The A Word

There are many things that, to borrow a current phrase, I must ‘own’ that have had a detrimental effect to my career in the insurance industry.

There are probably too many to mention in this article, but off the top of my now-baldy Gen X head, I’d say sporting a ponytail as a 30-something while working in a conservative industry, for a conservative company, in a conservative part of the United States was one of those things.

In my defense all I can say is that it felt right at the time; I felt like I needed to do it. I’d had long hair in my teens and significant parts of my 20s, too, so I grew my hair out in my 30s and probably put my career back at least 3 years.

Long hair was apparently a big no no in my company, despite it not contravening any ‘appropriate work appearance/attire’ rules (in saying that, technically you could wear a clown’s outfit and not be breaking the rules).

Rules are there to be broken – except in the insurance industry. So yeah technically permitted but mostly frowned upon. No one ever said anything per se, however the askance looks from my boss, as well as the management team he reported up to said enough. “Conform! Be like us! Report to Sportclips for reprogramming!”