Self Opression

Warning! Absolutely unimportant, nonsensical, thinking out loud type rant ahead:My parents do not have any tattoos or piercings. They are clean cut, hard working people that have paid their dues and are now, hopefully, enjoying retirement. I, on the other hand, am tattooed and pierced and still part of the workforce.My parents didn’t want me to grow my hair long or get tattooed or pierced or anything that they likely grew up believing was trashy or would limit career potential and such. I get it. I did some of the same with my own children, to an extent.When I first thought I wanted to look or dress different than I’d been told too, I’d guess somewhere around 11 or 12 years old, that’s when it started. My self induced oppression and censorship. Parents, school, church, society….there is always someone looking, always making judgement, always labeling. So, you bide your time. You think to yourself, someday….I just gotta get through this stage and then I can be myself. For most of us we quickly discover that is not the case and we are faced with a horrible decision; be myself or pay the bills.At 18 I joined the military. They shaved my head, dressed me like everybody else and imposed rules and regulations of how I should look when representing them. I did that shit for 7 years, sometimes pushing the limits of how long my hair was or taking long enough leave to make sure I could get the vampire red out of my hair before returning to duty.After the military I worked at an oil refinery for some three years. Dirty, filthy, often dangerous and backbreaking work but it paid okay and they didn’t give two shits what I looked like. So, for a few years I had long hair and wore facial piercings; I was myself. Yet, among all the roughnecks I worked with there was still that handful of ignorant, close minded, self righteous, greater than thou pricks that had to open their pie holes. Actually, I don’t mind questioning. Some of you might remember my social experiments I conducted a few years back. I welcome and encourage questions. It’s the unnecessary criticism that gets my shorts in a knot. I know, I know, if you’re going to do things that attract attention you ought to be prepared to receive attention. That is absolutely true and I would tell someone else the same thing. Still, what is it about “different” that attracts mouth breathing morons? After my stint at the refinery I hired on with a law enforcement agency where I have been employed for the last sixteen years. I am in a fair sized community in the Midwest that is surrounded by rural communities and farmland in every direction. As you can imagine, hair had to be cut, piercings removed and at one point there was a threat of tattoos needing to be covered. I can tell you as a larger guy who is generally uncomfortable in anything more than shorts and a t-shirt if it’s above 70 degrees….that would have sucked had it come to pass. Luckily the tattoo policy in place is one I consider to be fair and takes each person’s tattoos into individual consideration. If there was anything deemed to be distasteful, or promoting of something unethical or immoral you could be asked to cover it. I’m cool with that. I get it, we deal with the public, much of which, still, doesn’t understand the culture around tattoos and such. I do however wish the wording of this particular tidbit would change: Any large amount of tattooing in one area of the body (sleeves) or tattoos covering a large part of the visible body is not reflective of the positive image of (my agency) and shall be covered. Okay, was it really necessary to say that this is not reflective of a positive image? Could that not have simply said “is not allowed and shall be covered” instead of putting someone’s opinion of what may or may not be considered a positive image?So, I have a friend, then a lieutenant with my agency, ask me about what I found appealing about body art in general. I explained to her my thoughts and reasoning. The conversation went very well until we reached what I considered a debatable point. She essentially said that my reasons for enjoying body art and modifications was contradictory to what I was doing for a living and that I was now a conformist. A conformist? What the fuck? So, that turned into a back and forth where neither of us could agree with the other and we just agreed to disagree. Still, let’s look at some definitions.

Conform: to behave according to a group’s usual standards and expectations, or to operate according to a rule

Sacrifice: an act of giving up something valued for the sake of something else regarded as more important or worthy.

So sure, I guess I can agree that for the hours of the day in which I represent my employer I am conforming to their rules but what about when I’m not representing them? Many of the policies affect an individual while off duty also. There are things I cannot do because it would be impractical or impossible to undue them before going back on duty. That, I feel, is a sacrifice. It is more important to me to remain employed for my family’s sake than it is to be able to express myself through, for example, body art and make less somewhere else. Now, keep in mind, this isn’t just about things we add to our bodies. Many employers, including mine, have facial hair policies. I am not allowed, unless in a specialized position, to grow a beard. I can grow a mustache, albeit a very specific and regulated style of mustache, but that’s the extent of facial hair creativity I’m allowed. I’ve been told facial hair beyond a mustache can interfere with gas masks and S.C.B.A. (self contained breathing apparatus) systems. So, let’s see what OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) has to say:Question: If an employee with a neatly trimmed goatee is wearing a respirator and it does not interfere with the seal of the face piece or valve function, and has passed a fit test, does this meet the intent of the OSHA’s Respiratory Protection standard?Response: The Respiratory Protection standard, paragraph 29 CFR 1910.134(g)(1)(i)(A), states that respirators shall not be worn when facial hair comes between the sealing surface of the face-piece and the face or that interferes with valve function. Facial hair is allowed as long as it does not protrude under the respirator seal, or extend far enough to interfere with the device’s valve function. Short mustaches, sideburns, and small goatees that are neatly trimmed so that no hair compromises the seal of the respirator usually do not present a hazard and, therefore, do not violate paragraph 1910.134(g)(1)(i).Okay, to be fair, the answer goes on to say: In general, however, beards present serious problems for tight-fitting face-piece respirators because their texture and density vary daily, causing unreliable respirator fit and, therefore, present a higher potential for leakage. However, some other types of respirators do not require a face seal, and thus, usually can be worn with facial hair, such as loose fitting powered air-purifying respirators and hooded powered air-purifying respirators.So we see that, if we are dealing primarily with, as the question above suggested, a neatly trimmed goatee, there would not be any issues so long as the facial hair does not interfere with the fit and seal of the device being worn. A stipulation I think is reasonable and easily addressed.Chances are, if you are in a position where you are not allowed to grow even a neatly trimmed goatee it’s because A) someone higher in the food chain than you believes it to be an “unprofessional” look and/or B) they don’t want to deal with having to define and then police what a neatly trimmed goatee should look like. I get it, a gargantuan task because we all know that person that won’t keep it trimmed properly, has never introduced their uniform to an iron or ensured their equipment is in good repair at all times. That requires a little forethought and dedication to duty outside of normal work hours and by God, if we ain’t getting paid for it we ain’t doing it right? You know who you are, you just rolled your eyes and looked away for a moment like as if you were going to turn around and see a bunch of coworkers standing around you with arms crossed looking right at you. You twat faced wanker.My particular employer has some other policies in place that I’m sure are very similar to others out there. For example, while in uniform, employees who would normally be allowed to wear earrings may wear a single pair of matched post style earrings (one in each ear). It goes on to say that the earring cannot extend below the bottom of the earlobe and that they may only be worn in the ear. Male employees, while on duty or in uniform, are prohibited from wearing earrings or visible body piercings.So, this is clearly in place to stay within what are, in my opinion, antiquated societal norms. Since women are allowed to wear post style earrings and men are not, we can assume this has nothing to do with safety issues or concern for earlobes.Everything I’ve been going on about so far are physical traits but what about things I want to say, thoughts I want to share? Nope, gotta be careful there too. Mind your tongue boy or we’ll rip it from your throat. I’m all about peaceful interactions with everyone but when did telling someone to go fuck themselves become such an international incident? Y’know, if someone flips me off while driving, regardless of whether I feel I deserved it or not, I will always appreciate their attempt to communicate their dissatisfaction with whatever I did. I’m not gonna dwell on it, I’m not gonna cry about it, I’m damn sure not gonna lose any sleep over it and I’m certainly not calling 911 to fucking report it. Look, I agree that we can all stand to be a little more sensitive to others at times but you know what…if you went through all the trouble to earn yourself a nice tall glass of shut the fuck up then I ought to be allowed to serve it to you with a smile. I know, all this falls under “if you don’t like it, leave…go somewhere else”. If that’s all you got out of this, you missed the point and fuck you very much.