<snip>
Don't assume.
<snip>
And scientists are almost expected to have eccentricities.
While I am eccentric, I'd rather not risk it. Being a physicist is my dream job. I don't want anything to screw it up.
Any tattoo that can be covered up by a T-shirt is safe. No one at work is going to see you without at least a T-shirt on unless they become your friend outside of work. Tats on your hands are not recommended if employment is a concern, however.
I'm afraid for me it's "all or nothing" on this.
Look. I'm not saying that you should change your mind or anything, but if you were doing research in a lab that terminated you, not for a lack of scientific skill, not for lack of quality of work, not for lack of increasing knowledge, but because of how you look and what you wear...is that a place you think you'd be able to actually live your dream of being a scientist?
Sorry - I just find one of the irritating things in society to be the 'form over function' mentality that rears its ugly head in the workforce. Part of the reason why that continues to perpetuate is that people are (often time
rightly mind you for practical reasons, so I'm not slamming you or anything here) afraid to express themselves as
who they are and who they want to be.
And I realize that I'm
really stretching here, and putting it on the same level feels inappropriate, but part of the reason that some 50% of people in the U.S. feel 'threatened' by
atheists is simply ignorance - they make some negative assumptions as to what an 'atheist' is like because they either a) don't know any atheists or b) don't know that they know any atheists. And they have a bad impression. Similarly, some parts of society seems to have some perception that things like overt piercings, lots of tattoos, peculiar hobbies means that they are fringe human beings that cannot be trusted in the same manner as other human beings. Perhaps if they met some of the tat-sporting scientists, the nipple-pierced doctors, the mohawk-sporting engineers, the motorcycle-riding IT managers, they'd realize that, yeah, these people just have facets of their lives that are their 'thing' and it has no bearing in their ability to perform a job function or behave like intelligent, respectable, interesting members of society.
</end from-the-hip-potentially-ill-thought-out rant>