by Race in the Workplace special correspondent Erica Mauter

Your employer tells you you can no longer wear the facial piercing you’re sporting. My knee-jerk, perhaps idealistic, perhaps somewhat-indicative-of-my-age response is, “I would not want to work at a company where this is even an issue.” You can control that to some extent while you’re searching for a job by targeting companies where it won’t be an issue. But what if your current employer drops this on you and you had planned to stay a while?

DiversityInc asks if your piercing is worth your job.

“‘You have a generational issue and that’s a diversity issue… A lot of baby boomers, who horrified their parents with long hair, are horrified with the piercings of the younger generations. But an employer has a right to set a reasonable dress code that could include restrictions on hair, piercings, attire and a variety of things. There’s nothing unlawful about an employer saying, ‘We don’t want body piercings.’”

I understand how this policy makes sense in a role that requires contact with external customers. But if your exposure is mostly internal, how much should the company’s image and your representation thereof be a factor? Your work speaks for itself, right?

I’m going on 30, and I’m probably going to be looking for a job soon. I’ve had my eyebrow pierced for 10 years, so it’s not like it’s a product of my quarter-life crisis. I was considering getting rid of it because I’m “too old” but this unexpected job hunt might push me farther towards taking it out. It hasn’t been an issue at my current company, but I am an engineer and the somewhat conservative culture of engineering combined with the somewhat conservative culture of the Upper Midwest makes for folks in hiring positions who place a little more emphasis on that sort of thing.

So I’ll be asking my friendly neighborhood HR manager what her professional opinion is on that.

Speaking of HR…

“If an employee offers that they [have facial piercings] for a religious reason, then the manager should neither accept that reason at face value nor dismiss that reason at face value… Their reason may be valid, but the employer may have a counter interest, so the manager should report the claim to human resources.”

Nose? Eyebrow? Tongue? Labret? Are some facial piercings more okay than others? Is it about the location? The bling? What about earrings on guys? I imagine that, while of course the policy should be enforced uniformly, actual enforcement is somewhat at the discretion of one’s manager and HR.

The reason for a “no piercings” policy: No one has to decide what’s okay and what’s not.