Stereotyping happens all the time - part of the way our mind works. We pick out a few cues here and there and make up a picture in our mind. We don't only do it with people, we do it with everything. The effort needed to process incoming information from afresh every time we encounter it would be too much for us. Se we need cues and rules of thumb and categories to put people and things in to. Sure, it's not nice to be judged by your appearance, but it happens all the time. And, in defence of Tom, I imagine people in his line of work need to make quick judgements under high pressure situations, so I guess stereotypes do come in handy. And if you think someone's a tosser, for whatever reason, then just go ahead and say it. Excessive and badly done body piercing seems to me as good a reason to make a judgement about a person as any. Office worker.