Tattoos in the workplace

A co-worker of mine is passionate about and defensive of his tats. When he hired in, he made no attempt to cover the tats he has on his arms or neck, and management at the time didn't make it an issue for him. Recently we got a new team of bosses and the current management is on his back to cover them up. When he refused, he was written up and sent home. We deal with the public and managements attitude is that the public is put off by tattoos, but it was never an issue before they came in. Do you think it's right for businesses to have an anti-tattoo attitude?

I think that it's fine for businesses to want tattoos covered, but that does suck for him that it's all of the sudden changing. This is why all of my tattoos are in places easily covered though.

I think the way people hyperventilate over tats is ridiculous. I guess a business can do whatever it wants to do but seriously, it's just silly.

thepossiblepolice wrote:I think that it's fine for businesses to want tattoos covered, but that does suck for him that it's all of the sudden changing. This is why all of my tattoos are in places easily covered though.

Yeah, I have tats and they are coverable by a short sleeved shirt and shorts. However many of my co-workers, mostly female have visible tats and no prob. It depends on the business - and some managers will overreact. They didn't get the memo that tats are not just for bikers and drunken sailors any more.

I've seen tats on breast feeding mamas.

Tattoos to an extent have become more acceptable because people from different backgrounds have them. But there are still some people who don't like them at all and can't ignore them. I can understand that businesses have some of those people in mind when it comes to tattoo visibility. Maybe your friend could look into to see if the workplace had a policy about tattoos before he was hired.

I don't think a business should tell you you can't get tats....but I would hope you'd be smart enough to get them where you can cover them up if you have to.....esp if you work in corporate America or customer service (aside from call centers or telemarketing).

I think it depend son the business and the situation but it sucks that things have changed for your friend and he was hired under one set of rules and now they've changed. My brother has tattoos but they are easily covered if he wears a short-sleeved t-shirt. He did that on purpose so he could cover them when he wanted. For the most part, I don't have a problem with tattoos but I've seen some people that have so many it's gross. When more of you is tattooed than not, it's too much for me.

If he was hired with them, I feel it is very wrong for new managment to be on him about it.

For a new hire, I think that an employer has the right to decide what image they want to project, and to not hire due to ink.