Posted on 07/08/2013 6:54:06 AM PDT by Deadeye Division
LIMA — When Travis Stevick goes to work, he wears his heart on his sleeve, literally.
For the 34-year-old pediatric nurse, his body is a canvas, and the tattoos are all metaphors of his life. Along his left arm, there’s a tiger and cherry blossoms on his forearm, and a coy fish on his upper arm. This is mostly what is exposed when he wears his scrubs to work. Stevick has 20 tattoos in all so far, from his arms, legs, back and chest. He plans on getting more, too.
And Stevick said at Health Partners of Western Ohio, where he works, they’ve been very accommodating with his visible tattoos.
“There’s different nursing homes and other health care facilities that have policies: no visible tattoos, because of contact with patients. But not here,” Stevick said. “It mixes with our clientele. A lot of our patients have tattoos, so they’re not frowned on here. That’s why I’m here. I feel accepted. I like the way they feel with it.”
Ironically, he does immunizations for children. The tattoos are not only a calming mechanism for them, but some children tell him they want tattoos someday, despite wincing from a single shot he just administered.
“It kind of gets their mind off whatever they’re here for, if they’re not feeling well,” he said. “If they have to get a shot, something like that, and they take just a second and look at my tattoos, we relate a little bit. So it helps, I think.”
Self-expression more acceptable
Many agree that workplace tattoos and piercings have become more acceptable in the workplace in recent years. Once thought of as the mark of a degenerate, almost 25 percent of Americans now have tattoos, according to a Pew Research poll from 2010. This likely makes having them in a professional setting more acceptable than before.
“I have definitely seen a shift in the acceptance of tattoos and piercings” in the workplace during the past decade, said Kathy Dickson, Director of Career Development at Bluffton University. “For some employers, it’s still very much a big deal, but it depends ... not only on the field, but the individual employer, because every organization has its own culture.”
There are some fields, though, that have remained more traditional about the issue.
“The business and education fields are still two of the more conservative as far as having piercings and tattoos right out there in front of customers or students,” she said. “Some of the professional etiquette rules are more conservative about everything: The color of your suit, the color of your tie, the color of your shirt when you go to an interview. Whether your shoes are closed tie or open. So when you get to these types of rules, any trainer is probably going to encourage you to err on the conservative side when making first impressions and they’re getting to know you.”
It all depends on the organization.
Lorne Howden Sr., owner of the Tat-2-U tattoo parlor on Elida Road, said the majority of his clients work in professional fields, such as law enforcement and health care. He likes it that way — most of those customers take body art very seriously, meticulously planning what they would like to get and where.
“The newer thing is to have a tattoo,” he said. “Society just need to be more accepting of it.”
Being in the field for more than 25 years, he’s seen a dramatic shift in the kind of clients he gets. He’s owned Tat-2-U in Lima for about 10 years, but had previously owned a shop in Seattle.
“I’ve seen it go from sailors … to professionals,” he said.
Aversion to tattoos, piercings still remain
Angela Wilbert, who mostly has had good feedback from her tongue piercing, once had an informal marketing meeting that left a bad taste in her mouth.
A marketing man said he may have a job opportunity for her at a bank, and could set up an interview. But he had a caveat.
“You have to take out the tongue ring,” he told her.
“I was floored,” said Wilbert, 34, of Lima, who does freelance writing. “It wasn’t in his place to say something to me about my tongue ring.”
Normally, she would have taken it out for an interview, she said. But because this was more informal, she made the decision to leave it in. She had the piercing for years in early adulthood, but had taken it out and had gotten it re-pierced when she was 30. She said she made her own decision, and it’s not easily noticeable.
“No one outside of that ever said anything to me,” she said.
Dickson said the most important thing for young people to do if they decide to get a piercing or tattoo, is to do research about potential companies where they’d like to work someday. Others make decisions on where they work based on whether they have tattoos.
“People set decisions,” Dickson said. They may say: “My piercings are part of my identity and who I am, and if they don’t want to hire me, based on this on this industry, then that’s probably the industry I don’t want to be working in.”
Disney still has a No Facial Hair policy (except at Euro Disney, where French courts have found that it “violates basic human rights”)
Again... Mistaken assumption that I care.
This is me. This is my life. I'm not living it for you...
100 Percent agree.
Long hair was popular in the 1970s for teens, early 20s. As was drugs and the drinking age was only 18 then too. But I don't remember the losers I knew in High school getting tattoos though. This seems to have cropped up more recently than that, maybe like the popularity of gays.
At least when you outgrow long hair its easy to cut.
A young woman OK looking working sales at a Fitness Center here (I occasionally go to) had a ring appear in her cheek recently. Disgusting looking.
He just turned 78 and the tats are over 50 years old. They are unrecognizable as anything other than ugly blue blobs.
Any parent wanting to tell their teenagers they should not get tats is welcome to bring the kids over here and let them see Mr,Ditters’.
Fair or not, they convey a message of low class.
It’s neither “ceremonious” nor “moral” they are God’s Written Commands.....you know the written ones of which Jesus stated that not one letter or one stroke of God’s Written Commands will pass until the heavens and earth are gone and everything is accomplished.
Well for starters, not everything has been accomplished. Not according to the teachings of Jesus nor any prophet. There’s still a lot that needs to be accomplished. And the heavens and earth are still in existence.
Therein your above statement lays the buffet-line logic of paulinism/christianity.....taking the dessert and leaving the meal. That is the modus operandi of christianity: keep a version of the Ten Commandments throw in the homosexuality provision sprinkle in some Pauline non-biblical rules & regulations and you end up with a concoction that was never taught by Jesus nor the original Jerusalem Jesus Movement.
You also end up with a severe lack of basic understanding of the founding document by which Jesus taught from.
My guy has 5 tats. One on his calf, one on each shoulder blade and one on each bicep, all based on the work of his favorite artist/writer. Of course, the only way to see them all is if he is wearing shorts and a wife heater, which you would not do in an interview.
I currently have no tats, but have a couple I am considering.
Get smart lady, and forgo the tats; they are disgusting.
“I’m not hiring some side show freak to represent my company.”
I don't have any tats myself and never expect to get one, but I withhold judgment of those who have them. I've known too many good people with ink to do otherwise.
Merchant marine deck officers and engineering officers mostly certainly are sir.
Can somebody explain to me why so many people get those nose studs in the crease of their nostril that look exactly like an infected whitehead?
AMEN brother! I'll never understand the appeal of the damn things. Of course, I'm probably older than dirt anymore.
More employers need to filter out the freak show wannabes.
Nothing turns my stomach more that some food server with one of those booger dripping nose rings handing over my food.
While anyone is free to do what they want to their body, I should also be free to be disgusted with them and not want to have them around.
The one way street of tolerance has got to stop and those of us with better taste need our values to receive as much acceptance as those who want to push the civilized behavior envelope.
Piercing and tattoos speak volumes about a person’s ability to make life choices and if I am going to employ someone I want those who make better decisions and YES there are many who have not mangled what God created.
So are the commands to sacrifice on the alter God's commands. Do you sacrifice bulls and goats on a regular basis How about Turtle doves? If not, then on what basis do you rationalize your "buffet-line logic"? And if you don't believe the book authored by the Apostle Paul are God-Breathed scripture then we have no common basis from which to discuss theology.
“They have no choice, whole world is pierced or tattooed...”
I’m involved with a ministry that trains and sends missionaries into Papau New Guinea, among other remote places. The ministry takes the Christian gospel to isolated people groups who have never even heard the name of Christ before, places where cannibalism remains a threat.
I’m regularly struck that a segment of modern America looks like the pagan tribesmen from Papau New Guinea. They have colorful tattoos, stretched earlobes, holes through their noses, crazy hair, and heaven only knows what else. By and large those things are gradually left behind once a society becomes educated and “Christianized.” We live in a post-Christian nation that is rapidly abandoning the cultural norms of civilized Western nations. We are devolving as a people in large measure because Christianity is under assault.
I think that's it right there. Our acquaintance brent isn't coming from a position of Christian orthodoxy.
The apostate mainline churches no longer believe it either. They began to doubt the Bible in the early 1900’s. Today they not only accept, but promote all manner of moral depravity.
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