Southpinellas: Nails cut, postal employee back at work

Nails cut, postal employee back at work

Lolita Dash said she is glad to be back but remains uneasy about managers who forced he to trim her lengthy nails.

By JOUNICE L. NEALY

ST. PETERSBURG -- Lolita Dash returned to work Wednesday at the U.S. Postal Service, her fingernails a little shorter.

"I'm glad to be back ... but I'm not really myself," Dash said Wednesday. "It's like I'm just weary and I'm always looking over my shoulder."

Dash and her nail tech, Belinda Gipson, vowed Tuesday to settle once and for all any concerns of Dash's employer about the length of her fingernails, a controversy that already has led to Dash's taking a stress-related leave from her job at the St. Petersburg post office at 16th Street S and 18th Avenue.

Gipson pulled out a tape measure to certify each nail length. She filed and measured. Filed and measured.

"Look at my nails, they look like a man's hands," Dash complained. "I see that unless I just strictly follow the rules, I'm going to have some repercussions."

On Wednesday, Dash said her supervisors thanked her for cutting her nails again.

Local postal rules say no employee can work safely with nails longer than about a quarter inch beyond the end of the finger. It's a rule that was established in 1995.

In March, managers began disciplinary proceedings against Dash because she had not obeyed supervisors' orders to cut her nails.

Dash claims that managers were retaliating against her because she had filed several EEOC complaints. One EEOC complaint is pending; the others were unfounded.

The customer service supervisor also maintained that the rule allows some flexibility, saying the nails only have to be "approximately" one-fourth inch beyond the fingertip. She first cut her nails, which at the longest were 5 inches, in 1996. She got them down to about 1 inch.

That was still too long, postal officials said.

Dash went on medical leave, saying she was deeply stressed by having to cut her nails. She says she now takes an anti-depressant because of the fingernail policy and, as a result, is limited to driving only three hours a day.

Dash still needs to get a detailed explanation from her doctor about how the anti-depressants she's taking will affect her performance.

Gary Sawtelle, a spokesman for the local Postal Service, said the fingernail regulations are in place because of safety concerns, but managers are not going to be fanatic about enforcing it.

"We're not going to have employees line up and we're not going to have them measure her nails," Sawtelle said. "This is a visual inspection."

However, employees must comply. "If in fact somebody's nails are well beyond the nailbed, then the manager must take action," Sawtelle said.

Dash has claimed that she has never been injured because of her nails, and they have never affected her performance.

In fact, a postal employee in Los Angeles, Carolyn Gobert, agrees with Dash. Gobert's nails are about 13 inches. She has worked for the U.S. Postal Service for almost 19 years and she's had long nails for 17 years.

Gobert, who once had a habit of biting her nails, says she can lift cases of mail, sort mail and load trucks with her long nails. There are no rules governing fingernail length at her station.