Time Off. Vacation. Holiday. A Mental Health Day. All across the world, people in every profession take time away from work for various reasons. We get away to relax, to visit family and friends, to celebrate life milestones, to take time to grieve or mourn, to have exciting life experiences. All amazing reasons to spend your time away from work and enjoying living life. But in my personal experience….piercers really do not take time off. I mean sure, if we are sick, we stay home, lest we spread our sickness to our coworkers or clients. But aside from that, the vast majority of piercers I know simply do not take time off. Or if they do, it’s to go do a guest spot. Attend a conference. Do an educational seminar. Our “Time off” from piercing is most often spent….doing more things related to piercing.
This is an industry plagued with issues of burnout and overwork, with many piercers reporting feeling overwhelmed, exhausted, and mentally stressed over this job. And despite this, we continue to push ourselves to work long days, and heavy schedules and rarely take time off for ourselves. Often as a piercer, I think this comes from a good place- it’s our desire to be a good piercer and be accessible for our clients. We feel like we need to be in the studio because what if someone comes in and needs help with their piercing? What if someone has an issue, we want to be there to help them! For those of us who work in smaller studios or own our studios, if we aren’t there, we can worry about not making money, and not being able to keep the bills paid. It’s a larger amount of responsibility were put on ourselves to be “on” all the time and always present for our clients.
This can also make us feel guilty when we take time away from work that isn’t still piercing-related. We are stressed about leaving our studios behind for a few days, but if it’s to go get some piercing-based education, we can justify that as furthering our craft. Going to a concert or camping with our friends, however… can leave piercers feeling guilty or even ashamed that they aren’t present. And I know this because when I do manage to convince some of my friends or peers to take some time away, I catch them constantly checking their phones and messages to make sure they didn’t miss something from a client, and stressing about being away from their studios.
I also know this because I struggle with this. A major hurdle for me in getting ready for my top surgery was how guilty I felt for taking a month off work. I lamented constantly to my boss how bad I felt for being off for so long, and even tried to talk with my surgeon about getting back to work sooner. It took some hard conversations with peers and my therapist to make me realize that my body healing well and recovering properly was more important than doing some piercings, and my clients would understand. But to me, the guilt of being away for so long was overwhelming.
Many of my peers have expressed the same. The constant stress of missing a shift or not being there for clients is enough to stop them in their tracks from taking time for themselves. And many studios encourage this mentality. I know I was expected to work 7 days a week 12 hours a day through my apprenticeship, over 2 years of working every single day, and feeling like a failure if I was too sick to come in. Overwork is normalized, even glorified in the industry, with piercers often bragging about their longest streak of working in a row or how many hours they ‘grind’ every month. Studios often reward employees who are willing to give up on having a social life to work long hours. Ranging from giving those employees the best shifts to making passive-aggressive comments when time off is requested or mentioned. We’ve built an industry culture that normalized working yourself till the point of burnout, and then white-knuckling through working more.
So how do we change this? How do we undo this toxic environment? Well….we take the day off. We go on vacation. We go to the concert, camping, etc. We take the time for ourselves. I promise you- the studio will not burn down. Your clients will not hate you. Doctors and surgeons take time off all the time, cancel appointments, and reschedule whole days. And we understand. Why as piercers do we find ourselves held to a higher standard than medical professionals when it comes to how much accessibility we give clients to ourselves? Our clients and our studio will survive without us for a day or two, or even more! We will be able to come back rested, refreshed, and excited about piercing again. But we deserve time off. We deserve time to ourselves. We shouldn’t feel so much stress and fear and anxiety about taking a little time away from work.
From one chronic overworker to another- take the day.
<3 Lynn