Are tattoos still taboo? Really?

It has been nearly nine years since I have gone on a job interview, so to say the least I was a little nervous when I got an offer yesterday to come up and talk about a job opening later in the afternoon.   Several thoughts raced through my mind.  What if they don’t like me? What if I stick my foot in my mouth? How am I supposed to talk myself up without sounding too cocky?

Oh yeah, I better not forget about this thought:  what about my tattoos?

I thought surely my tattoos would not be an issue, but just in case I made sure to wear a long sleeved jacket to cover my wrists and used a band-aid to cover up the one on my palm.  You know, just in case.  This is 2014 after all…do people really consider tattoos taboo?

I’ll deviate from my point for a moment, just in case you were wondering how my interview went.  It went very well and she was extremely impressed with my skill-set. So, yeah, high five me!  Before I left, she asked if she could call my current manager.  If I got this job it would be an inter-company transfer so, yes of course, call my manager right away!  When I turned in my resignation, a part of me was sad that I would lose the last nine years I had spent with this company, building toward my retirement.  So when this opportunity came along to continue on with them, I felt joy!

Now back to the story: it’s been 24 hours since the interview and I just received a call from my manger; the call is what sparked this post.  He said he spoke with the woman I interviewed with and he went on to confirm everything that I thought yesterday: the interview went great and the hiring manager really like me and was super impressed. High five again! What? Too much? Ok, I’ll stop with the high fiving. Then, toward the end of our conversation he made a comment that made me want to, well, throw up the lunch I had just consumed.

“you might want to consider wearing sleeves.”

What? Did I really just hear that?  I would need to wear sleeves?  To make sure I was understanding him correctly, I took a second then asked if this was about my tattoos, he laughed and said it was.  He went on to explain: the boss of the woman that interviewed me is very old fashioned, wants everyone in a suit (um, ok) and he is not supportive of tattoos or anything of the sort.  There goes the nose ring idea I had…

So, now I come to my dilemma. If I am offered the job, which it sounds like I will be, then I will have to make sure my tattoos are covered so not to upset the big man on campus.  My tattoos are a part of who I am.  Do I give up a part of me, just to continue my tenure with the company? Do I really want to be in an office with such judgmental people?  I lost count around my 12th tattoo, but I know I’m not done yet, not by a long shot.  My tattoos are my story, my passion.  There are enough judgmental people in this world, that I don’t think I should let this type of negativity into my life.  When will people stop the madness and just accept others for who they are?

Boat Bailing Redundancy

I have stayed quiet and out of anything “Hot Button Issue” for a while.  In fact I’ve been trying to come up with some smartass post that you get a nice chuckle over, however I just read an article from my home state’s public health commissioner about wages and their correlation to public health.  Basically it was a huge ad in favor of raising minimum wages.  BAD IDEA! I’ll tell you why.

Any typical business or retailer will tell you exactly where profits go.  I’m going to use an example of your typical mom and pop hardware store, let’s call it George and Gracie’s Hardware.  The process in a sale of a product is actually quite interesting, first George would have to place orders with different manufacturers for tools.  Let’s say he orders a box of 20 hammers.  He pays $50 for them, meaning he paid $2.50 per hammer. The SRP (Suggested retail price) for each hammer is $3.00.  He needs to recoup his money for the hammers and be able to buy more hammers, so he set’s the price for each hammer at $7.00.  I know.  This sounds like a math problem but just stay with me here.

Wikimedia file

You’re probably asking “Why $7.00?”  Because he’s not only going to buy more hammers.  He also has to pay his employees, federal taxes, state taxes, in some cases county and city taxes, employee taxes, electric bill, water bill, health insurance for his employees, advertising, a web page for on-line sales, loan payback and land lease if not rent.  Out of all of that, he can only do so much about each of them to keep costs low.  Now, George and Gracie are doing their best to stay in business, barely scraping by.

Then here comes the State and Federal government raising taxes.  So prices go up, because they can’t afford to lose any employees.  Business starts to slow down because customers can get their tools, in some cases, cheaper at another store.  So now he has cut health insurance just to stay afloat.  Now there’s talk about raising the minimum wage.  The manufacturer of those hammers will also need to raise their prices to pay their employees. He’s got nothing left to do but let people go or raise prices again.  The bigger chain stores because there’s more employees and in multiple states will have an even tougher time with variable local taxes and employment laws.  So prices will rise in those stores as well.    It’s like bailing one end of a sinking boat into the other end.  When will it stop?  When will the government realize that they are not in the business of business?

Do not get me wrong.  I’m not advocating the elimination of minimum wage.  People, for what ever reason, are not understanding that MINIMUM wage is not meant to live off of.  It’s in place to make sure that you get paid something for your work.  typically these positions are filled by teenagers because it’s part-time, they earn their own money, and take that first step towards independence.  The retired senior citizens also take these jobs because they would like to do something other than sit around just collecting a pension or retirement and social security.

However, the workforce has gotten smaller since the last administration and has gotten progressively worse in the current administration.  Leaving engineers and mechanics, programmers, you name it, to find jobs to try to make ends meet.  Pushing the teens out of these jobs.  The only way to reverse any of this is to lower the cost of doing business by getting out of business’ way to grow.  Business growth means more jobs, more jobs mean more tax revenue.

Stop the Insanity!!!

What in the name of  Zeus and all that is holy is going on here???  I swear the world isn’t cracking up…IT’S ALREADY CRACKED!!  I can not believe the amount of insane, NON commonsense crap that is going on in the world!  It’s unnerving.

Case in point; In Afghanistan there were Qu’rans being burned by our military and consequently and very understandably violent protests broke out.   Our answer (and I’m paraphrasing) “Oops! Our bad. It was an accident.”  WHAT? An accident?  Because we were just sitting around and said “Hey there’s some books with extremist inscriptions in them…LET’S HAVE AN OLD FASHIONED NAZI BOOK BURNIN’!!”…idiots.  Now there’s call for a holy war.

Don’t even get me started on the Congress and the President.  He’s had four years, two of them with full control over the house and senate.  what’s his plan to save the economy and jobs?  SPEND, SPEND, SPEND, TAKE, TAKE, TAKE!!! He reminds me of those Patrick memes, “Why don’t we take all the money from the people and put it in the government hands to give back to the people.”   Why not? Corporations wouldn’t be able to pay you but the government will.  OH, and then it was decided that we should pass bills before they were written and as a prerequisite for being an American “citizen”, WE SHOULD BUY HEALTH INSURANCE! Oh, but don’t worry, you don’t HAVE to have it.  You’ll get fined, (imprisoned if you have kids) for NOT having it.  Just like you don’t have to pay taxes if you don’t want but be prepared for some hefty fines if you don’t.

Oh, and the GOP candidates are only a little better.  You got Santorum; who doesn’t seem to understand that a large part of the GOP base is Libertarian who he thinks is dangerous, Romney; who helped author the monstrosity that is Obamacare, so that’s off the table.  Gingrich, who has a ton of balls (good thing) but will have to answer to his past..a lot.  Then there’s Ron Paul.  This man has some AWESOME domestic plans, but his foreign policies are a friggin’ nightmare.  Before you get all upset, hear me out.  I don’t care how we got to this point with the rest of the world, we’re here.  Nothing is going to change the intense desire to wipe us off the face of planet.  By pulling all our troops and bases from around the globe you are practically inviting our enemies to do as they will.  Iran is arming themselves with nukes, and there have been reports that they are working with Venezuela, who, by the way, have the weaponry to reach the US.  All it takes is one to slip through what ever defenses we have.   It’s an arrogant if not blinded way of thinking.

In the state of Minnesota, the Governor just signed a bill into law requiring teachers to pass a basic skills test before they could teach.  Wait, what?  Teachers didn’t already have to pass a skills test?  NO! They could fail it but still get a temporary THREE YEAR license to teach while they work on passing it!  So How long has this crap been going on??!! Have we been undereducated? Why has this NOT been an issue before?? I would think that something like this would have been implemented, oh I don’t know, FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE PUBLIC EDUCATION PROGRAM!!!

This is why I can’t get into politics.  The insanity that you have to go through is just horrible.  I don’t subscribe to the end times theory but I’ll be damned if one of the signs is not abject stupidity.

When I started this post, I really wasn’t looking to get political.  I may actually think twice before publishing it. I have enough crap to deal with in my own life to worry about the rest of the worlds issues.  Which is why I haven’t posted in a while, and why I may not post again.  Then again I might, it may just take me a while.