One in four Americans and 40 percent of millenials have tattoos. Are you one of them?
Chances are, if you’re tattooed, you have had the fear of not getting that job you need due, in part, to your expression of individuality via the ink on your skin.
Thankfully, this taboo is slowly, yet surely, fading.
Based off a Careerbuilder.com survey, roughly 31 percent of hiring managers viewed having tattoos as negative. However, bad breath weighed even heavier on the survey. Some individuals were even passed up for promotion based off of darker suntans or gnawed-on fingernails.
As a tattoo collector myself, I find it absolutely absurd that employers would discriminate against a person who has tattoos. Tattoos are a form of expression, an art collection that takes place on your skin. Sure, some tattoos are more, let’s say, vulgar, than others. Having a curse word on your cheek is completely different from having a sleeve of comic book characters. I would also assume that the two individuals would lead very different lives.
Tattoos should not be discriminated against and you shouldn’t be denied a job based off of how you express yourself.
There are worse things you could do to show your individuality. Tattoos aren’t a negative thing to possess.
When I got my first job as a sophomore in high school, I had one tattoo on my wrist. It was a medical alert bracelet-like design for my Type 1 diabetes. I had no fears regarding whether or not I would get the job based on having a tattoo.
I did get that job and have gotten more as I’ve gotten older. None have had a problem with the one tattoo I have that is visible.
Places of employment are technically allowed to enforce dress codes, which cover tattoos. However, more and more businesses are starting to warm up to the concept of visible body art.
I hope that tattoos become more common in the workplace. People should be allowed to express themselves in a professional environment. However, I also have to agree that there should be restrictions.
For example, I don’t think an elementary school teacher should have a visible tattoo with adult themes. Restrictions such as this I can agree with.
The advice I can give to someone who is contemplating getting a tattoo is this: think about it, really give it thought because it isn’t something that can be wiped away with regret. In fact, tattoos are very expensive to get removed. A $100 tattoo could very easily cost orders of magnitude more to remove .
Don’t do something stupid. Whatever you do is up to you, and you get to make the final decision. Just don’t do something that you’ll regret and you should be fine. But that’s not my business.
bnbauern@indiana.edu
