Do you turn down job applicants with nose, eyebrow, tongue or one of those shiver upper lip piercings? Is it a problem for employees to have them?
One of our best servers earned the nickname “Tacklebox” due to her multiple facial piercings. I was kidding around and said; "With all those piercings, it looks like you fell face first into someones “Tacklebox”
She would remove the most prominent piercings while working, plus she was a very sweet younger attractive girl with bright violet colored hair, Not someone who tried to look mean and ugly like some body modification fans that I have seen.
It all depends on how radical they have gone with hardware, attitude and aptitude counts more than appearance does around here. We consider ourselves lucky if potential employees can add & subtract single digit numbers without a calculator and they can spell “Diploma” without forgetting the “L” & “O” in the word. (true story)
Well i have had piercings in the past and i have ink, so no 
Guess i am one of “those” people who just do not understand this obsession with looking “clean.”
A good employee who shows up with a piercing? No problem. One that shows up looking like a tacklebox? No such thing: that’s not something a
“good” employee would do. A job applicant who thinks applying with a face-full of piercings is appropriate? One for the circular file.
I’m on the fence, I’ve always said no armpits no belly buttons, but with tattoos and piercings so prominent if its not overboard I don’t mind. I actually think it adds some coolness to your place to have some colorful charcters
In my little corner of the world there is a store that had a social media attack related to piercings and tattoos. It was rumored the refused service to anyone who had them. They turned it around by hiring a person with a “tackle box” and tattoos. They now run specials on Tattoo Tuesday and have successfully overcome the social media judgement.
I am of the opinion that it is their body. If it is not a health and safety issue why should I hold it against them? By the way I have no piercings or tattoos and never will have.
you can’t judge a book by it’s cover ( or name ) , but you can lessen the odds of theft and rudeness to customers by having a clean cut crew up front with no open display of attitude. i have no tattoos or piercings and tend to pass on prospective employees who do … if a lot of my customers were tackled and i was open late at night in a city it would be a different story, my customers are are not of that genre …
It’s funny to me to hear some of these opinions. As if some how tattoos and attitude or behavior are some way inextricably linked. I agree there is a degree of what’s comfortable to look at with piercing and body modifications, but tattoos? I’m covered in them and you won’t find a more friendly person. I think if you pass on someone just because of a few piercings or tattoos, you could be missing out on an all star and we all know how rare they are.
Our “Tacklebox” just had some daddy issues,
She was very sweet, great with customers, great with the crew, and was a whiz with our POS, plus she recognized quickly if I was getting aggravated with a FOH person, and she would handle these “aggravations” professionally for me before they took me over the edge. (it’s hard to run a restaurant from the line)
She even got a tattoo of a little pink pig on her wrist (we do BBQ, so lots of pig themed stuff here) then she got a Tacklebox tattoo’ed on her ankle. If called her by her given name, she didn’t like it. She preferred to be referred to as tacklebox.
I prefer that my location by a bit on the raucous side, a place to have fun and get great food so she was a great fit here and I hope to have her back come summertime
The best description of here;
Imagine the latest spokesperson for wendys (the red haired girl in all their commercials) and that is tacklebox, but with dark purple hair, she sounds the same, same facial expressions, everything.
When she decided to start chumming around with some motorcycle club acquaintances of mine, she got a little look into that world, and I think it straightened her out a bit. The piercings have been disappearing a little at a time.
not a strict NO but a tiny stud in the nose is OK but even if it is a tiny “bull ring” coming out of the nose looking like you have buggers chillin all the time is a negative. No lips or weird face piercings either. Gauged out ears are subject to opinion too. smaller ones are OK but when you start to look tribal I draw the line. I hire people with tattoos but have not had anyone apply with facial tats and although I may think they are idiots I still hire people with neck tattoos. But subject matter does come into play. My own nephew has a penis riding a skateboard on his ankle, it stays hidden by his socks but that would be a no-no.
piercings are where i’ve run into negative attitude towards my customers, tattoos have never been a problem
Tattoos and piercings really do not dictate the attitude of the person. Most often then not, it is the attitude of the other person toward the person with Tattoos and piercings that cause the problem because of the preconceived bias towards them.
It is at it’s simplest form, discrimination. As i said earlier in this thread, i have a tattoo (not usually visible, but sometimes it can been seen), and i have had piercings in the past. I enjoyed the piercings, but i got tired of the stereo types being used against me in the business world so i removed them.
I made a personal choice to align with what was considered “normal” so i could move around and up in the business world. Not everyone is willing to do this.
People are human, some are good, some are bad. Some are just having a bad day when you interact with them. Defining a person based solely on a single outward choice is very demeaning toward everyone.
Discrimination based on your actions isn’t what most people would call discrimination… If you choose to have ink or piercings, you are obviously the kind of person who gets ink or piercings! Exactly what that says about you is debatable, of course.
By us it was no problem how many piercings one had, they just couldn’t wear any of them that were above the waist while at work. Anything below the waist we didn’t need to know about. The reason for this is because earrings, rings with stones, piercings with posts, etc. all pose a potential food safety issue should any of them come up missing at the end of the day.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor
Eewwww!