Woman Fired For Not Wearing Makeup To Work

[Natalie Severn]

I'm not terrifically smart, although I am quite smart. Mostly because I have an excellent memory and can regurgitate some fact I read years before. And thank god because it's all I have. I am not at all attractive, I am not charming, I have an odd sense of humor, I don't socialize well, I have a raging mental illness, I'm not rich, and I am not particularly talented.

So I'm smart. And I'm funny to about 30% of people I have met.

Well lots of us on here love your mental energy Errata and I am damn sure your boyfriend thinks you are gorgeous!

[The Good Michael]

I think everyone must think of a dress code as a kind of uniform. If I was hired by UPS and said, I'm not a fall guy and would much rather wear pastels, should they allow that because I just don't look good in brown with my skin tones?

It's really all about rules and I sure as hell wouldn't want to wear a brown uniform, even with brown shorts in the summer. I especially wouldn't want to wear that hat. I hate baseball caps unless I'm playing baseball. Yet, the money would be nice, so I'll whore myself to Big Brown.

Mike

[Ally]

A dress code - within reasdon - is fair enough. However - in this day and age - if you are unemployed but experienced and talented - I do not think you should have to turn a job down because they require you to plaster your face with make-up. In my view - it's an unreasonable requirement.

And it is my view that, in this day in age, if you are lucky enough to be offered a job and all they require is that you put on some paint and dress according to their standards, you should feel lucky to be employed and not turn your nose up at a reasonable request because you feel you are above their standards or that you get to define what is "reasonable" when it comes to a dress code.

[Limehouse]

Hi Jen,

You do have a point, but if you are given a dress code (or any other kind of employment condition) to read through and agree before your first day in the job, and something is included that would risk destroying your confidence if you complied with it, you would presumably have a decision to make about whether or not to accept the position.

I wouldn't take a job as a tightrope walker in a circus for that reason.

Love,

Caz
X

A dress code - within reasdon - is fair enough. However - in this day and age - if you are unemployed but experienced and talented - I do not think you should have to turn a job down because they require you to plaster your face with make-up. In my view - it's an unreasonable requirement.

I look Ok in a little make up but hideous in loads of make-up. I can't wear eye liner because my eyes are deep set and I look better with just mascara and no other eye make up. I am quite rosy -complexioned so I don't need blusher. Lip liner is horrible stuff and I would never waste my money or time with it. Lipstick is Ok. I'm over fifty and therefore a little make-up enhances what used to be there but too much puts me in the Jackie Styllone category!

[Errata]

For what it's worth, I did too. I just didn't realize it required a response. What would you like me to say?

I'm not terrifically smart, although I am quite smart. Mostly because I have an excellent memory and can regurgitate some fact I read years before. And thank god because it's all I have. I am not at all attractive, I am not charming, I have an odd sense of humor, I don't socialize well, I have a raging mental illness, I'm not rich, and I am not particularly talented.

So I'm smart. And I'm funny to about 30% of people I have met. And I have absolutely nothing else to recommend me to an employer, a boyfriend, or a new acquaintance. I have a fiance, and to this day I have no idea why he is with me. I stayed with a guy who beat me and insulted me because I didn't think I could do any better. And after being gang raped at the age of 13, the guard I reported it to thought I was lying because "if they were going to rape someone it would have been someone better looking than you."

So I get pissed off when someone tells me I'm too smart. Because if my only positive is a negative, then I have nothing at all.

Is that better? Am I now allowed to be proud of one thing, or do you require that I catalog every flaw, and every time I have been insulted or rejected based on them as well? Because I have an excellent memory. I can do that for you.

[The Good Michael]

Caz,

For what it's worth, I understood you.

Mike

[caz]

...and some fell on stony ground.

[Errata]

Wow, you is just way to bright for me, Errata. I'm feeling intimid - intimmidat - inferior now. None of my bosses ever suggested I was rocket scientist material. But a teacher once said I could be a doctor because I had the obligatorily illegible handwriting.

Love,

Caz
X

I had a doctor who had perfect handwriting. I didn't trust her. It was like if her penmanship hadn't devolved, then she didn't spend 8 years of her life without sleep, which would mean her diploma was a fake.

[caz]

The too smart thing always bothered me. I got fired from a jewelry job and a teaching job for being too smart. First of all, no wonder our educational systems is tanking if we fire teachers for being to smart. They said I was "intellectually intimidating" to my students. I taught sex ed. I highly doubt that. Not to mention that all of the kids I would have had for the next two years for sex ed tracked me down to ask questions. So maybe smart was a good thing. And the jewelry job was one of those "you are way out of our league" firings, where they tried to tell me they were setting me free to go be a rocket scientist or some such. Like they thought I didn't realize I was intelligent when I applied for the job, or I that I was under the impression that selling watches was going to give me opportunities to solve world hunger, or cure cancer, or solve the national debt. If they really wanted to do me a favor, they could have given me a raise. Not fired me, you know?

Wow, you is just way to bright for me, Errata. I'm feeling intimid - intimmidat - inferior now. None of my bosses ever suggested I was rocket scientist material. But a teacher once said I could be a doctor because I had the obligatorily illegible handwriting.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Clothes are different. I think everyone who dresses professionally tends to be enhanced by that. It's not the same with make up...it can destroy a woman's confidence by being forced to wear something she knows, and everyone can see, doesn't suit her.

That can't be right.

love Jen x

Hi Jen,

You do have a point, but if you are given a dress code (or any other kind of employment condition) to read through and agree before your first day in the job, and something is included that would risk destroying your confidence if you complied with it, you would presumably have a decision to make about whether or not to accept the position.

I wouldn't take a job as a tightrope walker in a circus for that reason.

Love,

Caz
X

[Errata]

Blimey, so did they tell you to your face that you: didn’t dress ‘sexy’ enough; your knockers were too big; they wouldn’t have touched you with a barge pole if they’d known you were Jewish/too smart when you applied? Or are you guessing? I’ve had many employers over the years and I always got fed up with them or the job before they got fed up with me. But they knew what they got from the start and I gave them what they wanted until I no longer wanted it. Or maybe I’ve just lived a charmed life in the right places.

Yeah, those bosses told me, although to be fair the big breast thing was a safety issue rather than an aesthetic one. Just about every woman I am friends with has gotten the not dressing sexy enough thing. Getting fired for being Jewish was really just poor self control on everyone's part. I didn't mention I was Jewish, My boss didn't mention he was a member of the PLO, we had the news on at work all the time, and things just blew up. And I had walked into his office to quit when we started shouting at each other again and he fired me. I kinda don't blame him. It was a very bad fit.

The too smart thing always bothered me. I got fired from a jewelry job and a teaching job for being too smart. First of all, no wonder our educational systems is tanking if we fire teachers for being to smart. They said I was "intellectually intimidating" to my students. I taught sex ed. I highly doubt that. Not to mention that all of the kids I would have had for the next two years for sex ed tracked me down to ask questions. So maybe smart was a good thing. And the jewelry job was one of those "you are way out of our league" firings, where they tried to tell me they were setting me free to go be a rocket scientist or some such. Like they thought I didn't realize I was intelligent when I applied for the job, or I that I was under the impression that selling watches was going to give me opportunities to solve world hunger, or cure cancer, or solve the national debt. If they really wanted to do me a favor, they could have given me a raise. Not fired me, you know?

[babybird67]

hi Caz

nice to see you posting.

Regarding make up.

Some people look better in make up


Some people look worse in make up.

Some people look better in a little make up but would look hideous in full make up.

The thing is, it should be down to the person themselves to decide what suits their complexion and face and what does not.

I am not a huge make up person. I have the sort of complexion whereby if I ever try to use blusher it makes me look like a slightly flushed clown. It does not enhance my features. I am happy to wear some eye make up and lipstick as I feel that can enhance what I look like and therefore make me look better and feel better and give me more confidence. If an employer forced me to fully make up in the morning, I would look worse, feel worse and perform my job worse.

Clothes are different. I think everyone who dresses professionally tends to be enhanced by that. It's not the same with make up...it can destroy a woman's confidence by being forced to wear something she knows, and everyone can see, doesn't suit her.

That can't be right.

love Jen x

[caz]

I don't have a problem with a dress code. I have a problem with women being held to a different dress code than men. And there are hundreds of thousands of stores throughout the world that don't require anything of the women that they don't require of the men, and their images are sterling. Any number of restaurants require their waitstaff to wear ties, but that applies to both men and women.

In the US this would be a no brainer. You are not required to comply with rules that violate the conditions of an equal opportunity workplace. We got rid of the requirement to wear a dress or skirt to work a while ago. This would be no different.

Hang on, Errata. You may be happiest in a “pantsuit” (it certainly wouldn’t flatter me) or be content to wear a tie (but without the school gymslip and regulation knickers to go with it) but I don’t like the sound of having the same rules for both sexes if it results in the women dressing more like men rather than the other way round. The image of every last one of us in navy blue boiler suits, scrubbed faces and cropped hair is a distinctly unappealing, unattractive and scary one. Vive la difference is what I say. If dress codes had to be strictly equal you can bet that women would soon be prevented from celebrating their womanhood and wearing frocks, skirts, heels, make up, jewellery or long hair in any workplace, to stop any man from exercising his equal right to wear the same. As women we should learn from the past and be wary about what we wish for. Men have an uncanny knack of turning our wishes against us. We don’t need to help them!

Almost every place I have worked has asked me to cover my tattoos. I'm fine with that. They do not want visible tattoos. Clearly, those without body art are way ahead of me on this one. I have to put a little more thought into it. All they are asking is that I conform to the standard.

I really don’t get this. Tattoos to me are just make up that can’t be removed without leaving an unsightly scar. You don’t have tattoos to be ‘polite’ to brides, and if you couldn’t show them off to anyone they would be pointless, like applying lippy on an uninhabited desert island, only much more painful and long lasting. But each to his/her own. You get why many employers reject anyone with visible tattoos (and might be wary of employing a candidate with a penchant for any body art, in case he/she cannot resist more and more in future). So why should they not also pick women who are willing and able to enhance what nature gave them with carefully applied make up?

Tell me to wear a business suit and I will. Tell me to wear a skirt (especially in the jobs I've had) and you can graciously go to hell. Unless of course the men have to wear skirts as well.

Well I don’t want to be told to wear a business suit (as in pantsuit) unless the men are told to wear skirts. That would be the equivalent deal as far as I’m concerned.

I live in a right to fire state, so they can fire you for even the most blatantly illegal of reasons as long as they aren't dumb enough to tell you why. But I have been fired for not dressing sexy enough, I got transferred once because my breasts were too big, I've been fired for being Jewish, and I got fired being too smart.

Blimey, so did they tell you to your face that you: didn’t dress ‘sexy’ enough; your knockers were too big; they wouldn’t have touched you with a barge pole if they’d known you were Jewish/too smart when you applied? Or are you guessing? I’ve had many employers over the years and I always got fed up with them or the job before they got fed up with me. But they knew what they got from the start and I gave them what they wanted until I no longer wanted it. Or maybe I’ve just lived a charmed life in the right places.

A question about the mysteries of female shopping : if a woman goes into a store to buy jewellery or clothes or perfume or whatever, would a woman rather be served by a woman with or without make-up, in trousers or a skirt, in high shoes or flat shoes? I read somewhere - can't remember where - that women don't like to buy things from women whom they judge to be their superiors.

I don't think this applies to male shoppers very much, because men decide what to get and then get it. I know that I could be served by a woman with a beard and I probably wouldn't notice - I just want to make the purchase and move on.

Hi Robert,

Why would a woman out shopping ever judge the woman serving her to be her superior? Seriously though, if I want to buy something I don’t generally care who sells it to me, and only a surly attitude or unreasonably slow service might send me off to look elsewhere for the same product.

…I am sorry to admit but a little make up, applied correctly helps almost everybody look better.

Don’t be sorry, tji, I know from personal experience that you are not wrong there. I only wish I had the supreme confidence in my own bare-faced appearance that some posters obviously have in theirs. If I didn’t scare myself in the mirror without any slap I’d be over the bloody moon. But what I wouldn’t do with the extra time, money and ego, if I didn’t think I needed make up, would be to go through the pain of piercing myself or having a tattoo for the dubious viewing pleasure of others. I cried when I had my ears pierced at the age of 24 and very nearly left with only one ear done. No way would I go through that again, I’d sooner give birth. But at least I have a lot more choice of earrings so no regrets either.

People can be attractive without make-up.

Slight correction bb - the lucky ones can be attractive without make up. If we wouldn't expect anyone to make themselves less attractive, it makes sense to want to be more so if it’s easy enough to achieve.

I will say that I am repulsed by servers with an eyebrow ring. Not because of the piercing per se, but because most people with brow rings walk around with the piercing in some stage of infection or another. Makes me gag.

It doesn’t bother me particularly as long as nobody is forcing me to adorn myself with a piercing or a tattoo. I admire the bravery and self confidence it must take, but when I think of all the involuntary mutilation that still goes on around the world I do wonder why so many do it voluntarily, especially when it alienates a significant percentage of the people they meet. I mean nobody worth knowing would be turned off by someone because they were not pierced, or had no tattoos.

Love,

Caz
X

[Hatchett]

Hello Ally,

Yes, probably at the same level as your comments.

Maybe a little higher,


Best wishes.

[Ally]

If one is going to make an inane comment just to have a comeback and save face, the least one can do is make it interesting and not cliched.

"I didn't know you cared"? Please....That's right up there with "Oh yeah?!" and "So's your mother".