Letter to Arby's

I've been in food service and food-related jobs for about fourteen years, now, and I have to tell you, man, if you don't like tattoos and piercings, you gotta stop eating out. ;)

Seriously, though -- when I'm training new servers, I often council them on their appearance. The majority of people want to see clean-cut, "wholesome" people handling their food. They really don't want to see tattoos and facial piercings, outrageous make-up, and so forth. They want cute lil' girls and handsome, all-American guys. Tattoos, piercings, wild make-up, and unusual hair colors and styles put a lot of people off.

Do I agree with that? Hell, no. That is a bias. They think I'm "dirty" because I have facial piercings and an arm sleeve? Pfft. They don't know the care that has to go into those items! You want to keep your tattoos in good shape, that means having them recolored, keeping them moisturized, etc. I paid good money for that thing, you're damn right I'm taking good care of it! Same goes for the piercings, and the maintainance with special shampoos and whatnot for some hair colors. Man, you have to work to look that "weird". :)

But, like I tell my servers when they object -- food service isn't about changing the world. It's about paying the bills. You make better money by taking the eyebrow ring out and playing to the bias, than trying to change their mind, and frankly, it's all about making the money. So, while I disagree with the bias, I understand having to play to it.

And I thought only bank executives could be so prudish and conformist.

As a person with many piercings and tattoos who has enjoyed an extremely successful career despite this kind of archaic attitude, I find it odd that we still hinge everything on the shallow input of visuals. That we so easily judge others...

Ultimately, you'll have to stop going to every business in order to avoid such people. Your local grocery store, every restaurant, bar, nightclub, etc., coffee shop, the library, even your local bank... You'll find "these kinds of people" everywhere you go.

Let me correct you in one regard. Your understanding of prejudice is wrong, and this is prejudice by any definition. You see, prejudice consists of forming an opinion beforehand, without full knowledge or familiarity, and based entirely on stereotypes, irrationality, and preferences. It seems to me that's exactly what you did.

Most people can't overcome personal bias. It's human nature, me thinks. I'm disappointed, but I understand.

will you now be asking for a tour of the kitchen and it's staff before you eat at a non-fast-food restaurant? i can assure you that there are people behind your neighborhood/chain restaurant who are tattooed and/or pierced.

like K said above, piercings take work to maintain. as an old fart (48) with facial piercings, i can assure you that cleaning my face is a 2-3 times a day affair. and there are piercings elsewhere on my body you couldn't see.

many people with facial piercings choose to mask them with plugs and makeup. is it ok if they prepare your food?

the sight of someone with piercings may gross you out. the sight of someone with a dark artifical tan, racoon eyes & too much platic surgery grosses me out. but if i limited my dining experiences on that basis, i'd never eat while visiting L.A. again!

i understand your squiky feelings as something other people have too. and they may even do as you did--decide to eat/shop elsewhere. but it's something best kept to yourself. who are you to force arby's hand into making a policy that will effect dozens+ of its employees? i'm hoping they'll think it was only one cranky old man and not a customer trend. and that this boy won't lose his job because of your letter.

i wish i knew what mall/arby's this was at, because like turtle, i'd like to let them know that there are other people who would be likely to be return customers *because* they saw a pierced freak working there. and not just young'uns, but old farts with families.

I'm really not following your rationale. Prejudice is, by definition, an "adverse judgment or opinion formed beforehand or without knowledge or examination of the facts." Was this guy picking his nose? Did he leave the restroom without washing his hands? Was he preparing the food with his face? Sorry, I don't mean to be flip. However, thinking this guy would "contaminate" your food just because he has some piercings isn't too different from Christians thinking atheists "contaminate" American society simply because they don't believe in God.

Besides, buying fast food with any expectation of sanitation is lunacy in the highest degree. Face piercings are really the least of your concerns ;)

Would you mind telling us which local mall this Arby's was at?

Myself, I'm extensively pierced and tattooed. I like to support businesses that don't discriminate against people like me in their hiring practices.

We at Arby's Restaurants sincerely apologize for the malfunctioning appearance of this employee. We have attempted to program them to conform to proper behavior, but it would seem that programming has somehow gone seriously wrong. We will inform the IT department of this problem and ask that they review the Piercings program that is currently in memory. It is possible that this non-conformist glitch is simply a software problem (We do after all use Windows XP). We at Arby's Restaurants realize that such sloppy programming leads to unclean hands and disease. Thank you for bringing this to our attention.
:(
This is truly disappointing. But I still like you, Hank.

As I read your post I was expecting you to draw an analogy to anti-atheist discrimination....

I was hoping this was satirical but I guess it's not.

Out of honest curiosity, why do you object to persons with tattoos or piercings handling your food? Are you worried that they have hepatitis or something like that?
Or does the idea just gross you out?

What about someone with not-visible tattoos or piercings, would you be upset by the idea of them handling your food? Or was it having to see the piercing that made you demand your money back?

I'm assuming here that you have a reasonable objection, since you emphasize that you're not prejudiced against tattooed/pierced persons.

Hank, nice letter. I'm not sure I would have given Arbys the benefit of my time and thought however. I would just stop using that branch.

Curious, how many piercings are acceptable on the people who serve your food?

ARB

Rationalizing at A Rational Being

how do you know that that clean shaven/looking person did not just pick his/her nose and made your food when that pierced person just triple washed his/her hands and did not touch anything except his gloves after his/her hands and was therefore more hygenic in preparing your food and you end up with a bacterial infection from the "clean looking" person of some sort because they were not as careful in being more hygenic that the "personally repellent person"

do you consider earrings to be facial piercings?

and come to that surely beards are much more unhygenic??

(apologies for double post)

"Everyone to their own taste
Said the lady as she kissed the cow. "

This is one my grandpa used to tell me when I was growing up. I love it...no one else in my family seem to even remember it. hmmm

So if you find something incompatible with your ingestion that is your personal business. It has nothing to do with prejudice,just your stomach... or your "taste", so to speak.

Evergreen,
A grandmother

You chose Taco Bell because its servers' lack of piercings assured you of the "safety and edibility of the food."

We ARE talking about Taco Bell, right? I was under the assumption that their meat was made up of lips and anuses.

The only time I would use piercings and tattoos as the sole basis of my food choice would be if the actual food had them.

It's amusing that on an atheist blog, you would display such an irrational and unfounded fear of the unknown -- namely, piercings and tattoos.

It has to be satire.

Look at the juxtaposition of two key statements:

"Some people would accuse me of prejudice for not wanting someone heavily pierced or tattooed to handle my food."

He sets us up by demanding he's not prejudiced, and at the end:

"it made me instantly doubt whether the guy who would be touching my food had anywhere near my own standards of personal hygiene or concern about food preparation cleanliness. Unconsciously and instantly, I believed he didn’t."

Which, of course, is the definition of prejudice. Hank is admiting to an apparently deep prejudice ("unconciously and instantly") to more than small amounts of tattoos or piercings.

Hank's definition of prejudice is incorrect, it does NOT depend on the capability of the pre-judged to change that which is being judged. The definition of prejudice is simply: "Preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience." (Oxford American).

The enlightened approach would be to combat the prejudice and make himself a better person for having conquered an irrational self-imposed limitation. Read up on 'extreme' piercings, go to tattoo parlors and engage in conversations with those that are getting this done to them. That would lead to learning about the higher care requirements cited by others. Realize that the dude (or dudette) with the piercings/tattoos is probably the cleanest guy in there and one would do well to ask specifically for them to prepare the food.

Personally, I have zero tatts or piercings, have no problem with extreme forms of this, and I do feel revulstion in mutiliation as well as curosity (Why would anyone do that to themselves). But I ask that question up front and I don't know the answer, which is why I don't have any myself...

Second, I stopped eating at fast food joints long ago. A friend worked at Wendys and the horror stories he told me- He'll never eat a baked potato (or anything else) from there. There is no food value in that stuff and it is specifically designed to make you addicted to it and unhealthy at the same time. But that's my modest opinion.

I must say, Hank, that I keep up with your postings on a monthly basis. You write well and your opinions are down to earth. This one strikes me as odd, and not like you. I hate piercings and tattoos just as much as you. I think that they are a shallow form of individualism, shallow in the sense that they MAKE us judge the person displaying them.

We all must learn that individuality is a virtue of personality, not physical appearance!

It costs money to get those things done, money that buys me my Arby's sandwiches and Taco Bell 79 cent Grade-E ground cow anus and donkey gums soft taco.

While I hate tattoos, piercings, and everything shallow that they represent, I wouldn't dare let it influence me to not order from someone much like this person.

I know of some Africans who eat raw grain from a fly infested bowl, and I don't hear them bitching. They'd eat the flies too if they weren't so damned hard to catch.

Y'know, Hank Fox, I've read your pieces on the web for a couple years. You always struck me as a thoughtful, tolerant, reasonable human being. And now this? If you come back and say it was parody, you were making a point, I'll blush 'cause I took it seriously, but ultimately I'll be glad. Because if this is your belief, you're not the man I thought you were.

Come on, Hank. You have to know there is NO correlation between piercings, tatoos and hygeine. How could there be? Look, lets face it, gays are discriminated against by religious extremists and other homophobes not because of who they are, but because they think the sex is, well, "icky". That's not ok. I'm well up there in age (maybe even older than you) and I have NO piercings or tatoos. None. And yet, this thought you have expressed would simply never occur to me. Sure, if the guy had filthy hands or smelled really bad, well, that might be a problem. But because he had facial piercing? How truly judgemental. It's true, you didn't deny the guy a job or cost him money or deprive him of a place to live--the only real loser in this case was you, you didn't have the lunch you set out to have. But like so many things, it's not about THEM. It's about us. What kind of society do we want to have? In our contributions to the culture, do we support knee-jerk judgements? Or do we help encourage open-minded acceptance? You have taken a tiny step backward, toward the re-making of American society in the model of the theocratic bigots. For that, I'm sorry for you...

mikey

yea all you people bitching about tattoos and piercings get a life get or go someplace else its america. the people are makeing fuckin minimum wage you get minimum wage service duh.