Sara Halilbasic
Mr. Jennings
Honors English III
October 17, 2013
Tattoos at the Workplace
Self-expression is a natural human need.As humans, we each have or our own individual interests and passions which we are enthusiastic about, and we enjoy showing and sharing those with others. From choice of clothing to hobbies such as painting or music, there is a wide variety of ways to express one’s self. One way many people choose to express themselves is with tattoos. With tattoos being a permanent choice, unless you have the hundreds or thousands of dollars it costs to get them removed,they usually hold a great amount of meaning to the person with the tattoos, or they at least thought they were good enough an idea to have tattooed on their body. The problem with choosing tattoos as a way to express yourself, no comma is that many companies hesitate or even decline to hire you because of them. People shouldn’t be declined a job based on the fact that they have tattoos because tattoos are a form of expression in which people are free to participate in if they wish.
Tattoos have been common practice for thousands of years,with one of the earliest known examples being thefive-thousand year old frozen body of a man known as “Ötzi the Ice Man”.His skin held 57 tattoos; : instead a cross on the inside of his left knee, six straight lines 15 centimeters long above the kidneys, and a plentiful amount of parallel lines on his ankles. The placement of the tattoo marks implies that they might even have been applied for treatment of arthritis.More recent examples were found on Egyptians mummies from as far back as 2000 B.C (Lineberry). During the 1800s, a trend was started among the aristocracy, beginning with the Prince of Wales, who later became King Edward the VII, when he received a Jerusalem cross on his arm (“a brief history”). With tattoos being around for such a long time, it is difficult to understand how they have not yet become regularly accepted by many people, but most of all in the workplace.show the purpose of each paragraph-each should be a reason to convince us for example in this paragraph we can see that we should have tattoos in the workplace should be acceptable because tattoos are not a new thing-state this
A poll conducted in 2010 showed that 23% of Americans,including half of the people in their twenties, had at least one tattoo, with the numbers still growing (Hartwell-Walker), so it is not uncommon to come across someone with a tattoo throughout your day.Of course, just like any other person, a person with tattoos has to find a job, because that’s how they make money. It’s difficult enough as is in this economy, but add onto that the fact that many workplaces include a ban on tattoos in their dress codes. Thankfully, most people with tattoos are able to cover them, with long sleeves, pants, or maybe even makeup, or they have one in aspot that isn’t normally visible. It’s understandable that companies want to keep certain “images”, but that doesn’t make it okay for them to decline someone a job if they have tattoos which cannot be covered, just because they believe it makes the person look “unprofessional”.Plenty of jobs hire people who don’t act professionally, which is much worse than just looking unprofessional.
Whether a person has one tattoo or full sleeves, it doesn’t determine their personality or the type of employee they could be. I’ve met both genuinely likeable and pleasant people covered in tattoos, and obnoxious and rude people with not a single tattoo on their body.There are also a great amount of celebrities with more than one tattoo who aren’t seen as unprofessional because of them,with a few recognizable examples being Angelina Jolie, David Beckham, and Rihanna. They aren’t seen as unprofessional or immoral, at least by most normal people. There has been one instance in which a woman, Ariel Rivera, applied for a job as a ride operator at Dorney Park & Wildwater Kingdom. She didn’t drink or do drugs, but she was declined the job because of a round biohazard symbol on her neck, which could be covered by her hair (Kennedy).
With all this being said, however, I do believe there are certain limits that exist to which tattoos can be accepted, especially at the workplace. People with easily visible tattoos of offensive or inappropriate language or images should be declined a job, depending on what the job is. If said job is a cashier in a grocery store, a nurse in a hospital, or other job which requires interaction with many people, there is a great chance those tattoos can be seen by children, and most parents don’t want their children to be exposed to such things too early.Since these types of images or words aren’t allowed on television,they shouldn’t be clearly visible to people who may be sensitive to them, such as children. define what is acceptable and what is not
If tattoos were to continue to be seen as a symbol of unprofessionalism, then companies would run out of people to hire with the growing number of people receiving tattoos. Gratefully, these days more companies are recognizing the fact that more people have tattoos, and are becoming more lenient on tattoos, although most will still require people to cover them. Still, a study done in 2011 showed that 31% of surveyed employers stated that having a tattoo is the top characteristic that would prevent them from promoting an employee (Hennessey). Another survey showed that 76% of respondents felt that having a tattoo would hurt a person’s chances at being hired for a job (Gouveia).With numbers like these, there is still a ways to go before tattoos don’t become a factor for employers when looking for people to hire.
Works Cited
"a brief history of tattoos." designboom . N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Oct. 2013. <
Gouveia, Aaron. "Survey: Tattoos Hurt Your Chances of Getting a Job." Salary.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Oct. 2013. <
Hartwell-Walker, Marie. "Thinking of Inking? The Possible Impact of Tattoos on Your Job Search." PsychCentral. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Oct. 2013. <
Hennessey, Rachel. "Tattoos No Longer A Kiss Of Death In The Workplace." Forbes. N.p., 27 Feb. 2013. Web. 16 Oct. 2013. <
Kennedy, Sam. "Tattooed job-seekers may have tough time getting hired." The Morning Call. N.p., 26 May 2012. Web. 16 Oct. 2013. <
Lineberry, Cate. "Tattoos." Smithsonian.com. N.p., 1 Jan. 2007. Web. 16 Oct. 2013. <