> I would do it if the company was one I was excited about.

And what happens if you don’t get the job? You’d have a daily reminder of a bad interview and the job you failed to get. For someone with a ton of tattoos, maybe it doesn’t matter, just a funny story. For others, it could be a much bigger deal.

With the coffee shop, you get coffee for life, the life of the company, or the tenure of the owner/manger who agreed to it. With the job interview, you’re not guaranteed a job a life. Just an interview, and for all anyone knows, that tattoo stunt could have been a way to weed out people who were too desperate or make questionable decisions. So they’d get a short interview as a formality, but were never in the running for an actual job.

> I would do it if the company was one I was excited about.

Never would I ever do something like that. Doesn't matter how excited a company makes me, I'm not turning my body into a biological billboard. Different (brush) strokes for different folks I guess.

Even though anatomically it doesn't really work out that way, when I was a kid I always wanted to get a tattoo of a plant along my calf so that it would look like the plant was growing as I got taller over the years.

Tangentially, there are also studies suggesting a possible statistical association between tattoo ink and an increased risk of certain cancers, such as lymphoma. Shocker, subepidermally injected permanent pigments may not be good for you.

How many cups of cold brew until the 'break even' point for the cost of the tattoo? or did the coffee shop provide the artist and ink? im just curious about the economics of permanent advertising space. how many years has the shop been open? i ask because the failure rate for coffee shops etc is heavily weighted in the first decade of being open, so 'for life' might be a stretch.