OK, so some of you reading this already know that ryeth and I are trying the In-Vitro thing. Well, this year Red Hat changed their medical insurance and I didn’t catch it. Last year, they had the basic medical insurance and they had the buy-up insurance plan. They offered the same basic coverage, but the basic plan had higher co-pays, higher deductible, and higher percentage of co-insurance for out of network service. Otherwise, they offered the same coverages. This year, they have all those same differences, but they also removed all fertility testing and drug coverage from the basic plan. So, we had the first round of stuff done, and then were somewhat surprised when BCBS didn’t cover the bill. And we can’t change the plan coverage until next April 01…unless we have a life status change event between now and then. Included in the legal definition of life status change event is a change in employment of the employee, their spouse, or their dependents. Soooo, in order to get around our lack of insurance, ryeth is looking for a job.

Yesterday, ryeth had an interview at Borders/Seattle’s Best Coffee. The Borders job is all laid back in their dress code requirements. The Seattle’s Best Coffee however can only be described as a uniform nazi. Some of their requirements I don’t care about. But some of them flat piss me off. I used to be a long haired boy when I grew up. And I was faced with those establishments that didn’t want a male to have long hair. I always felt it was a sad commentary on any business that they would require me to cut my hair in order to work there. After all, what difference did my hair make? I was obviously a smart kid with a lot going for me in terms of capabilities, and yet that wasn’t enough to do the job. What’s worse, in my opinion, is if I didn’t have to cut my hair to work at PC Net (and I was one of their very best technicians with stellar customer satifaction) I could have been helping to loosen the stigma people had against someone with long hair instead of helping to perpetuate it.

So, Seattle’s Best has some requirements about tattoos and piercings that I don’t agree with. For the same reason that I didn’t agree with having to cut my hair. By only hiring people willing to give those things up, they hide the reality of our current society from their customers. They perpetuate a myth that no one worth hiring has tattoos or piercings. They help other people that want to hide from things different from them have a place to go and hide (yeah, how well did that work out with long haired males in the 70’s, blacks in the 60’s, japanese in the 40’s, women in the 20’s, etc.?) Society learns to be tolerant of different people by being exposed to different people. By trying to force employees to conform to something they are not, they hinder the goal of tolerance in our society. That is something I don’t, and won’t ever, condone. I made my one time concession when I was growing up and needed the job. Today, I don’t have to support that sort of thing, and I won’t. So, no more Seattle’s Best Coffee for me.