Dear Richard,

When I was 17 I got a job as a commis chef (i.e. very junior) in a local restaurant; after a while I started working there as a chef de partie, running my own “station”. I started uni last year and I’ve been doing shifts at a restaurant near college to earn some money and keep my hand in. The staffing crisis means there’s lots of work, but it’s started to to become clear to me that hospitality is not where I want to be long term.

My problem is that there’s a big tattooing culture among chefs and I have had quite a few done, to the extent that I would have to dress quite strategically for them not to be visible. My degree is in economics, partly because that’s what I was best at at school, but also because it seemed best for future employment. But if I go into the business world, as a banker or an analyst, for example, I worry people will see me as some of renegade.

I know removal is an option, but it’s an expensive and potentially painful one; plus my tattoos really mean something to me. Should I wear them with pride even if my life starts to take me in a more “respectable” direction?

– Cathy, via email

Dear Cathy,

I’m going to say something I often say in this column, for the first time this year: “You’re overthinking this.”

And you are. If having a tattoo, or multiple tattoos, rendered someone unsuitable for a job – ANY job – contemporary society would virtually grind to a halt. If I were an investment banker and one of my managers was making recruitment decisions based on whether someone had a tattoo or not, they wouldn’t last long on my team. I’d want people hired because of their qualifications and skill set, not on their choice of personal body art.

There might be the odd extreme exception – facial tattoos are regarded with suspicion by most HR execs – but I am guessing from your reference to “strategic dressing” that that doesn’t apply to you.

In any case, you say that your tattoos are important to you and your sense of identity. So it would be rather pusillanimous to have them removed, wouldn’t it? I think you might lose some of your self-respect along with your markings.

Stop worrying about this, Cathy. Tattoos moved into mainstream culture years ago. It’s just not a problem.

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