Stop looking at my lip
By: Andrea Noble
Issue date: 4/14/04 Section: Opinion/Editorial
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While meeting with prospective future employers on my search for an internship this summer, I often find that their eyes don't immediately meet mine. Instead, they linger a bit farther south. They're staring at my lip ring.
Now, I've browsed through all those "How to ace an interview" Web sites and I know that for appearances' sake I'm supposed to take the thing out, but something always stops me from doing it. When I glance in the mirror on my way out the door, I hesitate and think about running to my toolbox for my pliers to remove it, but then I just say "screw it."
I've had my lip pierced for four years. I don't even feel it anymore. It feels weirder when I take the ring out than when I have it in. It isn't so much a fashion statement as it is a part of me. It's the same way many people feel about their tattoos.
Employers have given me plenty of reasons for why they don't want me to keep my piercing in for work. I've been told that it will scare off customers and that it's intimidating and unprofessional. I've also been told that as a reporter I will have a harder time getting sources to talk to me.
First off, I've never met anyone who has said they were afraid to go into a business because the employees working there had piercings or tattoos. Customers are hesitant to approach employees who look angry or have a curt manner. Comfort around employees has more to do with the way they carry themselves than what they look like.
I scoff at the person who is intimidated by me because I have a lip ring. I'm a five-foot-four 21-year old woman. There are plenty of other reasons why I could be intimidating, but is having a piercing really all it takes?
As far as being unprofessional goes, smacking my gum or answering a cell phone call during an interview is unprofessional. But keeping my lip ring in during one? I don't quite understand.
I call it a self-fulfilling prophecy. Most people getting pierced today are adolescents, and due to restrictions in the workplace, very few are allowed to keep their piercings past that period of their lives. Therefore, few professionals have piercings and hence, piercings become associated with young people.
Of course piercings are never going to be deemed appropriate in the professional working world if they are always associated with adolescent rebellion.
As far as my lip ring goes in making it harder to get sources to talk to me as a reporter, it hasn't yet. I can see how there may be some truth in this, but as a reporter I know that there are people out there who just don't want to talk to me.
Part of the job description is coaxing hesitant sources into spilling what they know. People are more inquisitive of than intimidated by my lip ring.
I'm forever fielding questions about how much it hurt or why I "did that to myself." It actually happens to be a good conversation starter.
What is a piercing again? It's a piece of jewelry, plain and simple. It's an evolution of the earring. So why does it offend people so much? If I tire of my lip ring and decide to take it out one day, so be it. I just don't want to have to take it out to make society feel more comfortable around me.
