Ask a Manager: Changing Your Appearance

[minoanmiss]

Cut for length.

http://www.askamanager.org/2012/06/is-experimenting-with-your-appearance-unprofessional.html

A reader writes:

For the most part, I’m pretty conservative. Lately, I’ve had the urge to experiment a bit with my hair. When I was hired at my current job, it was shoulder-length and brown. A few months ago, I cut it fairly short and colored it red (auburn red, not, you know, clown red). Last week I cut it again, shorter than the first time, and colored it dusty blonde. I always wear little to no makeup and mild jewelry.

My supervisor spoke to me after this latest cut and said that she’s concerned about the changes. At first, she said a few vague things about the dress code, but couldn’t cite any specific language that applied to me. (I checked and all it says is no visible tattoos or unusual piercings, plus our uniform, which I always wear). But the supervisor claimed I was not being professional and our customers would be upset by the change.

This is a retail job and it’s not like I plan to be here forever anyway. And I hardly think the customers are upset; a lot have even complimented me. But I wonder if you agree that it’s unprofessional to make changes in your appearance. I could see if I showed up with Effie Trinket hair and Goth makeup, but I never would have thought that coloring my hair a standard color or changing the length would cause a problem. If I decided to change my look again later when I’m working in an office setting, would it really be seen as improper?

It’s not unprofessional. As long as you’re staying with colors found in nature, and hairstyles reasonably within the mainstream, changing it really isn’t unprofessional, and I’d love to hear more about your manager’s reasoning. It actually sounds like it’s the frequency of the changes that she objects to, and not the changes themselves, but I can’t come up with a good defense of her position. (Can anyone else? I’d be interested in hearing this argued.)

That said, as your manager, she’s allowed to make silly judgments like this, and you have to decide if you’re willing to comply with them or risk your job by ignoring them.

P.S. Also, I’m jealous. I never experiment with my hair and want to.

Comments

[azurelunatic]

I am moderately faceblind. It presents difficulties for me when someone who I am supposed to recognize changes their appearance, especially drastically.

They're also the sort of difficulty that I can get around, and adjust to, especially if someone tells me, "BTW, Effie changed her hair, and here's a picture of how it looks now."

[naath]

I also find people a bit hard to recognize with different hair... but I don't expect to recognize the staff in a shop where I am a customer! Maybe the manager is projecting her difficulties with race recognition onto the customers?

[amadi]

This seems like a manager projecting her insecurities about her appearance or her anger that she can't follow suit because corporate higher-ups demand conservative approaches to personal appearance from management. There's no reason to say a word to an employee whose appearance doesn't run afoul of corporate policy.

[cereta]

I'm just going to be glad that my job doesn't mind me getting pink highlights or piercing my nose.

But yeah, this seems like an odd situation.

[vass]

Yeah, that's weird in a bad way.

[likeaduck]

"That said, as your manager, she’s allowed to make silly judgments like this..."

Um, what?

[minoanmiss]

Yeah, that more than anything else was why I posted this. Being a manager isn't a license to jerk one's employees around.... or at least it shouldn't be.

[madripoor_rose]

The only thing I can think is that the manager thinks she's trying to duck complaints of the "I was in Tuesday afternoon and there was a blonde at the desk who...."