Do you think we care if people think we look bad or not with long hair? We make the choice
If you make the choice, you accept the consequences. Short hair for males, natural colours only (sometimes even natural dyed colours will get you fired/not hired), no piercings or visible tattoos are pretty standard rules for any job. Even if the customer isn't seeing you. This isn't news to anyone, nor is this a sudden reactionary movement started by yuppies. It's just the way things work.
As I said its discriminatory to fire or not hire someone based on having long hair and the company can have a shit storm coming at them if someone really wanted to pursue a lawsuit for discrimination.
No it really isn't discriminatory. That's like saying not hiring someone with bad hygiene, even if you're not working with food, or encountering any other person in their daily job, is discriminatory.
You can go get a haircut. But you can't, in the same way, get married, get divorced, give your kids up for adoption, change your race, change your nationality, change your ethnic background. A company can decide who their image (ie. their employees) are. If it's something that's easily changed without religious basis, sorry, but you're out of luck. You're not entitled to be hired by anyone. I had the same problem. I had the whole liberty spikes thing through high school, and two piercings. They are now gone, and I look relatively normal. I got a job randomly through interviews in around 2 weeks looking professional, and when I still had the spikes and stuff, I had to have a friend basically hire me. And even then I had to cover up the piercings and make my hair a normal colour. That's just the way it is
Seriously, do you want someone helping you or working for you that looks like he just came out of some basement where they've been watching Labyrinth all day, or someone who's well groomed, and looks like he showered today.
It's just the way things work. I'd like to eat nothing but ice cream and get all my nutrients from it and not gain a single pound, and get paid for it, but it's just not in the cards. It's the same thing.
You can whine about how it sucks, but it's not going to change anything. Suck it up.
Welcome to the real world.