Like a lot of young people these days, I'm into tattooing and body piercing. Most of my adornments are in areas the public can't see, but I recently added a piece of jewelry to my eyebrow -- and was promptly fired from my job at a record store in the mall. The thing is, there was no stated company policy against piercings. This means a lot to me on principle -- I have been an excellent employee and I loved my work. How can I get my job back? If not, can I or should I take legal action against my former boss? Are there agencies that will help me resolve my grievance?
Jaynee: I have my nose pierced, but work in a more corporate atmosphere (I'm secretary to the president of the company) -- so out of respect for my position, I choose not to wear it at work. But no one has told me that I *can't* wear it. When I worked as a temp I was able to wear it without any ramifications -- people accepted me since my quality of work was high. I'm surprised that someone would fire someone in a record store for being on the cutting edge, though. Here in my area (Washington, D.C.), MOST people have visible body parts pierced -- it's become the norm in most music stores. If you live in a small town, they might not be used to it. I would sit down with your ex-boss and try to work out an agreement of some kind. If you were truly a good and valuable employee, you may be surprised if you take the civil route and try and talk reason. If he won't take you back, then go to another store where your individuality can be appreciated.
Kimmy: I don't know where you live, but in Canada, under your circumstances, I would call the Labour Board. They will tell you what your options are. Good luck.
rosvicl: Unfortunately, in the U.S. discrimination based on appearance is generally considered legal. It's not moral, but it is legal. A store can fire you, or refuse to
hire you, because you have a pierced eyebrow -- or because you're too
fat, too thin, or wear your hair in a way they don't like.
Assuming you want to keep the piercing, your choices are to look for
another job, or try to talk the store into rehiring you. Point out that
you've done good work, that a pierced eyebrow isn't going to scare
people away from a record store (which will probably work, depending
on exactly who their customers are -- as Jaynee says, it depends in
part on where you live), and that you already know how to do the job,
so if they hire you back they won't have to deal with training someone
from scratch.
hcm: Why do you want to work for these people? Go find a job where they're interested in you for what you can do and not for the jewelry you wear.
Whether or not you can get your job back depends on the laws in your state ... California (where I live) permits employment at will, which means you can be sacked at any time without cause; in these cases, there is less recourse for folks in your position.
(BTW, I'm not a great piercing fan, but I think eyebrow piercings are the coolest.)
winners1: I certainly sympathize with your situation! It is confusing to be told we live in a free democratic world and yet be restricted to do what we believe is not hurting anyone. But how can we truly evaluate who we hurt by what we do or say? In terms of a business, if they public at large is not able to adjust to drastic changes easily, it may be hurting the company's profit margin when the "public" clients complain about an employee who to them appears to misrepresent their view of the world. We all live by our perceptions one way or another. The trick in determining if our acting out our perceptions offend someone else. When it happens to be the blood- (or should I say bread-) line of a business, the obvious choice for them is to make the client happy!
mdulcey: As was pointed out earlier, your legal recourse is limited; employers are permitted to have appearance and dress codes, especially for employees in jobs with public contact. I think it is misguided on their part to have such codes, but I despair of changing their minds.
Still, a record store seems an especially unlikely place to fall prey to that particular prejudice! After all, a large portion of their customer base likely has piercings, tattoos, and other body adornments -- they are likely to think these things are cool and to visit stores that employ cool people. (It certainly works that way at Newbury Comics, a chain of record and comic stores here in the Boston area -- they seem, if anything, to actively select their workers for non-mainstream appearance. But I suppose that's a form of discrimination in its own right!)
FEH: I had my tongue pierced when my girlfriend dumped me...she didn't want me to have one...but my boss said I had to take it out...it might fall in the ice cream or something. I pointed out that this was grossly unfair, and he pointed out to me the little section on the application -- just above my signature -- that said my employment could be terminated at any time for any reason. Maybe I'm spineless, but I took it out. He never found out about my nipple, though...
Colestock: A lot of cultures around the world are far more advanced than ours in regard to the acceptance of body adornment of any type. Our society seems to have allowed makeup to be the only adornment accepted widely. I think that your employer had the right, as a private business owner, to fire you without warning or ability to grieve his decision. My advice would be to outline expectations next time with your employer and reduce them to writing, which gives you (in essence) a written contract to fall back on. I am surprised a record company has a problem wtih piercings. I do believe in the right of a private business owner to make decisions based on appearance. It's unfortunate, but true, that clients will frequent businesses they feel comfortable in. And the majority of the populace do not feel as comfortable with piercings (other than ears) as the younger generation does right now. If you really want to work for this company, you'll have to return with your pride sucked up and apologize.
hcm: I'd advise FEH that any agreement on an employment application isn't reasonable or legal just because they say it is and you signed it (because you wanted the job). Folks put all kinds of unenforceable junk in contracts all the time.
Panax: Fight the wars worth fighting. Being fired (or not being hired) for one's political opinion, gender, color, or religion -- these are inportant battles. Okay, the pierced eyebrow is important to you. Perhaps fifty years from now we'll have a new page in history about the "body adornment" movement. I don't know. Individuality? Body piercing is store-bought cool...about as "liberating" as a Malcolm X T-shirt. Get over it.
kilko: I think the owner has every right to have fired you if, after asking you not to wear it, you refused to comply. It is his/her store. The owner is afforded some rights too.
My advice would be for you to ask for your job back, with the stipulation that you would not wear it at work. If you like and/or need the job, sometimes we just have to comform to rules we don't agree with for the sake of our livelihood.
If you feel too strongly about conforming to the owners requests, then find another job somewhere where you can be yourself. Don't always expect the goverment to be looking out for you in matters like this.
ghostbook: I am an owner of a small used bookshop in central
Virginia. Since I have only a few employees, I have no stated policies, written or verbal, on topics such as yours -- except I expect my employees to be friendly and cordial to all the customers and to make them feel comfortable being there. These things are extremely important. I do not believe it was fair to fire you without taking you aside and informing you that some people would be uncomfortable with your body piercing. Whatever you do away from the job is your concern and will have to contend with the ramifications yourself.
jsfox : What dilemma? All of life is a series of adjustments. Once you finally figure out that life is not fair and the world doesn't revolve around you, you will be a very happy and content adult. Learn to pick your causes carefully or you will burn out on the small stuff.
Get on with your life. You can run it, not some "Labour Board" or record store or fashion trend.
Let it go!
cylee: If you really need a job and or like what you do, you will have to conform to some extent. Get out the the fairy tale world and into the real world. Workers really have no guarantees for keeping a job. In Washington state, businesses with 8 employees are exempt from discrimination laws. So, if you really want to work, especially at what you do, you have to give a little.
Qathi: I just glanced up and read the reply from cylee...you are saying one must give a little. Fairy tale world? What part of WA are you from?
I'm in Seattle, where every other person and their mammal companion has visible piercings. I was just going to say...when I read your very encouraging response...I worked in a BDSM store, selling a wide variety of accesories, including body jewelry. When I interviewed for that job I had in facial jewelry, I was wearing short sleeves and a shorter skirt...tattoos were showing, I wasn't hiding anything. I was hired knowing I had exotic piercings. Three months later I was told to take my labret out (not a lip piercing, but that space between your chin and lip). I took it out, but a couple hours later I asked what was up...I was told there was a policy in place that stated no visible exotic jewelry. I was familiar with their policies, and hadn't heard of that one yet. Later I had an opportunity to talk to a boss figure and asked if we could find a compromise -- I liked my job, I was a good worker, and my piercings weren't causing any problems with our clients. Essentially, no he wasn't willing to compromise.
I also feel I should add, I have been fired from a job because a tattoo that I was perfectly willing to cover was accidently visible. At that point, I decided to stop making compromises, covering and hiding my work...my lifestyle. Somewhere out there, companies and the managers and directors who hire for them will see that people have value regardless of what they look like. We are starting to see a change in the business enviorment; business had been held back by tired old traditions -- let some changes happen, let the business world become a more comfortable place to be.
In obvious defense of the bodmod...to you more conservative folks out there, break it down and think about a couple questions I have. In your time off, are you offended when you see tattoos or piercings? (on clean people who look like they otherwise have their act together...there are dirty pierced/tattooed people who offend me) Now if those people don't offend you when you're not at work, what difference does it make if you were to work with them?
Panax suggested the possibility of the *body adornmet* movement. Hell yeah! Who's with me? Panax also said that piercing was store bought cool like a t-shirt and to get over it. Panax, you don't understand, and that's cool with me, you probably never will...I have been into piercings and tattoos for over 12 years; it is not a trend, it is not a phase, and I am not getting over it!
If anybody needs to get over it, it should be the person who is shallow enough to believe that somone is no longer a valuable asset to the business community because of visible piercings. Open your mind.
dalydubble: "Dilemma" is a misnomer. As has been stated, you have no choice unless you want to pay some lawyer good money to slay dragons with a popgun. Look for another job in a more user friendly atmosphere.
maxine: Well you've got two choices -- remove it and stay hired, or keep it and be fired. Decide which is more important to you: the job or the ring.
Although I can sympathize, (I've had to lose piercings for a job before) I'm surprised a record store would be such a stickler for image. Here at Tower Records in NYC, I don't think they've *ever* hired someone without a visible piercing. I think it's policy or something.
johncar: Sorry, lad. I'm one of those people that think hanging jewelry on noses, eyes, and basically any part other than the ear still grosses me out. And for jewelry to adorn any part of a man other than his wrist or fingers is just as bad. I'm not even fond of the Indian tradition of a red dot in the forehead. Even many ladies earrings are much too ostentatious for me. Why is that? My cultural background is "plain and simple". That I sport a beard is a bit much even for me.
At a grocery store I frequent, one of the ladies showed up with a ring in her lower lip. A habit she developed was to constantly suck on it. For a customer like to me to have to look at such a display was enough to want me to shop at another store. She no longer wears the lip ring. I don't know why, but I'm very glad. Some of the workers at the store also had rings in other places on the head. Most of them are now wearing no more than half a dozen earrings on each ear and a jewel punched in the side of the nose. I can't see the value or benefit in such behavior. What I'm told by them as to why they do it doesn't even make sense.
Let's look at it another way. When I was nine years old, I used to steal lighter fluid from the store and use it like a flame thrower to burn my plastic toys. My sense of values about such things was nowhere near adult values. I was only interested in what pleased me. Since then I have discovered new ways of destroying my things. And I also keep discovering that those ways are about as valueless to my self-esteem and well-being as jumping off a bridge.
What I'm trying to say here is that whatever it is that people do to disfigure or discredit themselves will sooner or later be found out by them to be a total waste of their time -- and most likely served to set them back in terms of their self development. To me, self-development is about increasing one's self-esteem. I can't see any potential in body piercing, including the acceptable pierced ears of a lady, that does anything to improve one's self-esteem. It seems to do a great deal of 'good' for the ego, though. It is useful to know that a 'healthy' ego and a high self-esteem are diametrically opposed.
Would I fire you if you showed up with a ring in your eyelid? No. But I would if enough of my customers complained about it. What is enough? One, if that one was a big spender. But I would first give you the opportunity to choose to conduct business relative to the customer's desires rather than your own. And it matters not that even 90 percent of the customers might show up with a similar ring in their eyebrow. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. Now if I wanted to rearrange my customer list to satisfy my workers, then you and I might have a working arrangement. But isn't business usually about satisfying customers? Is it the workers right to try to establish a new customer environment for the store owner?
My advice: If you insist on such ornaments and behavior, then create your own business environment in which you can be the way you want and cater to the clients that you can get. This is what made America the way it is -- free enterprise.
flrmn: I made a solemn vow to myself to NEVER patronize a place of business which employs individuals with any visible body piercing, other than ear jewelry. And that only if each ear pierced singlly. Nose,lip, and tongue jewelry remind me that the individual endured some pain or discomfort -- just to observe a fad or tell the world, "Hey, look at me please." Retailers spend large amounts of money to create a "Buying and Selling" atmosphere. My advice, even though probably unwanted, is "grow up -- get a life, not an infection."
AlMiller: Personally I find many unusual body and facial piercings repulsive and overly-trendy. I would not employ somebody who insisted on wearing eyebrow rings or nose rings in a public contact job such as a blackjack dealer, grocery clerk, medical receptionist, etc. But a record store salesperson? C'mon...that might apply to the Wal-Mart record department, but seems ridiculous for any record store that is connected with the present (you did say it was in a mall, however). That would be the equivalent of banning long hair in a music store during the 70s.
If I cannot be myself on the job, then I really don't want to work there. If being yourself means sticking hardware through various parts of your face and body, then your best bet is to go where you are wanted. Otherwise, you will just have to conform to others' standards. It is the right of employers to regulate personal appearance standards, whether you agree with them or not. It seems like Bland Records, Inc. should have had a written policy or at least advised you to remove the offending item before firing you. I would suspect they had other motives for getting rid of you if they didn't give you a chance to comply. If you refused to comply, then that's just too bad; go find another job.
purestuff: Most of these responses are classic cases of people who haven't a clue what they're talking about foisting their own reasoning onto others. Several people have stated 'reasons' why people get pierced, such as 'being cool', 'trendy', to 'get attention', etc.
I'm sure some pierced people get pierced for those reasons, but not any of the ones I know. And so what? I'll bet a lot of women wear makeup, and 'nice clothing' to get attention. A lot of men spend hours styling their hair and buying $1000 Armani suits, or drive around in flashy $100,000 cars to get attention.
Should I be offended by those people? Should I not want them to work for me? Should I have the right to fire someone because they 'want attention' or 'are ostentatious'?
That's ridiculous. It's simply because non-ear body piercing is a relatively new thing in Western Culture that y'all are offended by it. If you had read any history books you would know that single ear piercings were considered barbaric and savage around the beginning of the 20th century. Only primitive cultures had women with pierced ears.
Now all of you act as if single-ear piercings are a 'holy right from God' ©, and that anyone with them is okay and normal, but a couple more 'holes' and they're sick and freaky. Tattoos are experiencing the same kind of renaissance. 'Good boys and girls' are often seen sporting a little tattoo or two, and it's normal, and nothing big.
I guarantee you that we will have something else that grosses us out 20-30 years from now. Maybe plastic surgery/body reshaping -- who knows? Oh, and there's another thing, plastic surgery. I'm more offended when I see someone who thinks s/he is fooling us with a face lift and collogen implants, than I am by seeing anyone with any amount of bod-mod. But plastic surgery is totally accepted. Wigs, toupees, etc. are commonplace.
That's it! Everyone who wears a really obvious toupee or wig, or even draws undue attention to themselves by combing their hair over their head, should be fired.
I've seen a lot of bad mall piercings, totally infected, and yes, they're gross. True infections are nasty to anyone. However, none of my piercings are infected, none of them hang out, and none of them are designed to get attention.
In fact, I don't like the attention that piercings draw to me, so I keep to ones that don't catch the public eye all that much. But I don't think you're being 'grossed out' by a piercing gives you any right to dictate how other people should dress, act or think.
Which is basically what you want. Conform, stay with us, you don't need to be different. Why would you want to be different? You're weird.
Old trend, new topic. It's always been:
"Can't hire black people, they draw a lot of attention."
"Oh, those women employees, they'll just make all the men stop working."
"Those Indians with their red dots, that's just not normal."
"What is it with that Turban?"
"Why can't you icky queers just hide that from the rest of us?"
"Why can't you be more like a normal 'American'?"
What a load of crap. If you have a stated, written policy, that disallows visible bod-mod, and this policy is shown to employees before they are hired/sign-on, then fine. Anyone who gets a bod mod that's visible, you can fire with cause. Otherwise, you're just pulling these rules out your a** (like in "QATHI's" case). And I bet you're more worried about it than your customers. I had a lip ring while working at Borders, and I certainly got a lot of questions about it, but no one ever stopped shopping their because of it, and if they did, that would have been pretty lame. I can't imagine walking around the world, getting that offended and expecting the other inhabitants of this world to change for me.
"You know what? I want all those Christians to stop throwing their religion in my face. Take off those crosses, they offend me. I'll stop shopping here if they don't."
The customer IS NOT always right. That maxim is an internal one, used to ensure that employees treat customers with respect. It is not something to be used by a customer to get whatever s/he wants. And people wonder why retail help is rude.
Those of us with bod-mods aren't all mall-rat trendoids. We're medical students, receptionists, music store employees, MIS managers, lawyers, and so on. We've been into this for 5, 10, even 15 years. This is not a fad, trend or phase to us. Bod-mods are part of our personalities, just like whatever it is that you do to feel unique (that is, if you are unique). I think it's time that you all got over yourself, and start acting like adults.
We're the ones opening stores, creating computer programs for the next millenia, and making millions. Us 'long-haired freaky people' are going to rule the world, and there isn't a thing you can do to stop it.
Joshua
P.S. -- By the way, if anyone showed up with a ring through they're eyelid, they'd probably be in extreme pain as the ring scratched the cornea of their eyeball. You meant eyebrow. Try thinking a little before pretending to know what you're talking about.
Qathi: To the original poster; please go to rec.arts.bodyart There you will find a world of people who will give you support and share with you their exeriences as bod-mod enthusiasts. As I have found over the years, the RAB gives community where we might otherwise feel without. Having visible bod-mods opens up a world of new and frustarting challenges -- hang in there.
Qathi: Heard today (10/18) on Rush Limbaugh's radio talkshow:
"You shouldn't be able to fire someone just because their looks
rub you the wrong way" -- Rush Limbaugh
egibson: I have recently had the same problem, but my boss is usually pretty understanding -- and so far hasn't had too much problem with my pierced ear and letting my hair grow out a little. My job is managing a roller skating rink, which should give me a little lee-way, but in our area most of the people who frequent are farmers or live in a rural environment. I have recently got my hair trimmed down a little shorter and am trying to look presentable for this job (at least for a 41 year old man). My recomendation to you is either to do what I did -- which is conform -- or to find a job where they don't require you to be clean cut and BORING!!!
davidshome: Late 1960's -- My grandfather used to wear a suit, tie, and hat just to go to the grocery store. Seemed strange to me. The public school I attended did not allow you
to wear jeans or t-shirts. No one complained. At traffic court, a judge told a young guy to leave and not come back untill he got a haircut. He didn't argue with the judge.
Two guys at my high school had long hair, got a lot of flack, but were not made to have it cut.
Back then it was long hair and sloppy dressing used by the young folk to express themselves. The sloppy dressing of that time is considered standard dress now. In 20 years the "strange" of now will be normal. The young folks will have come up with new ways to express themselves. Bosses and parents will still be offended or shocked over new things.
Time marches on.............everything changes....nothing changes.
Nicole_S: I would definitely take action against the former employer. In Australia it is called unfair dismissal. That means if you were fired for any reason other than failing to do your job, your employer is legally liable. My brother-in-law was fired because he shaved his head. He took his boss to court, won damages of $14,000, and was reinstated to his old job.
