Complaining… I’ve been at my software job for 3 years. I’m fully remote, and semi-client facing (zoom calls). I’ve had colorful hair for over 11 years. I interviewed for this job over a 6-month period during the pandemic with lavender and green hair, and was hired with said hair. They didn’t love it when they hired me, tried to say I needed to change it, but I stood my ground and “compromised” by going to one solid color: dark blue. Since then, it’s been blue or purple, everything from navy blue to neon blue, to purple with a green “shineline”. Now, 3 years later, I’ve changed my hair from blue to green and suddenly HR is calling me saying the company wants me to change it.
I asked for our policy on professional appearance to understand what policy I’m violating. We don’t have any policies or guidelines on appearance, so I’m not breaking any policies. I asked if any of my clients have complained. They have not. I asked if the quality of my work is in question, or has changed in the weeks since I’ve changed my hair color. It has not. I checked my hiring paperwork from 3yrs ago. There’s no policies on appearance. HR confirmed that it’s purely an internal preference (so someone in leadership/C-suite). My manager and department head also both don’t care about my hair color, and refused to have this convo with me because there were no policies I’m breaking.
I know hair color is not a protected class, but something like hair color, especially vivid colors like I do, is so closely tied to my personal identity that I could never go back to my “natural” brunette color. Especially not after over a decade! I’m not a brunette; if anything, I’m a blue-nette at this point! I did clearly state I would not be comfortable returning to my “natural” color, and that there was basically no world in which I would have brown hair again (but said nicely).
I’ve told HR that I would like to see updates to company policies, have those updates shared with the entire company, and for written guidance on how this will be handled going forward. Since clearly it will be a policy for the whole employee-base and it certainly can’t be a policy targeting one specific employee, do all employees need to get approval to make drastic changes to their appearance? Is the company going to approve specific colors? If someone with long black hair gets a buzz cut and bleaches it, that’s still natural but is that an acceptable change? Where’s the line?
I also take the stand point of, “Of course the company wants its employees to feel their best so they can do their best work. Since we both agree with that statement, I feel most comfortable with blue/green/purple hair”. And since HR always wants to promote mental wellbeing, of course they agree with this.
HR said they would pay for me to re-dye my hair, and I said I would “compromise” by going back to blue (since I guess the c-suites could tolerate bright blue hair but green has crossed the line…) and would also likely need a day off to comply with whatever policies they want to put in place.
So, all of that to say, corporate rules are really stupid sometimes, and it’s going to make me start polishing up my resume because it’s a waste of everyone’s time and energy to be focused on the color of my freaking hair in 2024.
