Not going to argue with you in general, as there may well be a kernel of truth in that ( though I suspect the issue is as often willpower and motivation as it is laziness per se ). But just as a counter-anecdote ( which should not be pluralized;)) I will note that the hardest working man I’ve ever met was a blue-collar supervisor who was easily 350+. Big guy built like a Russian weight-lifter and similarly strong - he was also the single strongest man I have ever met despite his massive gut.
He could be kind of a slave-driver, but unlike most of his ilk he was always respected because he would never ask you to do anything he wouldn’t do himself. He’d get right down with you and work his ass off at the nastiest, most menial tasks. His biggest flaw as a supervisor is he always respected working hard over working smart.
He was told by by one upper-management fellow ( quietly and without witnesses, but i believe him ) that he would never be promoted above foreman because his size projected a poor image, despite his demonstrated competence. Despite the front-line, blue-collar nature of the job he didn’t look good enough to be supervisor material. In the end he was promoted when that particular manager moved on elsewhere.
His weight did kill him prematurely in the end ( massive blood pressure led to a stroke ), but only after ~20 years of hard service.
It is an EXACT analogy. I have a fantasy in my head about politically conservative people and I judge people based on it, calling it observing reality. As do you.
If Mary doesn’t know how to chop an onion, or do any of the other chores, then why is it wrong for her to admit to ignorance and be willing to learn? Mary has other flaws, but if she’s willing to do chores as long as someone teaches her how to do them, I can’t say that she’s in the wrong here. Your mom could have taught her a new chore every other day or something. Yes, Mary SHOULD have been taught by her own parents, but that’s in the past and can’t be fixed.
I’m also stymied as to how you can tell the difference between someone with a medical condition causing weight gain and someone without a condition causing weight gain. Either way they look the same on the outside. Saying you have no problem with someone who has a condition causing weight gain doesn’t equate with judging fat people based simply on their fatness. It’s not exactly kosher at a job interview to ask a woman if she has PCOS or a man if he has a thyroid condition.
Evil Captor–so what’s your theory on how someone becomes morbidly obese? Do they just wake up that way one day? Do you think it typically happens through events that are absolutely beyond a person’s control?
Well, I wasn’t there, so I don’t know how this conversation went down. Knowing my mom, she probably only mentioned it after she got really, really, really annoyed (she’s the queen of passive aggression) and by that time it got to that point, she wasn’t in the mood to be a teacher.
To be fair, it seems to me that this line of reasoning could help you nullify just about any kind of predictor we ever use for anything. “Oh, you got a 4.0 at Harvard? That only tells me you are good at getting high grades. At Harvard.”
Makes me think of my mother’s most frequent complaint about Littlebro. He’s a self-starter at those tasks which he believes are “his”, but his initial assumption about any task is that it’s not-his. So, when there’s a task you want him to add to his list, you don’t just wish for it (Mom’s favorite method - if wishes were horses, I’d have a Porsche instead of a Toyota) or sigh at the ceiling (step two) or whine to me over the phone (step three): you go and say “yo, I want you to start doing this task too. I’ll teach you how, don’t worry :evil grin of ‘you have no way out’:” And, hey, he does!
Back to the initial question, sure looks like the weight is a factor. Whether it is a rational factor or not is irrelevant, but we’ve got several people in hiring positions who would choose someone who they see as “normal weight” over someone they see as “aberrant weight” (either too-fat or too-thin). Still, keep on truckin’ is not just the best policy, it’s the only one. I see a bigger problem with the “raising at noon”: I’ve seen temp jobs come up “for half an hour ago” because someone was sick/in an accident/had an urgent and serious family issue, but they were covered several hours before noon, you don’t get those by calling the temp agency at 1pm.
If I were one of that small minority, I’d be pissed at the vast legions of lazy fat fucks who merely let themselves go, for ensuring that everyone who looked at me would first assume I was one of them.
I know there’s no convincing you, so I don’t really have much more to say on this subject, but if you think that a good analogy is
Tax cheat:Financially irresponsible::Obese:Irresponsible in every area
…then I just don’t know what else to say to you. These aren’t even close.
I can comfortably say as someone who has had trouble with weight management throughout my life that managing your weight is almost entirely dissimilar to being a responsible employee.
Yes, irresponsible fat fucks who are colossal train wrecks in every area of their lives exist. On the other hand, most people aren’t complete masters of their lives in every area. Imagine saying “If someone can’t put together a fashionable outfit, I just can’t trust them to write efficient code”. Someone’s weight isn’t shorthand for their work ethic or personality.
I hope you don’t have 15 or more employees, or aren’t in the US. If you do meet those conditions, your hiring practices are illegal under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Mental illness counts as a disability.
Do you also discriminate against people with other disabilities?
I agree that most people aren’t masters of every aspects of their lives, but I think one’s overall physical shape is a big area. To continue the battle of the analogies–the ability to not be morbidly obese is nothing like the ability to dress oneself fashionably. It’s much more like the ability to do other basic things that are job relevant, such as advance planning, meeting goals, and ecercising self-discipline.
Again, I’m not going to begrudge someone being a few pounds overweight–it’s only at the point that it becomes morbid obesity that I would not hire them because of it.