One Chance, One Life. So Get A Job!!

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Ok, I know I said today would be a BMEBoys day, but I can’t seem to find these two guys on IAM, I’m going to post them anyway as I’m sure someone will recognise them!

Second photo after the break..

Tattoo on Cory by Mark Brettrager, Rising Tide Tattoo, Newark, Ohio.

“Poland is a crazy country!! People here don’t understand that if you have piercings or tattoos you’re a normal person. I am twenty years old and I cant find a job in my city because of how I look.”

I know how he feels in a way as I’ve lost a job due to my piercings (although they really were being unreasonable and I wasn’t willing to let them get away with such ignorance, but I’ll save that story for another day). Personally though I’d much rather sacrifice a job if it meant I could be myself and find employment in an atmosphere that made me happy. If an employer can’t look past physical appearance and are incapable of basing their decision on your skills, experience and personality, it’s likely they’re not worth working for anyway.

Just don’t wear a t-shirt like that to the interview. Kthx

89 thoughts on “One Chance, One Life. So Get A Job!!”

  1. Well he fails to mention any qualifications he has, or work experience. Maybe relying on the ideology that predujice is killing his career is a bad idea when the fault could lay some place else…

  2. i love the chin script. very nicely balanced.

    haha roo. that shirt call actually made me lol

  3. Yay for BME Boys day! You know ill be checking back to enjoy all the eye candy!

    That sucks not being able to find a job I had to dye my hair back to my natural hair color (brown) ,hold back on getting the facial piercings I wanted and not stretch my ears any farther beacuse I couldnt find a job, now I have a good job but I had to sacrifice all those things which sucks.

  4. Grant H – Granted, but I don’t think he was planning on using this post (because he didn’t know it would appear on ModBlog) to get a job 🙂

    I agree with your second point, too. I know a lot of people who blame employers for judging their modifications when I know full well (and so do they) that they just aren’t qualified. It’s an easy way out I suppose.

  5. Now these are the pictures on Modblog that I like to wake up to. 🙂

    It’s not only overseas, around where I live is getting more and more stict on their body modification policies. I haven’t been able to obtain actual employment for almost six months now, and have actually had people refuse to give me applications because “they’re not going to waste their time on a tattooed chick”, Regardless of the fact that I have plenty of job experience and customer service certifications.

    Jerks.

  6. I’m from Poland and yes, this is true. Some of my friends had trouble finding jobs due to their appearance. Generally Poland is a crazy country, not only due to the abnormal behavior when it comes to body modifications 🙂

  7. Oh, that’s beautiful. I love the guy’s piercings.

    I’m going into the political science field, and with the amount of tattoos I have planned, I don’t know who’s gonna hire me.

  8. ohhhh BME boy dayyy; it’s started out gooood&& i have a feeeling today is gonna be a good dayyy here on modblog :]

  9. hmmm. this brings up an interesting point. I feel as a community we need to start or continue working our asses off just to show the “normal” people what its all about. Personally, id much rather work a job with a high discrimination against people that have tattoos or piercing, just because i know i dont fuck around when it comes to work, hard work and determination will ultimately prevail. If we all stick with putting 110% of ourselves and what we do, our problems will be solved once we take our boss’s job! But like every other aspect of life i guess there will be slackers, and over achievers. anyone remember the skullboy interview? dude was sad because he couldn’t be a manager at mcdonalds. he stands out so much with his mods, if he only tried harder, i bet he could open a lot more peoples minds… but hey apparently the montreal punks are not into that sort of thing…

  10. hmmm. this brings up an interesting point. I feel as a community we need to start or continue working our asses off just to show the “normal” people what its all about. Personally, id much rather work a job with a high discrimination against people that have tattoos or piercing, just because i know i dont fuck around when it comes to work, hard work and determination will ultimately prevail. If we all stick with putting 110% of ourselves and what we do, our problems will be solved once we take our boss’s job! But like every other aspect of life i guess there will be slackers, and over achievers. anyone remember the skullboy interview? dude was sad because he couldn’t be a manager at mcdonalds. he stands out so much with his mods, if he only tried harder, i bet he could open a lot more peoples minds… but hey apparently the montreal punks are not into that sort of thing… hmmm or maybe they are and i dont know yet… generalization is a bitch ain’t it?

  11. ohh they are both so cute.
    i love the script on the chin,
    and he lives by me!!
    how could i have missed him around?

  14. “just because i know i dont fuck around when it comes to work, hard work and determination will ultimately prevail.”

    I wish that were always the case, unfortunately if there’s one person relatively high up in the company that takes a dislike to your modifications, and they have sway with the owners, it’s usually either you or them (the person with the gripe), and in my experience it’s rarely you.

    That can’t be said for all companies of course!

    “sorry about the double post!”

    You’re fired.

  15. I’m glad I work at a place where all of my managers and coworkers are covered in tattoos and have piercings. If I worked somewhere where that wasn’t allowed–wow. I would cease to exist.

  16. ygor, have you considered emigrating to a more liberal country like the uk? its much easier to get work with heavy piercing mods over here, i was speaking to a polish chef in the pub the other day who did just that.

  17. Ever heard the old saying “sometimes you have to go along, to get along”? My piercings come out for work, my tats can be hidden, and I refrain from suspending from the ceiling of my office. All in a day’s work.

  19. I wish I could be in the place to willingly refuse a job that wants me to remove my piercings/cover my tattoos, but given where I am in my life (still working entry-level shit, trying to build an actual job history, moving out soon) I don’t have that luxury. I’ve taken out/covered up my mods on more than one occasion for a job mainly because just because my mods aren’t there, doesn’t mean I’m not still me.

    But I am waiting to hear from two places, one of which seems pretty lax on mods. Excitement 🙂

    (ps: love the ‘Get a Job’ shirt)

  21. i’m from Poland too and also have problems to get a job 🙁
    even if i don’t have any facial/hand tattoos, implants etc. – septum and bridge piercings are “too much” for most people…

  23. when i lived in france i was often confronted to the “you have holes in your face, surely you have holes in your brain” mentality. then again, in france, if your name is samir, odds are an employer will throw your cv in the rubbish bin assuming you’re a car burning drug dealer from the ghettos. such a sad, sad world.

  24. oooh i know how he feels.

    its nearly impossible for me to get a job now i have my stars on my face, the labret and nose ring didn’t do much to help before hand.

    Roo, i so wish more people were open to that line of thinking, any time i tell the job centre i want to be me no matter what job i get, they tell me beggers cannot be choosers and the piercings “must go” pfft. no ta.

  25. how i understand that…thank god i found a job where i don’t need to take off my piercings and cover my tattoo…a callcenter xD…heaven for modified people in portugal…

    but i’m still worried about it, i’m in a psychology university. Although we have many modified people in there, i see many older students taking of their piercings and covering up their tattoos…i know it’s a tough job for modified, but i have hope that when i graduate people will be more reasonable ^^

    loved the chin, but i want to see the head tattoo :/..if you find their IAM post them please…and i’m still waiting for more BMEboys…or it will be a really sad day for me -_-º

    sorry for the bad english xD

    p.s:move to portugal..we’re more friendly here

  27. Helllloooo! That guy is hot as hell. Seriously, wow.

    On the job note, I’m on the verge of losing my job because I’ve been sick a lot, and if I do, I don’t know where i’ll work. Even in San Francisco its hard to get a good paying job with mods.
    And i’ll be damned if I work on haight street. Fuckkk that.

  30. And Im from Poland as some of you guys, and Im visibly tattooed and didnt have any problems with finding a job. If you’ve got the skills you can find a job and Im really kinda bored with all that “Poland is sooo crazy”. Ok, it is, but its also up to us, all bodmoded polish guys to change it.
    But still, if you feel that bad and misunderstood, listen to #16, and just leave Poland. Find amazingly easy, amazingly nice job where nobody cares if you are or not bodmoded.

  31. As much as I want to side with my fellow modders on the side of job security you do have to take into account the rest of your life when you visibly mod yourself. it’s a decision that affects how you are viewed on all fronts, professionally as well as socialy. you have a choice to be you and a responsibility to be true to yourself, but at the same time that company has no reason to demean it’s own rules and guidelines. if you willingly make the decision to wear jewelry on your face and tattoo your hands or scalp, you also have to willingly take all the bs paranoia and attitude you get for having done so. they’re douches for not being accepting, but you cant blame them for not hiring you if you dont fit what they want. make sure your career will allow you to keep any such mods you make before you make them. spiritual independence and self image are great, but they dont pay your rent or move you out of your parent’s house.

  33. look. i dont mean to sound mean spirited and im sure its going to come off that way. but. i have hand tattoos stretched lobes… lets just say i have a good amount of visible work. has anyone thought about this kind of thing before getting work done? its like i when i see kids that are 17 years old with 2 inch lobes. are you seriously that delusional to think that life will just provide? it wont. you have to honestly sometimes factor what you want with what is reasonable or what is practical. or god forbide develop a personality that stands out more than any visible mods. your apparence will dictate what you can and cant do to some degree, always. how about we start pooling together. you want to work in an enviroment that is mod friendly? start a business and hire modded people that are qualified. or wait till youre established in a career or trade to the pint where you can do what ever you want because you’re that good at it. i mean dont get me wrong. i used to bitch and moan all the time that i wasnt getting ahead because i was black and bosses were racist or whatever bullshit i was thinking at the time. than the best thing ever happened. i had a friend tell me people are racist and they do care about apparences, but it doesnt help that youre an impossible asshole to deal with on top of that. so if you have a piss poor attitude and think the worlds out to get you and fuck the world is your attitude. than race and mods arent the problem. sorry this is super long and kind of rantish. not to mention im not spell checking it… but yeah. just my two cents after years of seeing snotty shit assed attitude having kids coming in and complaining about how lame “plain skins” were. and shit like that.

  37. I love that shirt also

    maybe I’m just lucky but I have a career for life, plus a few jobs spots if I ever want to leave this one…

    I’m visibly modded. Even before I was modded I was the kind of guy that always kinda stuck out. I’m also a drop-out, and I have no intentions of really going back to school either, unless it is something I just want to know for myself.

    soooooo anyways, I don’t look good on paper. I also physically look unappealing to a lot of people. Then why do I have an awesome job,(machinist, I can make my own jewelry on my spare time, they love it 😉 with an awesome boss and people who want me work for them? It’s all in who you know. I came to that conclusion in school. It doesnt matter who you are or what you know. If you they like you, they will hire you. I never wanted to be a job application or a name tag… 95% of my friends are not modded. Being nice to everyone, socializing, meeting people, networking, letting people know your looking for a job or some extra work, show some interest, show some respect.

    I’m not trying to be an ass. But seriously… being nice, and helping out, shows more than you think. Helping someone with yardwork(and doing a good job) for an afternoon can turn into a job oppurtunity for something completely different that surpasses an application, an interview, and the marks and holes in your skin.

    Peace. sorry for the rambling

  38. yes. our little crazy country. i will not lost a chance to escape from it. i’ve got my job only beacause my boss thinks that my tunnels are “normal” piercing, and there are no holes but mirrors Oo

  41. Everyone knows piercings and tattos make you an unemployable shmuck with no personality…

    Any tattooed person who says they have skills and talent are quite clearly lying!

    (…Ahem! Sarcasm incase anyone thinks otherwise….)

  42. I hate to break it to you, but people are not inclined to hire 20 year olds regardless of the funny looking things in and on their face.

  43. But it’s not always up to your boss – if you work with customers e.g. in a bank or any other place where you have contact with different people you also must accept that they won’t tolerate your facial piercings especially if they are 90 years old (I’m talking about Poland and our society). People need some time so all we can do is fight for ourselves but still no rush.

  45. I don’t have a problem with people turning people down for jobs if management consider their appearance unsuitable. They have every right to do so, since they are hiring what are essentially representatives of their business, who should give a certain image of the company by their attire.

    However I do have a problem with some modified people that expect to get accepted everywhere, regardless of their image. Maybe they should consider their future career path first before destroying it for the sake of a few holes and a bit of ink? Especially those aged 16-18, because you never know what you want to do at that age 🙂

    I take both my nose studs out, and my labret, every day, but I don’t mind at all because I love my job 🙂 I can be me in my own time, and me looking really smart during work time 😀

  46. Everything in moderation. Tattoos on faces is completely stupid for employment, as is heavy amounts of facial piercings. Personally I’m stretching my ears in future but won’t go above 3/4 inch, to stay within cultural boundaries. If somone has really obvious body mods, it’s still seen as pretty confrontational in most places.

  47. ***grope***

    i work in a resteraunt and i have quite afew visible piercings – 2x nostrils 12mm tunnels in both ears a vertical labret and venom tongue piercings.. most of my customers get a kick out of it or jsut ask me why? how? does it hurt?. but i did get most of the mods after i had been working there a whilenow mu boss isnt really fussed but if i have my septum showing he throws a hissy fit.

  48. I’m so very lucky and grateful to have a job where my employers don’t care about my mods as WELL as being a job I love. It doesn’t pay well, I’m not going to be there forever, but for now I’m very happy indeed

  49. man that reminds me of when recently i was at a job interview and was asked if i would take my nostril ring out for work (all other piercings were removed for said interview). i made the comment that i didn’t think my abilities should be based on my appearance, that my work should speak for itself. i was met with one of the rudest comments i’ve heard to date “Well that’d be nice if we lived in Disneyland but we live in the real world where people judge people on their apperances.” needless to say i didn’t want to work for a woman with views like that.

  51. Sometimes a person has to make some sacrifices in order to get a paycheck. I’d love to have full sleeves tattooed and multiple facial piercings but I won’t because I know how it’ll affect my professional image. I dream of a day when people can do what they want to their bodies and not be judged by it, but unfortunately that’s not the world we live in, and bitching about other people’s closemindedness when you’ve deliberately chosen to go against the norms of society in general isn’t going to do a damn thing to change the way people think. Prioritize.

  52. “yes. our little crazy country. i will not lost a chance to escape from it. i’ve got my job only beacause my boss thinks that my tunnels are “normal” piercing, and there are no holes but mirrors Oo

    zychu on June 12th, 2008 at 4:51 pm ”

    That made me lol hard! :)) I wish employers here in Romania would be so stupid

  54. Call center can’t be said enough. I work at one that is open to mods and many of them are. A few here are more ‘business’ is business and mods are professional (even if nobody sees you cause you’re on a phone). I think they do it to keep everyone thinking they are special to work at a professional level. Most call centers here are happy if you are competant and show up to work.

  55. A few here are more ‘business’ is business and mods are **un**professional (even if nobody sees you cause you’re on a phone).

    Yeah, I typoed it. 😛

  56. Haha I don’t know what amuses me more: the people who don’t get “the mods that they really want” because of the job potentials, or the people that think they’re getting away with ‘being modded and working” while they rock 00g ears and a tiny labret.

    I think mods are a copout. You’re not jobless because of your piercings/tattoos. And if you are, clearly you’re only applying at the bottom of the barrel places that can be picky as all hell. Once you have some qualifications and can stand on your own feet “mods” don’t mean shit all. You just need to learn how to sell yourself PAST your physical appearance. Yeah, you might be getting more static because of how you look, but that’s part of the package. Step up or sit out, seriously.

  57. If anyone culey with retail work in brissy Australia wants a part time job in a few months ,emale me.. Facial tats etc don’t matter as long as your not an idiot 😀

  61. Kinda like sweden then..And if they want to hire you even if you’ve got mods they almost always tell you to take them out or wear retainers.

  62. One of my bst mates has ‘One Life One Chance’ tattooed on his wrists, but I love it in that placement.
    I swear to god I will find that boy and steal his sex.

  65. I really like the script on the that boy’s jaw. And he has a really cute chin.
    The other boy is cute, too.
    I live in Spain, and have nothing visible, but no one will hire me ’cause I am American. I speak Spanish perfectly, but they don’t care.

  68. “Once you have some qualifications and can stand on your own feet “mods” don’t mean shit all. You just need to learn how to sell yourself PAST your physical appearance.”-nyne
    But even if you’re qualified and suitable for a certain job, there most likely are at least few other applicants that are about as qualified as you are and are not visibly modded. Guess who they will most likely choose?
    But I do agree that visibly modded people need to take more time to learn how to sell themselves, network etc.

    The boys and their mods are yummy <3.

  69. Love the facial work! Very bold, to take that step forwards like you have is re-assuring to say the least, I have my eyebrows, chin, sideburns, beside my eyes, side of my head tattooed and I can safely say I am one very happy satisfied person. The tattoo’s I see every day in the mirror remind me of how I overcame ‘fitting’ in to what everyone told me I should be.

  70. I know that is very non-specific, but that is the basics of how I feel, in all honesty I am 30 now, I am a piercer and also a qualified sheet metal fabricator, if you are struggling with direction just come over to australia and do a trade, we need more qualified people, no matter what they look like!

  71. I really like the script it would have been nice to see a front side shot of his face as well, very cool facial work,the only thing he needs now is more ink on his face haha.

  73. I feel it’s not always the mods themselves that create this image to employers, but to the crowd it associates you to. In my area at least (huge generalizing here) there are many pierced teenagers, and high schoolers who have no strive for work ethics and bring down the community. Unfortunate as it is, these are those who take mods as a trend and I believe that is true with a lot of individuals that I know. Employers then judge and categorize others who look similar in a negative manner. Thats why I work harder and go the extra distance to be kind and helpful both at the workplace and in public. Not because I feel I have to, not at all, but because I want to give off a better image for myself and those who take mods seriously.

  74. i could side with the “you know how it works, deal with it” argument as much as could side with the “mods affect neither intelligence nor personality so maybe the rest of the world should open the triple bolted doors their minds are behind” theory. but when it comes down to it, i, as someone who very much expects to be a Director of IT one day, would RATHER hire modders (who are qualified) because, well, they are stereotypically some of the most open-minded people in the world, and life experience often counts just as much as work experience and school education combined. i am in my last year of college with a very solid resume (with professional experience) and am scared to death to get the mods i want (lots of ink and 1/2-1” lobes) because i really really really like money. i guess it’s all about balance? my ramblings

  75. also, i love all of the first guys facial tats and the guy in the get a job t-shirt has some of the most awesomely-placed & perfectly symmetrical piercings

  76. i completely agree with #31 and #33.

    the only visible mods i have are 0g lobes and a couple of cartilage piercings. i work in government and i am VERY lucky that the atmosphere in my office is kind of casual (it’s a science department)

    i HATE seeing 17 and 18 year olds thinking that they can get 2″ lobes and stars on their faces and that the world is required to accept them and that they are entitled to a job. think again. that isn’t how the world works.

    sure, you can be an idealist and hope that the corporate world will change its ways but right now there are still blacks and asians and even women being unfairly discriminated against in job opportunities and wages, let alone people with giant tattoos or lip plates! let’s take this one step at a time.

    anyway, nobody says you can’t get 1/2 sleeves under your suit, or a fuckload of genital piercings. just hide them when you go to work at World Bank.

  77. I believe the top dude’s name is jason and he plays in a death metal/ hardcore band called “Salt the Wound” from Cleveland. That’s if that really is jason.

  78. I can sympathize with the employers. Before I started in the industry I worked in the back of a lot of restaurants that didn’t even let me enter through the front door. I didn’t complain because I was the one who decided to get my skull tattooed. On the other side of the coin there is a tattoo artist in town that does really nice work, but doesn’t have any visible tattoos. He can’t get a job in my shop no matter how good his work is; I expect my employees to look a certain way and I think any good business person has the right to do the same.

  79. if anyone knows this guys contact i need to know him, hes from the same area code as me which is hard to find lol !!

  82. I have to go with #76 as well.

    Certainly, if you’re stand out and have a resume as long as your arm, eventually mods aren’t a problem, particularly in technical fields.

    That said, at 18, most people aren’t anywhere close to that position. They’re looking for “bottom of the barrel” jobs as someone put it, because that’s where you start. Fresh out of school, you’re one of the herd, and yeah, people discriminate.

    It’s the combination of unhideable mods (particularly face tattoos) with very young that makes me go “hmm. Was that the best idea?” And places I’ve been, it’s THAT association, that “big face work at 18 = doesn’t think ahead” that dooms the applicant, even for those same tech jobs. Not to justify it, but that’s very often the thought process. Just… know you’re joining that battle.

    I do like the script here though. One question = what is the Ohio with 740 in it about? Highway? Area code? (Googling I see it IS the area code now used in the place my neighbor grew up, interesting…)

  84. I just graduated from some prestigious & elitist high school in my country and took up an internship in a bank as “summer job” (yes, I did have an interview with the HR). I was quite surprised that at one of the branches where I had to work, the whole staff, especially the assistant manager, were actually intrigued and then interested by the few visible mods I have (but which are nowhere close to 2″ lobes or stars tattooed on the forehead). I probably got lucky to work with open-minded people, or maybe the name of my school or the way I was doing my job somehow influenced the way they judged me. Even if I intend to gradually increase my mod-count in the near future, I still have some doubts about whether walking out of some law school or having my walls covered with degrees is actually going to speak louder than any visible tattoos. So even if this generation thinks it’s going to bring about some drastic cultural liberation, it should still remember that this is the intermediary stage of the whole reaction. So, no matter how unfair it is, it just can’t assume that individuals aren’t going to be judged by their appearance when they’ll be propelled onto the job market (and consequently I’m admitting that the rest of my family is right! haha!).

  85. Hey everybody, I would just like to say that that is me in the first picture…lol

    I just got sent this link, I didnt even know my pic was being used.

    Just wanted to say whats up to everyone!

  87. I used to work for Motorola. and they had implemented a program called IDE- individual dignity entitlement, and they did not look down on anyone with mods of any type. I worked with people with facial tattoos, piercings, turbans, burka,etc. I think it all depemds on what type of business you work in, and how much you are exposed to the public at large. I personally have no problem with any facial mods ( I have some too), but use common sense, and stick with ones that are hideable, as I did.

  88. OOPS! I misspelled ” depends” above. Nowadays, I drive a school bus, and our district just dropped the restriction on facial mods, but they can only be small or easily hidden. I keep my tongue, septum (retainer), and remove my nostril piercings during work.

  89. i just thought i’d drop this note in (after all this time)

    in england, it is illegal for an employer or potential employer to make you remove piercings or cover tattoos, or to refuse you a job due to your mods unless it is a genuine health and safety risk. i.e. electricals / food

    the law was passed in 2006 i believe.

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