertical labrets) are against policy until I’m filling out my tax forms and stuff. I always tell them that taking them out or covering them is not an option. A few have shrugged and still hired me. Several have watched an employee they wanted walk out the door.
- As an employee, when customers ask about or comment on my piercings positively, I encourage them to pass the word onto the management.
My mods are important enough to me, I’ve always been willing to walk away from a job for them. I’d like to think I’m a good enough worker that its their loss, not mine.
i’ve had this problem in a few of my jobs, first when i worked at wendy’s. at that time i didn’t have any facial piercings, just about 6 in each ear and about 00g lobes. i was told to put bandaids over them or take them out… you can just imagine how difficult that was and how ridiculous i looked to customers. what made it worse was the fact that two other employees had piercings. one girl had a bunch in her ears and the other had her lip and nostril pierced. neither of them were forced to wear bandaids, although they came into contact with customers just as much as i did. i talked to my managers a lot about it but the only result was that the other girls were told to wear bandaids, which only made them angry with me. eventually i told them i was not taking them out and not wearing a bandaid and they could fire me if they so chose. i was fired, but supposedly for a different reason. :(
then recently i started a new job as a detailer where i see no customers. i was hired with 5 facial piercings, 7 in each ear and 5/8 in. lobes. when i started they didn’t say a word about it. but several weeks later it suddenly became a problem. i’m still fighting them about it, as i believe that i should have been warned when i began. plus, i don’t ever see customers!! and really, i work hard and don’t cause problems so i’m sort of offended that they’d rather have a “normal” looking employee over one who works hard. they’re currently threatening to fire me and i do not know what to do.
i did however work at target with 2 facial piercings, stretched lobes and a mohawk that constantly changed colors… they had no problem with it, but asked that i did not get any more visible piercings.
I worked for Lowe’s for three years with a vertical industrial and a nostril piercing. I was hired with both. The handbook is very vague on body mods; many people in my store had lots of piercings and tattoos, including one girl with gorgeous full sleeves. I transferred stores, and the second store tried to tell me to take them out because they were a “safety hazard.” I almost would have bought this BS excuse with the industrial if other people didn’t wear dangly fishhook earrings all the time. When I took it up with the HR manager, it was okay and I was never bothered again.
i wear a clear plug in my nose. its the only piercing i have that you can easily see. i work for fascists too.
I can’t say that i agree with the opinion that this policy is wrong.
I’m a manager of a warehouse at a upscale furniture store, and I visit the sales floor daily. My boss requires that I wear retainers in all 8 of my facial piercings and I completely understand why. It’s all about appearance when it comes to customer service. Can you really say that wearing a uniform at work is wrong? It’s the same concept. Uniforms have been shown(and i remember seeing this somewhere but i can’t reference it) to increase sales. The professional look is what sells, and unfortunately piercings and tattoos are not accepted as part of the professional appearance.
My idea….
NAAMP
National Association for the Advancement of Modified People.
It would be nice to have an organized forum for this…
Piercing is NOT a crime.
Nor are tattoos or any other form of mods…
I’ve run into this problem before when I worked at Bennigan’s (restaurant) and I thought it was extremely unfair for me to have to take out my monroe and my eyebrow ring, which I ended up having to take out completely while wokring there, and had to wear a retainer for my monroe. But at the same time I understand why they do have a no facial piercing policy, which is made known typically in the hand book or the manager speaks to you about it while interviewing. I finally got fed up with hiding everything though and quit. I now work at Hot Topic so I don’t run into this problem anymore obviously. All I can really say is that if it’s causing you health issues and what not either take them out or quit, it’s not worth being constantly unhappy over a job.
actually,they cut the paychecks they define what is acceptable….dont like it??
time to find a more mod friendly place to work…..
When I was 18, I got hired at Wal-Mart, and I wore my 3/4″ tunnels which I was sporting at the time to the interview and was hired. When I got to my orientation after quitting my former job, I was told by the produce manager that I couldn’t work here because of them. I angrily told him that I already quit my last job, and I wore them to my interview, and that he had no right to talk to me like that (rudely). Apparently the woman who hired me got in trouble and I had to wear my long hair down every single day at work, even though it was balls hot and extremely uncomfortable. Now I work at an all natural grocery store, and most of the customers live somewhat of an alternative lifestyle I would say, and I still have to take out my 2″ plugs anf flip them over my ears. I feel like I don’t look like me without plugs.
I work at Gamestop, and my boss is very relaxed about visible modifications. He actually gets excited when I wear jewelry that shows off my stretched lobes and so on. Even when I worked in an ER my mods weren’t a problem. Hell, a nurse got her nose pierced after I explained the process to her and recommended her to a shop. I’ve been *really* lucky as far as mod-friendly jobs go.
I can understand why some workplaces are not mod friendly. I just don’t know why they think that bandaids solve “problems” like that. :\ It is humiliating and uncalled for.
Back in college I was doing shop work for a water filter company that sold and install filters and softeners. After working there for six months, I asked about moving into one of the tech positions and was told that I needed to take out my piercings and cut my hair- I had two 12g piercings in each lobe, a helix on my left ear and an ear head on my right. My hair was to the middle of my back, naturally straight, undyed, unbleached, and I always wore it in a tight tail.
Between myself and the tech manager we did 80% of the work in that company; repeat customers specifically came to talk to me, even though I was theoretically just a tech; nobody had a problem except for the owner.
Now I get paid twice that much for a full-time job in an office. My ears are now up to an 8 and 10 on both sides, with 2 inch spirals and nobody says a word.
A good deal of the story of my first ever piercing - my well-beloved labret - is work trouble. I have to admit that at the time of getting it, I was so sick and tired of my workplace - Tesco, a British supermarket ‘giant’ - that I didn’t particularly care if I had to leave my job or not. Well, it’s a good job I didn’t, because that’s exactly what happened. I caused a furore turning up to work a few days after I had had it pierced, where there was a lot of running around (mostly on my part) trying to figure out exactly what they were supposed to do about me. At first they told me it would be fine to simply cover it with a plaster, as above. Then, while I and the cafeteria staff were hunting about for plasters, I was called away to be told by a duo of managers that a plaster would not do and it was either take it out or lose my job.
I told them what remains true to this day: my piercing was very important to me, and I wouldn’t take it out even for the sake of my job. (Apparently I signed something. I signed nothing but tax declarations. My contract was posted to me a month after joining the company; I never signed it, never sent it back, and never heard another word about it.) They then gave me the choice of resignation, with an unworked week’s pay; or being fired, with no extra pay, including that day. I chose the money. And, being a teenager at the time, I was blindingly relieved to be out of the lonely, soulless place.
As a side note, I’ve since seen other employees with facial piercings working unmolested.
It hits all areas … I was an IT Director at a company and was hired with my pierced ears as visible piercings - standard one per lobe - though I didn’t wear earings at the interview or during work … I remember my dismay when at a management meeting several of the other managers were commenting on one employee negatively as he had a lip piercing … laughing as they did not know I had 8Ga + nipple piercings, a 4Ga Septum, and a 00G PA … after I had been there 9 months I decided to repierce my tongue - well … shortly thereafter my manager started critiquing my performance and ultimately I ended up leaving … oh … and I was 44 years old at the time … so it happens at all levels of employment … the sad part is they have every right to not hire or fire someone for whatever reason suits them … it is up to us to decide how much we want a specific job and what we will do to get it or keep it.
when i first started at my job i had to take out ’some’ piercings. but one day i forgot to and have just been wearing them ever since (3 years later). i’m not allowed to show my branding on my chest, but the cutting on my leg is ok. they claim its because of the placement of my branding. which is a load of crap becuase there are a few people at my work with chest tattoos and that doesn’t seem to matter. recently a girl i work with got her cheeks pierced (the only other facial piercing she has is a tiny little septum) and my bosses told her that when they’re healed she has to take them out for work becuase they’re ‘too extreme’.. meanwhile, i’m a manager and i have 3 lip rings (6g center) a 6g septum, both nostrils and my scrumper.. go figure? haha.
I’ve had lots of friends with similar problems. I’ve been lucky enough to never run into it though. I have multiple facial piercings and a few visible tattoos (chest and arms) and it’s never been an issue. I work with juvenile offenders, so it actually makes me more approachable for a lot of them. I think it’s ridiculous, personally. Hopefully, once our generation is the one in the primary roles in the workforce policies will begin to change.
same thing happened to me at my last job. i ended up quitting.
I had that with my job too. All 3 of my managers were pierced and/or tattooed, but it was the company’s mandates so even though no one at our location was horrible oppressive, we still couldn’t have FACIAL piercings. so I got another tattoo and microdermals in my chest. take that stupid policy-makers!
“Not to be harsh, but stand up for yourself. Tell them you are the way you are and if they don’t accept you then fuck off. No job is important enough to let yourself get run over.”
-#37 trucker4lyfe.
i had something harsh ready to be typed… but you summed it up well.
OH MY GOD!!
DANXCORE IS ON MODBLOG!
wow this is eerily similar to what is happening with me we too just got two new managers im not getting as much greif about the facial piercings but i am about the 2 inch lobes i also work at a grocery store
The baby boomers thought they were so radical and changing the world. Now they’ve become the establishment against which they were fighting.
I’ve never had any huge problems. I worked at Barnes and Noble, where they told me my stretched ears weren’t a problem as long as they got no bigger. They went from a 0g to 9/16″ over the course of my employment and nobody said anything.
I am, however, looking forward to being employed exclusively by small companies and by individuals– no more deferring to management, corporate policy, and bullshit like that. I just refuse to be subjected to things like that.
I will begin making a point of telling the management anywhere I go that I appreciate seeing modded people free to express themselves at work. I think they probably get much more negative feedback about modded employees than they do positive. Time to change it.
I work for FedEx. They don’t seem to mind my 1.5 inch ears. But I am just a dumb truck driver. Not to be harsh, but stand up for yourself. Tell them you are the way you are and if they don’t accept you then fuck off. No job is important enough to let yourself get run over.
My job has a very strict policy on piercing and tattoos. (i run a car wash) The only piercings allowed are on women, and only our ears, and only one hole/earring per ear. No men may have piercings. Absolutely no visible tattoos allowed.
In the winter that policy isn’t so bad, because we’re all bundled to the teeth anyway, but in the summer time it’s a pain to wear long sleeves. (for the two of us with visible tats on our arms) I deal with it, and really don’t care. What gets me is that my customers are great, and most have mods! It’s not even about the customers for us anymore, it’s about keeping the old fart owners happy. (you know the type of old geezer, “Kids and their damned rock and roll music!”)
Soon enough a better job with more money and more open-minded bosses will come along. In the meantime I wait and just keep adding ink under the clothes… lol! I’d suggest the same, but as a lot of your problem is with piercings… and not ones easily covered with clothing. Good luck…
i currently work for Target. im on the sales floor everyday, with guests constantly. when i went in for my interview, i had taken out my lebret and wore different jewelry in my ears. the lady that did my second interview actually told me i could put my jewelry back in, that it wasnt a problem. in orientation, the fact that Target is a very “diverse” company to work for was pretty much the only thing that was repeated. there are a lot of visibly modified people working there. the job i had before i moved to texas, i worked in a call center, as a customer service rep, answering phones. never once did i see a customer face to face. only fellow employees. but, i was told i “should try to keep the piercings to a minimum, so as to not upset the other employees” by one of my supervisors, after i was hired. weird.
Seriously, grow up. I love my mods, but I am not so naive as to think that they do not affect the way other people see me. I completely understand and agree with the store- if customers come in and get grossed out or offended (rightly or wrongly) by pierced or tattooed employees, that store has every right to ask that the employee remove the piercing or cover up the tattoo, or not even hire you in the first place. It comes down to the simple fact that we CHOOSE to stick foreign objects in our body and proudly display them, and any employer can CHOOSE not to hire us because of the way we look. That isn’t discrimination- I wasn’t born with a septum ring, so I can’t demand to be hired in spite of it. I am heavily modified, but, as I work in a very professional environment, everything I have can be removed or covered up when necessary. I don’t get angry about it. I smile because while other people are bouncing from one minimum wage job to another because they couldn’t be bothered to actually commit to any particular one, I am making lots of cash that can put towards other mods.
If you like your piercings more than your job, quit.
If you like your job more than youre piercings, take em out.
i work as a waitress at a sports bar and am forced to take out my eyebrow ring and tongue barbell, as well as turn my septum ring up inside my nose and use dermablend to cover up the small ankh on my neck. i also cannot wear flesh tunnels in my 2g lobes but am allowed to ear solid plugs..
and somehow all the girls with tiny nose studs are free to wear those..
I work at Coles as a cashier. I have my labret, a surface piercing on my finger, two microdermals on my arms and occasionally my nape visible and they haven’t been much of a problem for me there. I just get the occasional harassment from customers and colleagues that i report to the store manager and he has my back 100%.
Like # 27 I work at Gamestop and even though the company policy says “no facial piercings” Noone has ever said anything to me and I have even met managers with lip rings and such. My old roommate has 3 facial piercings she worked at Sears and they dont have a problem with mods, the manager actually said that more people are offeided by being asked to take out or cover their mods than customers are offended by workers having them.
I had the same thing working in a supermarket - only I had to wear a bright blue band-aid to cover the ring I had through my eyebrow.
I never had a problem, but one person told my manager that because I was working the fruit and vegetables section, it wasn’t very hygenic (as if I fucking wait for the crust to build up, then rub my face into the grapes).
I don’t have a good ending for Dan though, because when my manager gave me the “what’s more important to you, your piercings or this job?” I literally told him to go fuck himself.
When I was 16, I had a summer job with a provincial government office. Along with several ear piercings, I had my nostril pierced and at the time, I was wearing a ring in it. I also had a tattoo on my forearm and one on the back of my neck and being that it was summer, I wore short-sleeved shirts or tank tops to stay cool so my tattoos were visible at all times. I’m sure several co-workers were put off at first, but I made it clear that my piercings and tattoos did NOT make me a lazy asshole and that they did NOT stop me from doing my job effectively and efficiently.
I later worked at a corporate bookstore where I sported a plethora of ear piercings, double nostrils, septum and labret. (I had several more visible tattoos on my forearms, but I chose to keep them hidden because I was sick of people asking about them.) I was wearing jewelry in all my piercings when I introduced myself to the manager and gave her my resume and I wore them to my interview, as well. After I was hired, I read in the employee handbook that employees were only allowed two piercings per ear, one “tasteful” facial piercing, and visible tattoos could not be “crude” or “offensive” (and this part made me laugh the most: employees could not sport mohawks or other “extreme” hairstyles). After three months of working there, I was promoted to supervisor and regularly met with the regional and provincial managers. Being that it was a bookstore, I got to deal with all kinds of personalities and I can’t think of a single person who seemed so put off by my mods that it stopped me from doing my job. In fact, I had several customers (many of them old ladies) who would seek me out personally for assistance.
I’m back to working in a professional office, I’m more modified now than ever and no one has said a word. It can be hard and frustrating to do, but you just have to try to prove that body modification doesn’t stop you from being a professional, capable, hard-working individual. And if your employer can’t seem to see that, then it’s in everyone’s best interest that you find yourself a job that doesn’t require you to make personal sacrifices that you’re not willing to make.
Anyway. Long comment short: there is hope. Good luck to those fighting such jackassery as mentioned in previous comments.
I used to work for the Olive Garden, waitressing for 3 years at 2 different stores, the first store wasnt that big of an issue only 3 piercings per ear, my septum had to be flipped up and the tongue ring had to come out, when i transfered to a different store, i took a week off and got both wrists tattooed, i had to wear an ace bandage around both wrists which made me look like a gimp, irritated my skin and most customers knew i was hiding tattoos, i usually had at least one table a day that would ask to see them. However, whenever the district manager came by i was promptly sent home. He had fired at least two bartenders and even line cooks, who have no contact with the customers for tattoos.
but, when i told my general manager i was gonna gauge up my ears he said thats fine, even after my direct manager told me “hell no!” the only rule towards earings in the handbook is “no jewelry bigger then a quarter” so that left me alot of room to increase.
It’s all just a matter of it being safer for the employer to try enforce a no piercing / tattoos code on its imployees rather than risk driving customers away who consider mods that offensive.
i actually asked my managers what would be ok to get before i got anything pierced and everything i asked them they said was extreme, and their main thing was that customers would think it would be extreme, so i went and got what i didnt ask them, and when they commented on it i just acted like i didnt know what they were talking about and walked away, them: “whats that in your nose?” me: “what do i have a booger?”. i havent heard anything from them sense about it, but they hate me and are trying to find ways to fire me, but the feeling is mutual. overall i think the problem most customer jobs have with mods are that they think that customers will think its offensive but from what everyone is saying, i think we can all agree that even though a customers might think you’re ugly and you’re going to hell for doing something like that to your body it doesnt effect them in any way from getting their herpys medication, so they get over it and still shop there. Unless you actually say something offensive to the customer or trip an old lady in the aisle for fun, i think we all agree there shouldnt be a problem with mods.
this sounds similiar to a story i have though not piercing related. i worked at a restaurant, a slow boring family restaurant with very little business. i was 17 and decided to get dreads. i worked one day, went home and my friend and i started the dreads for hours that night. i went to sleep, school, than to work with my new dreads. when i showed up at work i was told by the old mean general manager who was there like once a week, usually not while i was even working, that i had to go to the near by beauty store and purchase hairnets if i wanted to continue working there. i point out that bonita, an older lady from ghana had dreads and didnt wear a hairnet. She repeated that I had to either go buy a hairnet or go home. I immediately quit. One day my hair is fine and clean when it’s straight and the next day it must be dirty because its dreaded right? wtf?
When I was hired for my current job [sales clerk at a high-end luxury department store], I was told I’d have to remove my labret and flip my septum, plus wear solid plugs in my ears.
After a while, as my performance went up and my mistakes went down, I started wearing visible jewelry in my labret instead of retainers. No one noticed. I changed my septum pincher to a segment ring. No one noticed. I wore Kaos earskins in my ears and my [ex]supervisor said there’d been complaints, so I switched back to solid plugs. Now that my supervisor is no longer my supervisor, I occasionally wear tunnels or earskins or whatnot - and I get the feeling that while my performance and attendance are perfect, I will be given a little wiggle room regarding what metal I put in my face.
There is nothing, incidentally, in either our employee guidelines or the hiring contract I signed about mods. A coworker downstairs in the cosmetics section has full sleeves and a full throat piece; after I saw him walking around, I felt a lot more secure about my job.
interesting.
first off, I was under the impression that in the US if an employer hires you with pre-existing visible (uncovered) body modifications that if they changed their mind about the acceptability of it that it was not a valid reason for termination. Is that true or have I been misled?
My most recent skirmish with visible piercings was working a flyer job. In Japan one of the options for visibly modified people is to hand out flyers and tissues as the station for companies, however due to my foreigner status it was seen as unacceptable that I be treated the same. When they asked me if my facial piercings could be removed and my neck and hand tattoos could be covered I told them there was no way I would do it for $10 an hour.
At my last fulltime job, that screwed thousands of employees over by failing to pay them and monumentally going bankrupt (google NOVA) I wore a wig, retainers and make-up to hide my modifications every day. As it got me a visa in Japan and paid the bills, while it was soul crushing you have to balance the bad with the good. Sometimes covering up is worth it and sometimes it’s bullshit.
I work at osco drug and have been for about 2 years now. I got hired before I began stretching my ears. When I got to 1/2 inch I had a manager tell me she would force me to take them out but she was removed from the store shortly after I informed my new boss(he got transferred in august) about her comments about my ears. I could not be happier and a handful of employees actually encourage me to keep my septum out instead of flipped up but I live in a suburb of chicago so I deal with many close minded, older than middle aged customers, I just dont feel like hearing it. Anyways I have been very fourtinate to have a boss that is all for body modification of any kind. The thing I find most funny about some of the situations is “no traditional body piercings” even though people have been doing facial piercings for hundreds of years…not traditional? hmmm. Well what can you do, in the long run lets face it, if a job wont hire you because you have the credentials but you also have mods…is that really a place you want to work anyways? I certianly wouldnt want a boss with an attitude like that.
In the US, unless you’re working for the government, any reason they fire you is a good enough reason legally as long as it doesn’t violate the Civil Rights, which individual rights are not a part of.
#53- psyentific
I heard the same thing. If you are hired with a certain physical appearance, you can’t get fired for that appearance. However, if a handbook is signed that requires facial piercing to be removed or covered, that handbook has to be followed I believe.
Unfortunately cashiers at grocery stores are a dime a dozen, and especially because it is a retail job, they can put restrictions on that sort of thing.
I’ve been in retail or customer service all my life and I have never been bothered because places want to keep me around. If you are a hard worker and your skills are in demand, places seem to be more lenient on body modifications.
I worked secuirty and had a few issues with my boss - but never the client I was working with. Now I do tech support at a call center and the office is wonderful. About three times a year we have business casual day where you can’t wear jeans and t-shirts to work and you have to be more polished. I told my boss I don’t own anything but jeans and leathers - she challenged me to wear the leathers. So I wore leather pants, boots, and a nice crisp white tuxedo shirt accented by a leather vest to work - other than being a tad warm, it went well. We have so many modified and alt people at work I almost couldn’t imagine working elsewhere. HR is pretty good about standing up for anything, even when Gordon was slightly harassed for his pretty long red nails (by a co-worker) our HR smoothed it out. The larger the company is, generally, the better the benefits are from what I’ve seen here.
I’ve had the same problem.
Just today when I told my manager that I wanted to get my lip pierced she told me that she didn’t “get mods” and that she doesn’t understand how it’s an expression. However the assistant manager has her tongue pierced and had the piercing when hired the company manual says nothing about modifications, it just simply states the basics that workers must appear tidy and presentable. I work in an “adult store” and my manager told me although it isn’t mentioned in the manual it would be frowned upon, look unprofessional and most likely ultimately get me fired. I’m in Canada btw and I asked my boss about using a retainer and that idea was shot down. I guess I should be glad my tattoos aren’t visable or I might be out of a job. Last but not least I don’t think Dan should be forced to hide his piercing at all, he was hired with it and in my opinion…that’s that.
I work part-time at a budget supermarket to help me through University. When they employed me, I was wearing 8mm tunnels in both ears and a nostril retainer.
I’ve since got a corset, microdermals and some more ear piercings. Whilst only the latter is above my neckline, my managers are always interested (and by interested I mean ‘Ewww let me see. URRGHH hahaha”, which I guess is preferable to ‘what the hell, you’re fired’) in my piercings.
I know not to push it though, and anything facial is off limits. They notice if I leave my regular nosescrew in by accident.
Our deputy manager is halfway through two Japanese themed sleeves. He’s meant to wear long sleeved shirts but so far hasn’t.
I get some shit from customers. Often bitchy little teenage girls and middle aged people asking me if I’m trying to look ‘like one of those African natives’. If only they knew about my corset and collarbones, they would probably crap in a sock.
But funnily enough, a lot of the crap I get is from geezers with prison-style tattoos that have faded to crap all over their hands and neck.
The company handbook states that no facial piercings are allowed ‘including any worn in the mouth’ and that earrings must be kept to one small pair of hoops/studs. Tattoos must not be offensive and must be covered by long sleeves or the rest of the uniform.
I’m good at my job though, even if it compromises my ethics a bit. I think that if I was crap at it, they would hassle me more about my mods. As someone else said, keep fighting and prove you are as good as anyone else at your job.
Oops. I rambled.
I say boycott. Where do you work? I’d be glad to start a letter writing campaign explaining why I do not spend my money at stores or businesses that discriminate against people who look like me.
I am so glad my job doesn’t have a problem with it. I’ve worked at Gap (of all places!) for about eight weeks, and was hired with a vertical labret, tongue piercing and a bunch of ear piercings that made it hard for me to find a job. I’m the most heavily modded person there, but there are a couple of other workers with one or two “non-standard” piercings or tattoos. My management seem to be pretty cool with it, although I usually wear my hair down to cover my ear piercings. In fact, one of the managers has a few lobe piercings and he wears rather large rings in them! He also changes his hair colour regularly, haha.
A friend of mine has a tattoo on the inside of her wrist, and her job is incredibly strict about mods. She’s forced to cover her arms with plasters. It really does look as if she’s done some serious damage to herself!
I would definitely say that unless they can show you the contract you signed, with your signature on it, they have no case for firing you, especially since you were hired with them. When I worked in a grocery store I asked during the interview if they had a problem with it, and they said that their official store policy was no visible piercings, they didn’t enforce it. I’m lucky enough to have a manager who doesn’t care and dragged his wife over to look at my septum and 0ga helix, and is intensely curious about my microdermals.
I work at maccas, and they require me to put retainers in all my piercings (verticle labret and medusa). but its so silly, i don’t think the clear retainers are any less visible and they have even more chance falling in the food.
mate i had the same problem…i don’t know if there are solutions for this, but i think that we have to create our own job…like open a shop or something like this, and working only with modified peoples^^
Here in England its the same, I have a similar problem with all of my piercings, including my 22mm stretch in the end it came to me standing up and saying “fire me or let it go” I still work there today:)
at my last job, the company got taken over and my assistant manager went on a trip about my tattoos and even my hair!! apparently i had to wear long sleeves every day, even in the summer, and i had to have my hair tied up because it was “too long”.. yet my hair wasn’t long enough to sucessfully tie up without half of it falling down. and if i tied my hair up it would expose my 38mm lobes, which surely is more offensive than sholder length hair!! i spent a good 15 minutes arguing with her about why it was so stupid and she finally gave in and just let me keep my hair down. i wore long sleeves for 2 days then “forgot” to bring my cardigan to work and never wore long sleeves again haha.
i took out all but 1 of my facial piercings when looking for a new job and wore a jumper to all my interviews. got a job at a game store and turned up on the first day with my wrk shirt on, and sleeve on display. they were a but “uhhh” about it at first but after half an hour on the till, i already had 3 customers compliment me on it so they just decided it didnt matter. now i get at least 3 compliments on it per week, and am yet to meet a customer with a negative view after nearly 6 months of working there.
I worked at a grocery store once upon a time- night stock so I wasn’t directly in contact with many, if any customers. I have a septum ring and I wore it to my interview the interview went really well(it was my first ever interview for my first ever job) until the last moment when the manager who was talking to me made a “Oh, and one last thing…you’ve got to take that “thing”*points* out of your nose.” I needed the job right then so I said sure I would but instead I took the bead out of the CBR each night and flipped it up into my nose it just didn’t feel right being completely without it. One night I was running late and completely forgot to flip it up, walked in, punched in everything as usual until 30 minutes into working when a manager walks up to me and points to his nose with a very pissed off expression then just huffs away. I was horrified so I quickly popped the bead out stuck it in my pocket and flipped my ring up. Apparently one of the oh-so-friendly co-workers that had previously been so nice to me snitched and pretty soon the boss came back to ask me about my piercing and where it went. He knew it was up my nose and told me that was completely unacceptable blah blah they expected me to let it close I can’t even have the piercing working there but I denied it - what was he going to do look up my nose? I’d have sued! So he stops me working just to hassel me about something he has no right to say I CAN’T have at all and he can’t even see which the customers also can’t see and therefore in no way interfers with anything to do with the company or job.
How is socially and publicly humiliating employees in a supposedly “Employee Owned Company” acceptable? How is acceptable on a basic, human level?
I never went back after that night…and I’ll never accept the “charity” of people who think they are so much better than me because they sign the paychecks that they have the right to actually tell me what to do with my body and self. Where’s the line? What else are they going to try to control next? I agree that presenting a certain “image” especially in a food oriented place is needed, but the band-aid look is even worse than the piercing!
I thought people in the USA were promised freedom of speech and expression and the persuit of happiness by our constition? I guess our bodies, the most important thing we have to send messages to others, express ourselves, and make us happy - just don’t count. I’m shocked when I shouldn’t be at all the disrespect employers treat their employees with over such a silly issue, I guess they’re a dime a dozen tho to big corperations.
I did get a bit of revenge, every night for the next two weeks I called in at various times complaining of being very sick(didn’t say of what). Some nights I didn’t call in until well after work had started when the night before I’d told them I’d be in so they basically had no one to replace me that night and the manager had to work my job! After two weeks I got a call during the day from the guy who hired me and he was actually willing to give me another two weeks off to get well! I finally formally quit during that phone call and told him exactly why and it felt great! I was one of the hardest workers they had it was definitly their loss.
People have to stand up and I definitly agree with #39.
I worked at a mechanics for a year or so, and ther was one guy who had tattoo’s ALL OVER his body, im talkin like he had a bald head and he had a spiders web on the top of it etc etc, yet when i wore a ring in my lip i got told that ‘if the regonal manager were to walk in now, youd get the sack, take that thing out’ wich to me is very confusing, especially as all i was doing was changing toddin air filters allday!!!
now i work for my dad at his IT company, and he was cool with ma ears when they where like 16mm but now ther at 22mm hes allways telling to ware plugs not ma flesh tunnels, and hes gunna flip when i get ma sleave done on saterday!!! arr well, im in a band, he should no it comes with the teratory.
so all in all, i havent been that lucky, even with family!
Here in Austin, TX I’m not sure you can get hired at any job -without- having several visible piercings…
Then again… lip rings often equate to incorrect change; everyone knows that.
if youve got a lot of tattoos and piercings and you work at mcdonalds, methinks you may have mismanaged your funds a little.
honestly, the lowest tolerance for modifications is always at the lowest level of the employment ladder. when you have something to offer your potential employer besides a warm body, you have a bit more leverage when it comes to your appearance.
ive come across the same problems, with a telemarketing company of all places.. ive had my nose and labret pierced for over 4 years and everyone tells me they look nice on my face. but when i worked for a place in my home town they told us that we had to cover them up with bandaids.. and 90% of the ppl there had either facial piercings or tounge studs, which they were required to take out. i also worked for a gas station and the airconditioning went ou tfor about a week, so we all wore shorts, and i have a large tattoo on my leg that many of my customers(most were modified)really liked it, but when the shorts came out the manager who was tattooed herself told me i had to cover it up, and handed me a box of SHEER banaids, to cover an 8 inch tattoo. i looked like a fucking douche bag with the tattoo showing thru the plastic,and sweating them off, so i started wearing an ace bandage wrap on it, and everyone asked me what i had done, if i hurt myself so i had to explain it to them and they all agreed that is was retarded. i now work at a mc ds and actually had a customer complain to my asst manager about my small stud in my nose and stud in my lip, the manager laughed at her and said yes there is a policy of no facial piercings and limited ear piercings there, but i was a great worker and she would tell teh head manager that very day that i was violating the policy. then a week later she rememberd and told me about it, the head amnager laughed her ass off about it. i dont see what exactly a piercing can do to make a person a shitty worker, and when u talk on the fone, how does a piercing or tattoo keep u from making a sale?
i also have tattoos on my hands that i was sure id be yelled at for getting, but everyone thats seen them compliments me. some time i get shitty comments from customers who think they are being smarter than i am saying”can i have that big mac with out metal in it” and i just smile at them and ask if they wanted extra metal or was it no metal.. they usually just joke with me or ask about them.
i agree with #23 we really do need a union for National Association for the Advancement of Modified People.
I am a mining Engineering tech, and I have to take my “visible” piercings out anytime I have to go underground, but this is also a safety factor, I think that in certain environments objects protruding from your body might cause safety issues, but for the most part, jobs like retail, food jobs, ect should allow “most” body mods, we as a society promote tolerance, and equality, yet anyone who isn’t part of the “Aryan” race of normality are persecuted for such.
I have 4gauge tunnels, a labret, nose ring and a small cutting on my right hand. My hair is usually two toned in crazy colours. I work in TV (behind the scenes) and have never had a problem. I have spoken to my managers about getting visible tattoos and they see no problem with it. They have warned me that not everyone would be as accepting should I decide to leave the company but I am prepared to deal with that should it arise. I’m a hard worker and have made myself indispensible so that does help with the acceptance levels of my mods.
Previous to this job I worked in retail at a music store. To begin with they were ok with my mods but over time they decided to refocus their demographic to people over 30 and all of the sudden we had to wear all black (no colours at all), weird hair colours were frowned upon and I was told not to get anymore piercings. They did offer me a full time job but since I was still casual at that point I just quit and moved to another city. I only gave them 2 days notice as well. It made me quite happy to have them scrambling to fill in for me. Revenge is sweet.
I have worked at a small, non-profit, family-oriented museum for almost 3 years. From the start I was not allowed to wear my little 14g septum ring, but nostril studs (not rings) were ok. Last summer our dress code policy was revamped, so now piercings and [non-offensive] tattoos are considered ok, except for staff who have consistent face-to-face interaction with the public, in which case it is up to their manager to decide. I still can’t wear my septum ring, and lately have recieved comments about my slowly growing lobe size possibly becoming an issue, but nostril and lip/labret studs are ok as long as they are tiny. It does not make any sense to me and I find it a little offensive personally that they would continue to perpetuate the idea that one type of piercing is acceptable because it is more “common” and another isn’t. So I guess when some high-profile celebrity starts sporting a septum ring and it becomes that much more mainstream, it’ll be ok, right? Grr. /angst!
I also work as a cashier in a grocery store, and I have my lip pierced twice, and nobody gives me any shit about it. however, the store I work in is small and locally owned & operated, it’s not like Kroger’s or Meijer’s or whatever else. Another one of our employees has double nostril piercings and her eyebrow pierced, and still another employee has tattoos all over the place. We just happen to live/work in an accepting community…
good luck to you! my only advice would be to maybe put in labret studs so they aren’t as glaringly obvious as the rings? I dunno…
Just as an afterthought… I know for sure that Target allows facial piercings, because I worked there for a couple weeks on the sales floor. :)
I work at the ups store and we too have the no facial piercings rule. However, i do get away with an 8g tongue bar and my septum is pierced. I do deliberately wear a horse shoe in my septum so i can just flip it up while at work. I also have 5/8 lobes, upper flats and my tragus pierced. I definitely get away with more than what i am supposed to have, and my manager is very understanding on the subject.
check this– I’m a graphic designer. I work in a cubicle. Some days I never see the SUN, much less an actual customer. But I am still not allowed to have visible mods. They even outlawed tongue piercings, but I have kept mine because nobody has noticed except for another coworker who also has a tongue piercing. LOL. I just don’t understand why they care about how I look when I am not even in a customer-service-oriented job. Furthermore I don’t see what is inherently “unprofessional” about some metal in my face. ugh.
I worked briefly at a McD’s (until i left for school) and they were very letter of the law strict. I had to take out my labret to work. Later I went and had my ears punched at 2g (6mm) [now 20mm] and so i went to talk to the store manager before work about to see if they were going to make me do something silly like cover them with bandaids, like several of my co-workers did with their eyebrow rings. The response was that it was fine if i took out the upper conch ring i wore, because the employee hand book say one piercing per ear is acceptable - making no provisions for size. So in McD’s land it is bad to have a tiny bit of metal in my lip but ok to have relatively large holes in my ears…..go figure.
I work at a grocery store and I have facial piercings. I got hired with a tongue ring and 1″ lobes. I knew the dresscode when I took the job. Although I was hired with piercings, I knew and prepared myself that one day it may not fly any further. Eventually someone will ask me to follow the dresscode and I didn’t and don’t feel there is anything wrong with that. Why do I get to break the dresscode in that area and others don’t get to break other dresscode rules?
I got my tongue split and added an monroe piercing over the next few months of being hired. I have also been promoted to an assistant manager at work. I think of my year and a half of my employment I was asked once to remove my piercing. That was when corporate came in town. I forgot to take it out and spoke one on one with the district manager with no issues.
I know that I have it made because I am allowed to break the rules and others are not. I’m not going to bitch when or if they ask me to “cover up” or remove. Like I said before, why do people with piercing get to break a dresscode rule and other can’t choose which rule they want to ignore?
I worked in a bank that had that kind of rule. At the time I had my eyebrow pierced and a few ear piercings (rook, helix, industrial, tragus and a few standard size lobes). To get around taking things out, I’d wear a retainer in my eyebrow and just keep my hair down to cover my ears, but I was finding that changing my eyebrow bar so often was irritating it, and I have thin hair, so leaving it down all day was meaning it would be pretty straggly-looking by the end of the day, so I just gradually brought everything in. I forgot to change my eyebrow bar one morning, and found no-one said anything, so I tried that a couple of times until I eventually started just wearing my normal bar. After that, I started wearing my hair tied up more often until people were used to it, without even realising they were. Then I started stretching my first holes in my lobes, and would even talk with my manager about other piercings I was getting and no-one minded.
I got my lip pierced in my last year of high school. I was the first person ever on my school that had a facial piercing.. I tried to hide it behind my long hair but eventually my teachers noticed it. I had to cover it with a band aid.. it was horrible since it hadn’t healed yet and the stud poked into the band aid.. All of the teachers were annoying about it. But a couple of kids also got pierced a couple of weeks later. haha
Ughh, i don’t see what the point is in covering them/taking them out in places like that.
A few weeks ago i was faced with ‘take out your snakebites by tomorrow or stay home’ in school.
Wtf? I’ve had them for 2 years and nothing was said to me during that time. Then suddenly i get told that. I was pissed off to say the least. I had no explanation why so after a few phone calls to the school my mother finally found out why i’d been told to take them out. The guy is ‘trying to improve the standards of the schoool’.
I’m sorry but my school will never get any better. It’s a shit hole.
I think i’m the only person who’s been told to take my facial piercings out. No-one else i know of has been told to.
People need to realise that most people will be more offended/disgusted/whatever by a big plaster on someone than they will be if it’s just the jewelry.
wow guys, thanks for so many replies!
alittle more explaining for the people who dont think this is wrong.
i understand that business’s have the right to enforce whatever rules they want, but i am working in an enviroment that piercing do not effect the job in the least. i scan food, im not doing anything that could make the piercings a health issue. they have long been healed and theres is nothing that could be hooked on them or anything.
wearing the band aid of my lip makes me have to answer the same questions all day:
Q: new piercings?
A: no ive had these for 2 years
Q: got infected?
A: no they are perfectly fine
Q: someone tear ur lip ring out?
A: no they are fine
then when i explain that we are being made to cover our piercings out, 95% of the customers think its the stupidest thing ever, and they tell me that the bandaid just makes it so much worse. ive gotten more attention to my lip rings in the first 2 hours of having them covered the first day, then i had in the whole time ive been working there. ive actually had regular customers and other employees asking me when i got my lip pierced.
everything time i get the response from customers who think its stupid, i tell them to say something to the general manager. i know one lady has actually written a letter. im gonna try talking to the general manager face to face. he is a really cool guy and he has never been the one to cover my piercings, its always the shitty new managers trying to make a name for themselves.
if this is a business run to keep the customers happy, it seems that they didnt mind the piercings. hopefully the negative attention to the covered piercings could sway their decision.
thanks alot
dan
I worked at Denny’s and was allowed one earring per ear, and they were strict about it.. I showed up with an orbital, and was told, one earring per ear. I kept my venoms in. I also have a split tongue.
I was hanging out back with everyone one day and I was wearing long sleeves because I had to cover my tattoos and implants and someone mentioned how hot it was and I said “Yea, it is hot..” and my supervisor was like “Well, you’re the one who made the bad choice to get tattooed” and my jaw just dropped.
Because of the one earring per ear rule, I took my 1/2″ lobes out and put labret studs in my tragus’s. This grossed out my supervisor and they told me to come in with something in my earlobes because they didn’t want to be looking through them.. so I had to take my tragus piercings out, which sucked.
I eventually quit one day because I was fed up with the way they were treating me, so I walked out.
i am an RN and i am sleeved, the back of my neck is tattooed, my knuckles are inked, i have 2 industrials, each ear lobe, septum and tongue done. only very rarely has anyone said anything to me.
most people seem to like the tattoos. i put a retainer in my septum just because i don’t want to give a crazy patient something to grab. all the handbooks state that you cant have visible piercings including oral cavity piercings and all tattoos must be covered.
i have been told by a few people to wear long sleeves and wear band-aids over my fingers. i just remind them that it is not hygienic for me to have long sleeves that can dip into things that i cant wash off and band-aids would harbor infection and i couldn’t properly wash my hands like i need to. i remind people that none of these things effects my ability to my job properly and professionally. that if they are going to discriminate about about make up, earrings, rings, jewelery, nails, etc…
after going through all of that i am usually left alone. i think thats the benefit about being an ICU nurse though - they need us too badly to fire us over trivial things. if they hired me with it, than it shouldn’t be a problem now. :)
By and large I can guarantee you that the ratio of outward mods is directly proportional to how much you will be offered in salary and therefore how much you will have in the bank (that is for those of us who actually have to work for a living . . . *you know who you are * ).
The choice is yours. But for me I’d much prefer be a 9-5 clean cut idiot and then go home and be as freaky as I wanna be. At least I got something in the bank for a rainy day, health issues and MUCH more importantly cash for vacations.
I’m just sayin.
I’m a typist for a law firm, and I work in a cubicle. The only social interaction I have is with other secretaries - I only communicate with the lawyers via email, and my floor isn’t accessible to the public, so I definitely don’t deal with clients. I have multiple steel tunnels in my lobes, as well as industrials, helixes, a sideburn and so on, two nose studs, a third eye microdermal and a tongue stud. When I was interviewed for the job I was advised to change the tongue stud to a retainer, which I did, until it broke and I put my normal one back in. No one’s said anything. I leave my hair out all the time to cover my ears, and I hairspray my bangs into place to cover the third eye. My nose studs are minuscule. I otherwise dress sensibly, cover my tattoos with long sleeves, work hard and volunteer for overtime, so I remain un-harassed.
However, I dyed my hair blue and black over the holiday break, and failed to ‘normalise’ it before I returned to work. I imagine at some point I’m going to run into a partner with the authority to demand I change it, but until then I’m going to enjoy it while it lasts. :-)
There are a few things one has to consider here. What is the nature of your work? If you are working at a food place (ie.restaurant) then you may be required to remove your jewelry or at the very least wear retainers because of the idiot who worked there before you who lost his/her nostril screw in something a customer ate. Also, you have to consider your safety, if you are in danger of getting your piercing yanked out by a falling object or what have you. I think that rule is silly because you should be able to decide for youself if it is a risk you are willing to take.
Last year I worked at a Catholic elementary school with special needs kids, and not only were the staff there cool with me, but I was allowed to have my piercings and get more piercings (facially) because I told my supervisor just how important they were to me.
Also, I cannot stress enough how important it is that you are a good employee. If you do your job well and are a good employee then your boss will have nothing to say.
As it stands though your employer has the right to set his own standards for dress code, so you may have to look for another job. Sorry :(
When I was working at McDonalds I was told I needed to either take out my 3rd eye microdermal, bridge and labret piercing or put gross band aids over them… And since taking them out wasn’t an option I had to put band aids over them… Even though most of the customers told me I looked crazy with band-aids all over my face and on top of that the adhesive was starting to make my 3rd eye infected no matter what way I put the band-aids on….
I had also noticed that there was a girl who I’d been working with for 3 months with four eyebrow rings, and a pair of snakebites… So I brought it up to the head manager on several occasions and they said they’d speak with her but she insisted that she was “bringing her own from home” even though I had every kind of band-aid known to mankind in my pocket and I know that McDonalds had tons… So… I went and tried to pull the same thing “I’m bringing my own from home”
“You NEED to cover up those piercings…”
It’s not like I was in the kitchen… or touched any food, so there was no risk of any balls falling into any food… But I started getting fed up of being asked every 10 seconds to cover them up… Although I had covered them up for a year… So… One of the managers pulled me into her office and told me that I could keep them showing as long as I put them back on in a half hour when she left..
So… I ripped off my uniform and threw it at them and quit right on the spot…. Their loss really..
I’ve also run into problems being interviewed… I have 1 1/4 lobes and I was at burger king of all places… asking for a job… with no facial piercings and I got told that unless I had surgery done to “fix” them she couldn’t imagine me dealinfg with HER costomers like that…But she told me.. And I quote…
“Your disgusting holes are the only thing holding me back from hiring you, you have tons of experience and everything but that’s just gross…. come talk to me when u get them fixed”
Hello human rights violation:|
WORK FOR TARGET….I have worked there for 4.5 years including as a supervisor, with 2″ stretched lobes, many many facial piercings/microdermals over the years including 4g nostrils, brandings on my hands, one full sleeve and one in progress, a neck tattoo, split tongue ETC ETC…..I work in the backroom normally but sometimes work on the salesfloor/electronics and customers are always saying how much they like my tattoos or how insane I am for “doing that” to my ears haha. I have worked at 3 targets and they have all been fine with my mods. The key is to prove you are a valuable employee - be better than “normal” people
i have not read any previous comments, so i do not know if i will just be repeating information.
as terrible as it sounds, he’s stuck in a rut. i worked at a grocery store and was fairly involved with the job, even becoming a Customer Service Manager, and came across these kinds of problems. Infact, everytime the store changed managers, people would ‘remember’ the no piercings policy.
The point is, he probably did sign something that said, “I have read the manual and comply with all rule and regulations of the company as stated in the handbook.” or something like that. Infact, he probably didn’t realize he signed something like that. his union wouldn’t be much help to him either, unions are a joke, an in the 21st century unions screw over employees more than it helps them.
The only facial piercing one can get away with at these jobs (no matter what you’re race or religion), is a nostril piercing, because you can state for religious reasons, and claim you are a hindu. that is the only thing the union would back you on, and there are even laws written protecting a hindu woman’s rights to wear nostril piercings in the work place. I’m not a woman, but I did get away with that one.
do what everyone did at my grocery store: keep “forgetting” to put the bandaid on when you come in as a civil protest. If someone reminds you to put one on, just put one on, but someday, it’ll be too busy when you come in, and your manager won’t notice. eventually everyone will stop noticing you forgot your bandaid until you get a new manager.
Everyone keeps mentioning target or fast food…
Thats not enough money to live as comfortable as we all want to.
We all want 10,11, 12 or more an hour jobs.
And let’s say you are making that.. thats after working there for three/four years.
This post should be more about getting a career then a job.
This week I was told that McDonalds won’t hire me even though I’m perfect for the job because I have a monore. I clearly explained all the hygienic details behind leaving it in vs. taking it in and out. They said it was a uniform stanard, and I then questioned why people are aloud to have funky hair, oh and nose rings? they couldn’t give me a coheartant answer so I’m taking them to the labour board for discrimination. I know its not really worth it for a Mcjob BUT it is Thunder Bay onatrio, where there arent that many jobs, ive been out of work for 4 months and it was my frist good sounding interview in a long time. I talked to my piercer aswell and she says that shes even pierced many monroes, noses, lips and eyebrows even for people with mcjobs.
i had to cover mine up with a band aid to and it was so fucking embarrassing!!! i eventually took it only after three days of having it =(
james #95….I make $12.50/hr at target with amazing health insurance, sick time, vacation time, 401k etc. Store managers start off at $40-$45k/yr, and can increase to like $65k over the years, the main store manager makes over $100,000/yr. Anyone with a 4yr degree (in anything) can become a store manager.
I had a job in an optician’s while I was at school, when all I had was a scaffold bar and a tragus piercing. There, you were officially only allowed to have up to 2 studs in each lobe, and a nostril piercing if it was for cultural/religious reasons (Hindu women, for example).
Last summer I worked as a cleaner in a youth hostel association hostel. My manager was lovely and had no problem with my mods, including a vertical labret, and she had a couple of small tattoos herself. She did, however, tell me that if the head honcho ever came in I would probably have to hide, because she disapproved of visible mods. I certainly understand that there are some places where visible mods are not accepted, but I’ve yet to meet anyone who would have an issue with the fact that the woman cleaning their toilet has a facial piercing.
it makes me sad.
i have snakebites and a Medusa and a nose ring and i fear that jobs wont hire me because of them.:[
I recently quit a dirt bag company in Cleveland. Long story short, one day they decided to employ new policies regarding employees to remove all piercings on males and all but ears on females. Seeing as I already hated working there and I was in charge of ALL their IT (computer) stuff, I told them if they don’t like my gauges (00ga) then kiss my ass, I’m done.
Yeah, I totally had them whipped. I got away with way too much :)
PS- What happened to logging in to post comments?
I don`t have any BodyMods yet,because I only got interested in that kind of stuff recently and I can`t afford any right now, but as a possible solution, how about growing your beard a little more? It won`t cover the piercings completely, but it will at least hide them just as good as the stupid patch anyway…
a friend of mine had this problem. she would put flourescent bandaids over her nose stud every day just to make a statement.
i have been very lucky and never had a job where it wasn’t allowed. good lucky at your job!!
I work in a supermarket here where i live in England. Despite there being a policy for no piercings or tattoos to be shown, people still do, people with nose piercings get away with wearing them without any mentions. I had to take out my beloved side vertical labret and it closed over. They would’nt even let me wear a plaster over it or wear a retainer and yet people are wearing eyebrow bars and not getting much negative feedback from employers. I’d love to get more piercings but they might fire me if i do. I hate it and know how u feel. I dont even work with food, i work on a checkout, which makes even less sense. good luck, and its good u have a union u can talk to, i have to pay to get in touch with mine or be a part of it. :( xx
damn thats harsh….
i work at kohls and they are really cool….i had my lip ring in for awhile and they were fine with it but when i had my cheeks pierced, i switched to a labret stud so it would be less metal…still no complaints.
they are pretty libral and i love working there. i would pick my my mods over a job any day…i don’t know if tats good or bad but i just think a place needs to take me as i am…thats why i like kohls, they accept employees for who they are…they really don’t try to change you too much as long as you are sensable to some degree about your image as well. i keep my septum in and wear a sold pulg at work…hey, they adjust for me, i adjust for them.
thats just crazy though…i wouldn’t wear a bandaid if they paid me double what i get now….NEVER. hang in there and keep fighting for your rights…thats just not cool.
I’m not sure where I stand on the hiring modded people or not issue…as someone above me has already said, some jobs want you to look a certain way, and if every employee has to follow that look, that means you too, or no job. I don’t like the narrowmindedness of it but I think I can see some fairness atleast in the application of a rule that’s there. You can choose to bend, or look on for something else.
What pisses me off is the randomness though. This guy has worked for that store for years fine already, n one manager change, and it’s suddenly a problem. That’s NOT fair. I’m not sure what else one could do…maybe find out what other same stores’ policies in the area are, so you can tell them they’re the only ones being assholes.
Then again, that may be construed as a hint you’d rather work there :( Good luck with it, anyways.
As everyone seems to be dropping their work experiences, heres two from the Netherlands:
Up till a few months ago, I worked at a (branch?) second hand/antique books store. It has 20 stores throughout the country, and therefore there is a booklet with rules for it’s employees to follow. It literally says no piercings allowed. I didn’t have any when I got hired five years ago, so when I started thinking about getting wrist surface bars two years ago, I asked my direct boss about it. He nearly laughed at me for even asking, so I got those bars, and a madison as well, and displayed them openly. I worked at a counter, interacting with customers all day. In fact, I most often worked at the counter people coming in to see the antique books n maps had to report to. Now, as I said, the company policy was rather strict. I got lucky. The people at my store got lucky. But the stores in other cities…in some of them, people aren’t even allowed to wear band shirts. And what if my great boss had resigned? I never got any permission in writing. I might have been in Opening Post Guys’ shoes then. Mods or job. The job would’ve been gone then…because I’d have felt cheated.
I quit the bookstore job to have time to properly do an internship (?) assisting a teacher at a high school for 4 weeks n give a few lessons myself to see if I liked the career path. I was assigned to an upper class ish school, and bearing in mind the pretty negative reactions I’d gotten to my first tattoo at my quite similar high school, I kept my wrists n throat hidden at first. I needn’t have. For one, the teacher I was assisting dismissed my piercings as just another part of me, and the children were mostly curious - grossed out, too, but lolz, can’t have ‘m all at once :) For two, they employed a woman with four cartilage piercings and a medusa in a full time teaching job as well :)
Seamless rings eh? Possibly a mistake worth rectifying for the future.
Have them completely (and professionally) removed and wear acrylic (near invisible) labret retainers for work.
Getting company policy changed will be very difficult unless the company can prove that by forcing you to change it risks losing financially. Sadly this will probably not be the case.
Is it a job you truly want? If so then like most people sacrifices may have to be made, otherwise quit and find somewhere more tolerant.
i work in the meat department of a grocery store. they hired me with my piercings(i have both sides of my lip done and 5/8 plugs in my ears) and they have never given me shit about it. it even states in the handbook that we are not allowed to have them. i dont know how i’ve gotten away with this for 2 years now, even though when i dyed my hair pink they had something to say about that. if my boss where to come up to me with some stupid shit like that i would fight it and probably get fired. honestly you should contact the better business bureau about this (www.bbb.org). in the mean time, get fired and collect unemployment from those fuckers.
When I worked at Toys R Us in 2006, I had my nostril pierced. They gave me the option on taking it out or covering it with a bandaid. Since the piercing had been getting irritated I didn’t want to take it out so I covered it with a tiny bandaid for a few days. It was funny listening to the kids come up with weird stories as to why I had a random bandaid across my face. Eventually I bought a clear retainer thing and kept that in my nose, which worked fine for the rest of the job.
My last job was one where my boss never saw me so she never knew what piercings I had, and at this time I had my nose, eyebrow and two tattoos. Although I didn’t like the idea of having to hide my mods, I understand that a job is a place of professionalism, and whether or not you like it, if you want the paycheck you have to answer to them. My mods mean something to me, but if it’s between them or a paycheck, I’m taking the paycheck. They don’t mean THAT much to me. You have to think realisitcally.
I always wonder, maybe if more buisnuesses (yes I cant spell) allowed thier employees to wear piercings, then maybe people would become accepting of them?
I only have a nose stud, and my part time work is fine with it. I dont really know about thier policies on other piercings though, no-one else has anything other than ears as far as I can tell (although a few have tattoos). One guy has steched ears as well, and they dont seem to mind. (I work in Homebase btw, a DIY store in the UK)
I had the same thing happen to me. I worked at a Shoprite for a few years as a cashier, and I got a labret piercing. Since I couldn’t take it for for a few weeks after the initial piercing, I had to wear a bandaid over it, which just attracted more attention. Regular customers started asking me why I always had a bandaid on.
When I started wearing a clear plug at work, I didn’t get any trouble. Towards the end of my stint, though, a manager noticed it and told me I had to take it out. I told him that if he didn’t notice it for a year and a half, then how would it bother the customers?
A job telling you to cover up tattoo’s or take out piercings is discrimination and I don’t think they can technically tell you to do so.
Ashe # 108 : Weird, I work at toys r us and they have no problems with my mods… Actually a lady complained about my lobes the other day to management and they backed me up 100% saying that my apearance did not affect my work ethic :-s
I seem to have been very lucky with the places I’ve worked at.I’ve never worked anywhere where they have asked me to take out or cover up piercings, although I used to have to for school!
I currently work in a clothes shop and have 17 visible piercings, including sternum and neck microderms(i used to have surface piercing on my collar bones but sadly they rejected), septum piercing and stretched lobes.I also have a few visible tattoos. Although my manager (and area menager) have never had a problem with it company rules do state that you can’t have more than 2 piercings in each ear, which both of them see as a very outdated rule (fortunately).
I have a similar policy at my workplace (an electronics retail chain) and one of the cashiers has been made to take out 14mm plugs from his lobes. We definitely had a lot more customers notice the gaping holes in his ears than the plugs when he wore them - seems to defeat the “purpose” of enforcing such a policy. I just have to take out my labrets and wear a septum retainer.
I’ve always thought that employers have a right to require a certain standard of dress and behavior for their employees, just as we have a right to put whatever the hell we want in or on our bodies. When you get a body mod, your understanding that that mod might affect your life in negative ways is always at least implicit. On the other hand, I also think that most employers who forbid body mods are behind the times and are missing out on some excellent employees. And, of course, any policies on mods should always, always, ALWAYS be evenly enforced across the board.
Looking back, it’s always the crappy retail/food service jobs that have given me a hard time over mods. I have 5/8″ lobes, two nostrils, and visible tattoos, and for some reason the movie theatre and jewelry kiosk screamed to high heaven, but my current supervisors have never said a word other than “Oooh, did those hurt?”
I’m a teacher. Go figure.
I’ve had that happen many times before. I had to get my labret re-pierced 3 different times because of jobs making me take them out during the day and having my lip close up by the time i leave work (i heal fast and my labret stud wouldn’t fit back in by the end of the day). I even tried using “invisible” piercing stud holders but they gave me crap about those too. And where was i working? IN A CALL CENTER! I worked with customers on the phone! They couldn’t see my face! It was ridiculous. I think the stigma against piercings/tattoos in ANY job environment is ridiculous.
I have had trouble in the past with people accepting my one and only facial piercing. I have my nostril pierced, sometimes I wear a stud, sometimes I wear a ring. I have been refused from a couple of job interviews based on my ‘unprofessional’ facial piercing. I now have a pretty good job. They knew I had my nose pierced when I started. However, when I wore a small ring I was told that I shouldn’t make my piercings “so ‘in-your-face’ while at work”…I just said I don’t complain about things other people wear that offend me, and asked if anyone had complained. Of course they hadn’t. I work in an office where we have no contact with the customers, and where the employees are very accepting. It is just the manager who is anally retentive. Anyway, I checked out all the policies and there was nothing ANYWHERE about piercings. Just that no visible tattoo are allowed…which I think is fascist to the max and soooo yesterday! People need to accept what others find beautiful. Someone may like bright pink lipstick, or drawn-on eyebrows while others may detest them…it is all personal taste. I can understand that some tattoos COULD be construed as being offensive…however they are beautiful to the person who wears them…as are all piercings. This era and our society needs to be nudged into a more accepting state of mind!
I work at a Sainsbury’s supermarket, and shortly after starting I was told I had to take my plugs out because they were ‘disgusting’, but my supervisor decided that empty flappy earlobes looked more disgusting and hasn’t mentioned it since…
Another thing I notice at my work place is that if you show up on time, are friendly and polite to the customers etc, you get a lot less hassle that the guy who’s always late and rude.
I used to be a cook when I starting piercing. They let it slide until we got a new manager. We didn’t see eye to eye on my piercings so I quit, and now I work at a tattoo studio.
I have 2 neck tattoos as well as many other piercings and at work I am forced to hide my septum ring, and on “Main Events” put a scarf around my neck. I find this really discriminating and wrong. There is nothing wrong with modifications, it is a personal choice that should be your rite. In the “public eye” it is looked apon as somthing taboo because people don’t take the time to learn about what is seemingly “odd” or “strange” to them, when infact there ancestors before them were puting holes and various adornments through there body. There should be a law passed that does not discriminate against body modification, if people would take the time to pass knowledge instead of hate wat a world this would be huh?
I didnt read all the replies, but it seems that the majority of the readers of this blog are McD’s employees, or Target employees. That in itself could say a few things…
Anyway, a place of employment is allowed to tell you to look however they want, as its THEIR company. If you dont like, no one is forcing you to work there. As many others have said, go find a job that either allows piercings, or prove yourself valuable enough that they dont mind over looking. But bitching and whining about it on Mod Blog is not going to fix anything. Get off your ass and make something of yourself.
I work in Hewlett Packard as a Sales Specialist, I have my both arms tattoed (one of them full and the other almost) and my tongue piercied too, I always wear shirts that covers my tattoos so once somebody asked me why I cover my tattoos and my answer was: I love tattoos but I dont like giving explanations and I preferd to be “Leopoldo the guy who works good or bad” and not “Leopoldo… the tattoed kid” the world isn t ready yet…
I don’t know why none of my posts ever go through. Seriously, if they fire you, contact the Better Business Bureaus, because that’s not right as it is.
I had viable mods and got a job making $15 an hour answering phones for an insurance company.. All I did was redirect calls!
I have a mohawk, pointed ears, a chest piece, septum ring, and 2 out of 4 microdermals were visable! The said that if anyone harassed me because of my ears to call HR directly since it was a permanent physical mod haha. And some older lady did and she was reprimanded and it’s on her FILE.
Score one for health insurance.. Now I am an esthetician and it’s still not a big deal..
After 9 months working for a UK chain chocolate shop, today I was asked to take me labret out… because of HEALTH AND SAFETY issues. I was told I am allowed to wear my nose stud, but not my labret. Nothing at all was said about the 13 bars and rings and things I wear in my ears. I honestly don’t mind taking it out because it’s so well-healed, and I wouldn’t complain if I was told that I couldn’t wear it because of the company’s appearance policies, but I would REALLY love to know what’s so different, H&S-wise, between a labret and a nose stud.
I’m a practicing chartered accountant. Not only do I have restrictions on my piercings (as in my contract says none at all for men) but I’m also contractually obliged to wear a suit. It sucks beyond belief. I told them today I’m leaving. Interestingly though, when I go on training courses I keep my tongue in, and apparently there was a sweep stake amongst the trainers as to whether I had my tongue pierced or not. Yeah, I know, that’s not interesting at all. Sigh.
i made a comment earlier (#81) about my past experience at a McJob but didn’t think to mention my current situation until i read #95 which mentions careers versus jobs. I think that is a very good point, in a job you are expendable just one person out of a pool of many so employers can be self-glorifying twats about silly rules because they can replace you anytime they like. However, as you become more of a professional more money becomes attached to the job and the pool of candidates rapidly decreases so employers become less superficial and more focused on actual ability. Case in point, when i had my ignoble McJob i made a whopping 5.40 USD an hour and had to comply with the standard facial piercings are bad mentality currently I am a PhD student so i often do some casual teaching making 30.30 AUD an hour in a job that is about as much “interacting with customers” as you can get and no one says a word about my 20mm ears, my labret, tongue, nape piercing or my massive black work sleeve. Many students ask about the mods and i’m always frank and honest with them. I am, however, very careful if they ever if they should get something, stres