The question of whether its fairest may be your real question but it isn't the question people read and answered.

Fairest is abstract, and I fear in this case it is constructed for self-approval and denial. For instance, you theoretically might put a MacDonalds next to a high-class fusion restaurant. Is it fair that young families and delivery drivers in a hurry grab their lunch from one and not the other? Its their choice, but SO unfair to the restaurant owner that she makes a tenth of the profit of the big M despite wonderful food and service!

Yet if I were female, good-looking and socially adept I might view it as perfectly fair that I have many friends; despite the apparently unfair lack of friends of the unbathed internet addict, like Lisbeth Salanders online Hacker Nation colleague.

You might try to pretend that sexism or 'lookism' are constructs that can be eliminated in a fair society; but that so-called fair society assumes humans to be brains on sticks, not the creatures they really are. If rachiex finds that people respond negatively to her modifications, and she dont like that, she can do something about it with behaviour, style or surgery. But being sad about fairness is just denial.

...Ooooh and have you noticed that self-confident, friendly and 'together' behaviour breaks through any barrier of 'just looks' difference? You have control of your own behaviour, not others.

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Today I went into a store that has just opened in our regional city and in my browsing I was asked by an attractive sales assistant if she could help me with the laptop computers at which I was looking. All the saleswomen were attractive, neat and clean; the salesmen were also neat and clean, reasonably good looking and had short hair; no one had any visible piercings or tattoos.

I asked it the computers could be altered to the Dvorak keyboard; that threw her so she called the firm's 'Computer Expert' who didn't seem to have a clue. Unless they have some 'you beaut' specials I won't bother going back.

Obviously however this firm doesn't hire people who look out of the ordinary, I might add that they are an Australia wide firm and their hiring
policy seems rather obvious. I know of a number of people who missed out on getting a job with this firm and I can only assume that their tattoos and ear rings went against them; most of them do know what a Dvorak keyboard is.

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But, Hunter, the people that I know, who applied and got knocked back had more knowledge of computers than some of the ones who were hired and more than the firm's 'Computer Expert'. Therefore it is a reasonable assumption that piercings and tattoos may have played a negative role in the selection process.

I was told by the expert that the conversion couldn't be done and yet all the computers had the Windows program installed that allows it to be done; hence my poor opinion of the firm.

Using 'qwerty' is OK for you old fogies but I'm more modern,

people can do what they want - I'd rather buy a painting

I'm still stuck on the bit about first impressions:


When a manager hires someone, they certainly don't do it solely on first impressions, they have an interview. So the manager understands that going beyond first impressions is important. The same applies if an employee is hired with normal hair colour, proves themselves over six months, and then decides to dye their hair or get a piercing (etc.). The manager will not suddenly change their impression of how hard a worker they are.

So who is it that doesn't look past first impressions? In the case where the manager decides he/she cannot hire someone because of hair colour, perhaps he/she is thinking of customers who will not go past their first impressions. So the manager, who knows that it is important to look past first impressions, because not all people that look "professional" act professional, assumes that a large majority of his/her customers will not look beyond first impressions and hires with this in mind.

Now to the question of "fair". Is it fair for a person to be judged suitable to carry out some ability (such as selling magazines, making coffee, delivering advice) based upon a criteria unrelated to that ability? I would say no (and it doesn't sound very practical to me, either). But perhaps what defines it as "unfair" is that there is no logical relationship between the two, so to use hair colour as a factor as to how good the service will be is poor logic - it's not a way to make an accurate decision. And in the example above, the manager I described thinks it is important to look past first impressions.

What if other people judge a person in their role based upon an unrelated feature? If our manager discerned that this was "unfair", he/she would not use it in their hiring process, no matter what customers thought, because he/she would not act "unfairly" just because customers were being "unfair". Is it fair to make some extra profit because customers discriminate against hair colour, piercings, tattoos, etc.?

The manager has a duty to the owners/shareholders of/in the company so although he/she may be the most liberal manager who ever managed he/she has a duty to maximise business and if that means making shallow decisions based on the probable/possible perceptions of customers then the ethical thing for the manager to do is to make such decisions.

I think the question applies to managers, business owners, shareholders, etc. And I would say that the duty to the shareholders should only be carried out by being ethical - the duty to the shareholders is to create as much return as possible within the boundaries of ethics. Of course, here we are discussing what those boundaries actually are...

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I'd guess Planet Earth as we don't have internet connections to the others . . . .I think??

Constructive conversation, I see

What it all boils down to, especially in Retail, is that the shallow perceptions of the customers are what matter; otherwise there would not be such a profusion of banal, shallow advertizing.

If there is a perception by managment that weird appearing sales assistants would put customers off then that's what matters and the ethical thing for the manager to do is to not hire such staff.

Some of you may have been to Little Creatures, the brewery restaurant in Fremantle.
The waitpersons there are often pierced and tattood Freo or backpacker types. They are also usually youthful, energetic and intelligent. I've got had some great times there.

https://www.littlecreatures.com.au/

We too. And I know on of those pierced supervisors, a friend of my son and a lovely lady.

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That probably explains how they can carry the tats and piercings without looking like low lifes.