'Hide your tats, customers won't put up with it'

[FnG]magnolia;19077041 said:
dude-1.jpg

What's mine say?
 
Why is this still going on? This is so ridiculously simple that I'm amazed there is even a debate.

It is all about what the customer might think. Thats it. It doesnt matter if the customer is wrong - the customers perception is key. If 80% of your customers are bigotted morons who judge a book by its cover, you'll soon go out of business if you don't make attempts to tailor your services towards them.

It really is that simple.
 
So what if the majority of customers wouldnt like being served by a person of a particular race or religion? Would it be ok not to hire anyone of the offending type?

Race and religion are a bit different. You make a conscious choice to get a tattoo done and whilst religion is technically a choice too to an extent its also often a significant part of someone's cultural background, race, ethnicity etc...

We've got laws in place to prevent discrimination on the basis of race, gender, sexuality and religion because some discrimination is quite obviously unfair and needs to be legislated against - this doesn't necessarily mean all discrimination is unfair.

Whether someone who'd deliberately altered his appearance can be discriminated against is perhpas a matter for courts to decide but I don't think that the rights of people with visible tattoos are going to rank anyway near the rights of people who feel discriminated against based on race or sexuality etc...
 
the company can do what they want - it isn't in writing and they can sack him in the first year and not give a reason - he might say they sacked him because of discrimination, they will simply say he wasn't suitable for the job, case dismissed.

he should have thought about public perception of tatoos and any future job problems before he got one.
 
But a turban can be a symbol of terrorism?

That's like saying, 'I don't want to leave my car with that guy because he has tattoos and he will possibly pee all over my car'.

Same 'I don't want to leave my car with that guy because he has a turban and will possibly strap a bomb to the bottom of it'

Turbans are worn by Sikhs and is a symbol of Sikh religion not Muslims.

Edit: Not to post without saying anything relevant to the thread, my honest opinion is, it is all about public perception and in these tough employment times, unless you're an exceptional candidate, no company is prepared to lose customers when they can just get someone else to do it the job. I personally love forearm tattoos and would like to get one as I think they look pretty cool, however, these kind of issues and stigmas prevent me from doing so and I accept that.
 
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none of my staff have visible tattoos however if they did there is no way in hell I would consider sending them to my customers home with them exposed.
 
[TW]Fox;19077305 said:
Why is this still going on? This is so ridiculously simple that I'm amazed there is even a debate.

It is all about what the customer might think. Thats it. It doesnt matter if the customer is wrong - the customers perception is key. If 80% of your customers are bigotted morons who judge a book by its cover, you'll soon go out of business if you don't make attempts to tailor your services towards them.

It really is that simple.

I'd argue that all this customer perception being negative is made up, but we don't have any facts to support this. They are assuming most customers would be turned away, but you can't tell for sure.
I know bosses in multiple business sectors who couldn't care less if you had a tattoo and wouldn't agree it turns away customers, the same could be said for ones that do, but it's all personal opinion rather than any researched information. But I believe most people are more than that and don't care either, the ones that do aren't worth our time.

I also believe those who feel tattoos carry a bad image/association are poorly informed and are making a huge misjudgement, illogically; so yes that goes directly towards some people in this thread, but they are free to do as they want naturally.
 
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I'd argue that all this customer perception being negative is made up, but we don't have any facts to support this. They are assuming most customers would be turned away, but you can't tell for sure.
I know bosses in multiple business sectors who couldn't care less if you had a tattoo and wouldn't agree it turns away customers, the same could be said for ones that do, but it's all personal opinion rather than any researched information. But I believe most people are more than that and don't care either, the ones that do aren't worth our time.

I also believe those who feel tattoos carry a bad image/association are poorly informed and are making a huge misjudgement, illogically; so yes that goes directly towards some people in this thread, but they are free to do as they want naturally.

I'm what I would consider fairly heavily tattooed and I firmly believe that there are plenty of jobs where I would completely expect to be asked to cover my arms and would gladly do it.

I'm lucky in that I can have mine out because the shop I work in has the sort of image where I can get away with it. There are people in my company that have to cover theirs up because of what they say or depict, but my head of retail asked to see mine and oked them. But that's this business - it fits in OK here and doesn't get any negative reactions.

If I worked for Porsche I would absolutely expect to cover them up, and if I didn't like that then to be honest I could go and work somewhere else if it bothered me. It's a poncy company with well-to-do customers who, let's be honest, are fairly likely to be stuffy and judgmental. Not all of them, but enough of them for it to be worthwhile making sure your staff's image fits.

If this guy can be seen from the sales floor, and is in view of customers, then he can put a long sleeve on and deal with it.

To be honest even if I wasn't customer facing and my employer wanted me to cover them up, I'd do it. I'd feel a little bit hard done by but I wouldn't complain, because I chose to do this to myself and I wasn't naive enough to think it wouldn't have a small impact on my life.

And having to wear long sleeves IS a small impact.
 
PardonTheWait, oh I agree... I'm just arguing against the bad name tattoo's get, I understand if you were told to cover up or that it was part of the job then yes.

It's why I don't get any tattoos that can't be covered up and I understand that having long sleeve tattoos may mean wearing long sleeve'd clothes ;)
 
I've found, personally, that I get few little negative reactions from people about my tattoos, and I deal with all sorts of people, including posh business types.

But I think because of where I work, and me being in my environment, it's not so much expected, but acceptable in people's eyes, even if they might be more prone to look down on me if I came into their environment... if that makes sense.

In fact I had the first really negative comment I've had in a long time the other day, but I wasn't at work. Doorbell rang and I went down and answered it. The woman at the door could see that I'd just been putting my t-shirt on as I came up to the door so she knew she'd woken me up. She was very friendly and said 'oh sorry to wake you up' and I said it was no problem. Then she said 'You might have found yourself thinking about Jesus over Easter' and started waving her copy of the Watchtower about.

I said 'well no, not really been thinking about Jesus actually...' and she looked down, pulled a face like she'd just found dog poo on her shoe, and said 'oh... no, I don't suppose you have, have you?' and went!

Considering they're supposed to be trying to make friends, I thought that was a pretty poor show! But that's the only time I've felt judged in a very long time, and it was hilarious.
 
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Tough one.

I have five tattos and two are visible (forearms).

We have the option of short sleeve shirts in our corporate wardrobe, but I never get them - I don't think it would be professional to display them at work, but I work face to face with clients.

If I was not face to face with clients, I think I would probably wear the short sleeves, but I would repect the request of my employer if I was asked to wear long sleeves I think, because if tatoos are not the image the company wishses to project, customer facing or not, I think that should be respected, but I can see why it would be annoying.

I used to work for a government department for a while, which was non customer facing, and half the building had thier tats out :D
 
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