Employment related question - Dreadlocks

[Kingpatzer]

Would you say the same thing about a black person with fair skin trying to pass themselves off as white? Or a homosexual pretending to be straight?

p.s. Wikipedia on Dreadlocks. In my jurisdiction (Ontario, Canada), discrimination on the basis of religion or ethnicity is illegal. If I wanted to discriminate against someone on the basis of their hair style, I would have to be very certain they grew them to emulate a Death Metal band and not because they venerated Olokun, the Orisha of the Deep Sea. That reference seemed appropriate for a scuba professional!!!

Gaining employment is precisely getting someone to discriminate against every other applicant to your benefit. Those things you can't change (race, gender, religion, etc.) you are not going to change. That doesn't mean they won't be negatives in your trying to get employed. The law can say what it will, but the reality is different. No one will say they didn't hire candidate A and instead hired candidate B for reasons that are protected by law. But when talking about two relatively equally qualified people "candidate B is a better fit" is always defensible.

Creating potential negatives for yourself while seeking employment is foolish.

 

[Sas]

Gaining employment is precisely getting someone to discriminate against every other applicant to your benefit. Those things you can't change (race, gender, religion, etc.) you are not going to change.

Religion you choose. Your race and gender you do not. I think that people should not be allowed to discriminate against someone because of things they cannot change but everything else is fair game.

Personally when I see dreadlocks I think they look dirty, ugly and smelly and they give me the heebie jeebies. There are lots of appearance related things I wouldn't want in an employee just because of the impression it gives customers and me. Like I wouldn't hire this guy: Man has sunglasses 'tattooed on face' or this woman: Elaine Davidson: World’s Most Pierced Woman Right Celebrity. I'd have to look at them all day and it would gross me out.

 

[sibermike7]

Your race and gender you do not. I think that people should not be allowed to discriminate against someone because of things they cannot change but everything else is fair game.

Agree and disagree. If by "should not be allowed" you mean that we need the government to step in and make a law that allows the police to arrest and the "discriminated" to sue an employer because someone didn't get a job at a certain place of employment, I TOTALLY DISAGREE! Some unqualified person will ALWAYS hide behind "discrimination" to FORCE an employer to hire them. That may work in Red China, or Soviet Russia, but it has no part in the Free World (which has become not so free due to these very things!!)

If however by "should not be allowed" you mean, "I ain't a gonna let this kind of thing happen without a fight. I am going to suck it up and not buy from those dirty rotten boozoos down on 5th street that won't hire a woman to make the cafe lattes!" That I TOTALLY agree with!

Personally when I see dreadlocks I think they look dirty, ugly and smelly and they give me the heebie jeebies. There are lots of appearance related things I wouldn't want in an employee just because of the impression it gives customers and me.

There you go!
However, sometimes those "appearance related things" are race related, gender related, etc... I think that an employer in the Private Sector should ALWAYS be FREE to hire whom he (or SHE) feels best fits the job. That is called being a DISCRIMINATING employer (meaning being able to discern good from bad).

As an employer if one customer walks away because of the appearance of my employee, that is one too many! THAT is what many employers think about when hiring.

 

[Reg Braithwaite]

If this is moved this to Wine and Cheese forum, I will respond to some of these posts with free candour. Until then, carry on sharing your notion of "freedom" with each other. Until then, I leave you with a thought. I live at the end of the underground railroad. You live at the start.

 

[saltynay]

Perhaps I should elaborate as this is turning into a very heated discussion that is spiralling away a little from the direct answer I was hoping for.

I have no professional dive experience except for my intern ship which is 8 months long, I have been diving for 7 years, I am 19 year old Caucasian man and I speak the Queens English with a relatively posh accent due to my boarding school background. I have 3 A-levels and 8 AS-levels. I can only speak English fluently but have a very limited knowledge of French and Thai. I am not a Rastafarian or a drug head and nor do I wish to have the hairstyle for those reasons, I want to have it as it seems a suitable method of keeping long hair without it become unruly in the marine environment given sufficient care. I do not have any tattoos however in the future wish to get a large tattoo of the caduceus to cover the majority of my back but this won't be a bog standard tattoo out of a magazine it will be very personal to myself and I have been considering it for 2 years at least.

I am hoping to work around Malaysia/Indonesia/Philippines.

To the individuals interested in how I would have dreadlocks and work. Dreadlocks are not able to form in greazy hair as it is to slippery and would quickly untangle thus it is recommended for people with dreadlocks to use salt water to lock their hair and create clean dry hair. It takes around 6 months for dreadlocks to become established and your hair will naturally grow and continue the dread. When diving I only wear a rash vest and board shorts, so I plan to get a rash vest with a hood to keep my dreads in control and free off any plankton ect. which I have read can be an issue. I have blonde curly hair which is approx 6" long and is naturally slowly dreading itself anyway even though I wash my hair 2 times a day.

I dive with a seacsub pro 2000, mk17/A700 and a suunto vyper with hopefully soon a mares icon HD so I believe I have professional quality and appearance dive gear.

 

[Sas]

Agree and disagree. If by "should not be allowed" you mean that we need the government to step in and make a law that allows the police to arrest and the "discriminated" to sue an employer because someone didn't get a job at a certain place of employment, I TOTALLY DISAGREE! Some unqualified person will ALWAYS hide behind "discrimination" to FORCE an employer to hire them. That may work in Red China, or Soviet Russia, but it has no part in the Free World (which has become not so free due to these very things!!)

If however by "should not be allowed" you mean, "I ain't a gonna let this kind of thing happen without a fight. I am going to suck it up and not buy from those dirty rotten boozoos down on 5th street that won't hire a woman to make the cafe lattes!" That I TOTALLY agree with!


There you go!
However, sometimes those "appearance related things" are race related, gender related, etc... I think that an employer in the Private Sector should ALWAYS be FREE to hire whom he (or SHE) feels best fits the job. That is called being a DISCRIMINATING employer (meaning being able to discern good from bad).

As an employer if one customer walks away because of the appearance of my employee, that is one too many! THAT is what many employers think about when hiring.

It's hard to answer either way to be honest. I see good arguments for both sides. I think that when there is a marginalised group in society that suffers problems with trying to get a job and so forth, they are not going to ever get over that unless there are laws to protect them. People have to be *forced* as such to start treating these groups better and then it becomes just the done thing and accepted and people have forgotten (mostly) that certain groups couldn't get jobs, vote, own property etc. I have been discriminated against because of my gender and also had my gender go to my advantage. In the first example, I found out I was being paid less for the same work as a male colleague. I queried it with my boss who told me men are better accountants and should be paid more. I got the relevant union involved, and ended up with the same pay rate. I mainly stayed out of spite at the company - but in the end I was team leader and got the highest bonus each year so I'm glad I stayed as I proved my point to him that women are capable employees.

Second time was I was told by my recruiter that the IT firm I was looking at being hired prefers to hire women because they have such an imbalance in the office (the places I work are very male-dominated).

Both of these experiences highlighted to me the problems and benefits on both sides of the argument. I think there should actually be laws to prevent discrimination based on things you cannot change - gender, race and sexuality, but other things such as dreadlock status, religion, and so on, is different. You have to start somewhere when promoting equality but I do not like the idea of any kind of permanent law to protect against discrimination as eventually I think that society will be equal (though not in my life time).

 

[sibermike7]

Perhaps I should elaborate as this is turning into a very heated discussion that is spiralling away

Who asked YOU anyway??

 

[Sas]

Actually on the topic of hair affecting how one comes across, when I was looking for work in the past I happened to have a shaved head. I was told to try to work it into the conversation that I'd shaved it off for charity in job interviews, as otherwise I would come across as an angry feminist and this would make employers uncomfortable and less willing to hire me. I like money so I complied.

 

[TSandM]

I am not a dive business employer, so my input probably isn't useful. But I thought I would say that the DM on the boat last night had impressive dreadlocks. He also had a very good body of knowledge about the things we were going to do and see, and was able to answer all of my questions to my satisfaction (which is rare, because I tend to ask difficult questions). He was very obviously experienced and competent in the water. I thought he was very good company, very educational, and useful in the water.

On our Red Sea trip, one of the videographers was a lovely black British man with dreadlocks. Again, what was important to me was that he was sociable and pleasant, had the most BEAUTIFUL accent to listen to, and he shot fantastic video.

I suspect the majority of dive op patrons are more interested in whether you know something about marine biology, can point out cool stuff to look at and photograph, and whether you'll be there for them when they run out of gas D) than what kind of hairstyle you are sporting.

 

[Phishie]

I am involved with hiring at my company (IT, not scuba related). It is very much going to matter who you are interviewing with. Dreads look unprofessional in my opinion and have a bad reputation attached to them in my local area.

Performance matters most to me so if the rest of the package is presented professionally it wouldn't matter to me, however if I was unsure of you, the dreads would cause me to wonder about their motivations. Religion, drug culture, social circles? All things I can't safely ask about legally so I will have to assume the worst is possible if the rest of your demeanor doesn't convince me otherwise. This is for a non-client facing position.

For a client-facing position you would need to have an amazing personality that immediately offsets the hair or I wouldn't consider it. It's too much of a risk that my clients will get a bad image of my company; you and your hair are acting as my representative.

Stereotyping? Possibly. Legal? Grey area. But I would make sure the reason I disqualify you is a legal one should I choose to do so.

It would behoove you to have as clean and professional of an appearance as you can during the hiring phase. Once you're hired then you can discuss it with your employer and possibly grow them out.

This is important especially in countries in SE-Asia where you DO NOT HAVE the anti-discrimination laws so many people are arguing about in this thread to protect you. Ideology is great for debate/discussion. Business/Putting food on your table is about realism.