Personal style is a great way to express one’s individuality ― even in the workplace.
Mary Walls Penney said her rainbow-colored hair has never interfered with her all-too-important job as a nurse at a West Virginia nursing home, but that didn’t stop a complete stranger from questioning her work because of her looks.
During a shopping trip in her uniform earlier this month, Walls Penney said she was surprised when the cashier noted her name tag and asked, “So what do you do there?” After replying that she was a nurse, the cashier said, “I’m surprised they let you work there like that. What do your patients think about your hair?”
Walls Penney took to Facebook to share her powerful response, along with a picture of her technicolor locks.
“I can’t recall a time that my hair color has prevented me from providing life saving treatment to one of my patients,” she wrote. “My tattoos have never kept them from holding my hand and as they lay frightened and crying because Alzheimer’s has stolen their mind.”
She continues, offering further evidence that her personal style doesn’t affect her ability to do her job.
“So, please explain to me how my appearance,” she wrote, “paired with my cheerful disposition, servant’s heart, and smiling face, has made me unfit to provide nursing care and unable to do my job!”
Walls Penney’s post has been liked more than 272,000 times. She’s living proof that in a world full of plain old horses, we should all strive to be sparkly rainbow unicorns.
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