I don’t think tats are a dealbreaker, but I do think they are hard to do well, and most end up failing.
Tats can be interesting though, even if not necessarily classy, and can give you insight into the values and artisitc sense of the person wearing them.
I don’t have any tatoos, and can’t imagine myself being so confident that my tastes and/or body won’t change over time that it makes sense to do. Temporary tatoos are sometimes fun, but clearly that’s just playing around. Since I have family from British Columbia, I’ve ocassionally had temporary tatoos of Haida art, usually on a shoulder or upper arm.
The one thing that has captured my imagination when thinking about the possibility of getting a tatoo, is to place small tatoos that mark major points in my life, both good and bad: major career points (CFA charter??), death of parents, blossoming and failures of major relationships - the kinds of things that are major milestones for each decade of one’s life. Something you might end up reading, in the way one reads a totem pole.
To read the symbols and have a discussion about what those events were and how they made me the person I am today is something I could consider, provided that they are on a part of my body that I don’t have to expose during business hours but not so private that it can’t be displayed in public. I also want to be able to look at it myself, so definitely not on my back. But, really, it’s just something I’ve occasionally pondered; it’s not so important to me that I’m in any rush to go out and do it.