I have interviewed probably a thousand people, hired and managed many teams, though not retail I have to admit. I have had precisely one conversation about hair in all of that time. I was interviewing a guy who had a very large number of thick braids. I said, “the job sometimes requires wearing a hardhat. Is that a problem?” He said no, that he did it all the time, he just needed to tie them back. I should emphasize this dude had a truly impressive amount of hair so I really did doubt he could get it in a hat, but I hired him and he did.

I’ve also had to have conversations about long nails and body odor. It’s not comfortable, but we should not be afraid of these topics ONLY if they are directly relevant to the job. I see nothing in this story where her hair interfered with the job, unless the job is pleasing bigots. Oh.