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Veterinary Practice News Editorial Blog:
Friday, January 15, 2010
Long Hair, Revisited
By Katherine Dobbs, RVT, CVPM, PHR
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One of my recent blogs was about the little fella serving an in-school suspension due to the unacceptable length of his hair. Well, I saw an update today. Turns out the school tried to relax its policy but the family won’t budge. The mom did put the little boy’s hair up in a high ponytail (and admitted using gel to keep it up), but that was as far as they would go. The school had agreed to go so far as to allow the hair to be braided, but it still can’t hang below the ears.
During an interview, the mom said she didn’t feel that the hair length was that big of a deal. I wonder what her son thinks, because now for weeks he has had to sit in a room all by himself, supervised by a teacher’s aide. Is it a big deal to him? (He did say, when the story was first reported, that he misses his friends.)
My point in the first blog was that this poor little boy is going to be some manager’s nightmare someday when he wants to express his personal freedom and perform a job where this look won’t allow him to be a success.
If your practice has a clientele that would totally relate to boys with long hair, then there isn’t a problem. But there are plenty of professions where long hair would not be acceptable or favorable for a man. In fact, it’s likely that this little boy won’t make it to being a young man without hitting a wall at some point during his education that demands he cut his hair.
Hair length is just the tip of the iceberg, of course. This discussion can move on to other difficult policies in our practices such as tattoos and piercings. If the clientele of a practice would not appreciate employees who are highly decorated and pierced, then prospective employees have a decision to make: personal expression vs. getting the job they want.
Neither person in this conversation is wrong. The manager or practice owner has every right to demand a certain type of professional appearance. The candidate has every right to have as many visible tattoos and piercings as desired. As long as they don’t want to coexist in the same practice, there is no problem and no one is wrong. Personal expression can live on as long as that practice isn’t signing the paycheck.
So the point was, and still is, that this little boy at some point in his life has to learn that he has to bend to get what he wants, at least some of the time. Although I still doubt his daddy, with the tattoos, piercings and long hair, is going to be the one to teach it to him.
Managers, watch out, this boy will be in the work force in about 14 years!
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