Tattoos In The Workplace: Is It Acceptable?

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Tattoos In the Workplace: Form of Expression or Detrimental to Hire? You’re finally 18. The consentable age to be considered an adult and make decisions for yourself; The time when you start thinking about where to attend college, a possible career choice, and where you want to be in the next five years. But as the youth of society tries to fit in and the years of adolescence that accompany it all take place, individuals see a way to express how they feel and make a decision to show it off to the world by a drastic form of permanent art: tattoos. It is not as innocent and hideable as a drawing on the arm of a bored kid in class using sharpies to make himself look cool to the other children at recess; these are drawings that you wake up to every morning for the rest of your life. Tattoos used to be considered part of a counterculture. It's probably a fair statement to say that for years, many people associated tattoos with gangs, bikers, and other groups that were thought to operate outside of the social center. Today, tattoos have gained wider social acceptance and more and more people, men and women alike, have them. People with tattoos work in a variety of industries and hold entry-level jobs as well as top executive positions. So, what's an employer to do? Is body art a workplace issue? Does having a visible tattoo say anything about an individual that is relevant to his or her job? “To me, that’s pretty much a form of racism,” says Robert Lamb, tattoo artist at Couture Tattoo in Canton. “If you have a rose on your hand, you should be able to work wherever you want; it’s not hurting anyone else around you.” As most individuals seem to agree, the only time a tattoo could cause disgruntlement in the workplace is if such a tattoo were to be offensive or vulgar. If you walk into a prestigious restaurant to eat

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