Actually, no it’s not moot. Just intending that they won’t see it isn’t enough. You don’t even do it then. You don’t say or write things like that down even if you think the person isn’t going to see it. Let me emphasize that … you never write something like that down in a workplace situation. Because, guess what, sometimes they see it.
It’s not. There are lots of inappropriate physical descriptors, as has been repeatedly pointed out. I don’t think I would even put something like “black guy” for fear of offense, even though “black” doesn’t have the negative connotations that “fat” does (and it does, despite your repeated attempts to claim otherwise – otherwise, “fatty” or “fat ass” would have zero sting as insults). Neutral descriptors are things that don’t have potentially negative connotations, like clothes’ color or type (e.g. red dress). Even things like hair color can be taken badly, e.g. ‘ginger’. People can take umbrage at a broad number of things used to describe them; being surprised that ‘fat’ is on that list is pretty amazing, frankly, for any mature professional adult.
It’s not that you don’t notice things. It’s that it’s rude to use them to someone’s face. Someone may be ‘old lady’ to you, and sure it’s a fact that that lady is old just as these ladies were fat, but it’s fucking rude as hell to say “Hey old lady” or present a bill to “Old lady” no matter how true it is, because like it or not, a lot of people see old as a negative or pejorative. If you’re a professional and you want to use potentially offensive descriptors, then you had better make like Santa and check it twice that you took it off before the customer sees it. Personally, I wouldn’t risk it and would use either a table number, description of their location, or hell, use abbreviations that I could interpret but the customers couldn’t (e.g. FG for fat girls). It’s not too much to ask to be a bit smart about it and be a professional.
I am cracking the fuck up over this. This is perfect.
I have come to apologize to Ambivalid, deeply and sincerely.
My post in know way was intended as a jab, cheap shot or personal insultt. I was trying to make a point, to the people who were defending it as somewhat innocent. I felt they would see more clearly, how hurtful and wrong they would feel it would be, if it was not directed at the more popular target of a fat person to, not only someone disabled, but someone they personally knew.
I said he’d have a law suit filed and a camera crew, because I wanted them to see that the restaurant got off lucky that these women weren’t familiar with how to drive change like someone already fighting the good fight. I did say he’d be absolutely right to do both of those things. Simply trying to point out that we would all be standing up for him as he did so.
Again, this apology is sincere and from the heart. I was not jabbing at Ambivalid and apologize to everyone who felt I was. I am sorry I was not clearer in what I was trying to say, I will take more care in the future.
And with that, I will refrain from posting further in this thread, or any other Ambivalid threads.
Thank you for listening.
This is life. And… life is suffering… isn’t it?
I never expected to encounter one of the Four Noble Truths in a discussion about fat chicks. 
Then you are advocating that nobody ever say anything descriptive about another person which they might take offense to in any situation. Because it’s not enough for them to not hear it, you can’t ensure that they won’t somehow find out about it.
In the workplace, yes. You don’t describe people by their body shapes.
They should assign numbers to the tables. That would be easier than writing descriptions of the occupants on the checks.
His sloppiness of execution was quite unsurprisingly perceived as denigration by the overweight women. Who would expect to find personal comments about them on their fucking receipt? It would feel like a slap in the face.
The bartender, who seemed to be acting in the capacity of manager on duty, should have realized this, and done whatever he could to make it right with them, right then. At a minimum, comping their $25 check and a sincere apology with all the usual ‘can’t believe this happened, will speak to the waiter, make sure it never happens again, so sorry that you had to experience this here’ buzzwords.
So you don’t put the comments where the customer might see them if you slip up.
I’m with Acsenray on this. Not just here, but in the workplace generally. There are a lot of women that I work with, mostly statisticians and managers, and while some are just kinda okay looking, some of them are damned attractive. But at work, I don’t talk about which ones are the knockouts, and which ones aren’t so much. They’re my colleagues, we have work to do, and it’s important that we work well together. I don’t want to say stuff that, by commission or omission, might wind up throwing sand in the gears. And it’s particularly important to me that the two women on my staff know they’re valued for the quality of the work they do, not because of their looks.
You’re surprised?
Don’t you know..this is how the non white, (sometimes non-male) members of the post entitlement/current Facebook generation operate.
If they don’t like something they complain, through whatever medium necessary in order to get either vindication or some twisted self defined version of justice.
Take the case of Eden Jacobowitz back in the 90s…
The difference between those entitled self expression people and normal grown-up adults? The latter realizes that life is full of assholes and the best way to deal with them is to simply ignore them - and if YOU can’t ignore them, that’s TOO BAD for YOU.
For some reason we’ve turned into a country/society that caters to everyone’s ‘feelings’.
These women and this guy just had an awkward situation with no harm intended..now they’re embarrassed self indulgent fat asses just made a big deal out of nothing.
What is that supposed to mean?
Yeah, our generation really sucks because we don’t put up with people being assholes.
but only if we are non-white. :rolleyes:
or non-male
I guess a male white person would handle it the old fashioned way, fisticuffs at dawn!
I’ve been following this thread for a couple of days now. When I first read the story, my initial reaction was “wow, that probably hurt their feelings.” When I read on that they demanded to have their bill comped, I thought they were opportunists that should have just not tipped the waiter. Reading this thread has not made me feel any different about their over reaction, their attention whoring over the incident and their cause of some poor schlub losing his job over forgetting to delete what should have been a personal reminder of the overweight girls at a specific table. These are large girls that were not purposefully insulted to their face. If they have such problems with people looking at them and thinking “fat chick” they should go on diets and stop going on national news acting all wronged when it was a simple mistake. The manager offered them a discount but that wasn’t good enough. They thought they should be entitled to their meal for free because the were insulted inadvertently. The fact they got what they wanted annoys me more than the rest of the story.
Where you run into problems is when the people fighting the assholes end up being bigger assholes in the way they are fighting the orginal assholes. IMO these ladies were ranging into that territory. Not all offenses call for a march on Selma.
I just checked the newspaper. No one seems to be marching on Selma. So maybe the reaction to this story actually isn’t all that disproportionate.
Those stupid illegals are attention whores. Duh. Shouldn’t they be too busy picking table grapes to have time for these petty complaints?
This part I agree with. But saying you can’t even think those things is stupid. Again, a sin of execution. He got sloppy. But if a waiter referenced my table with the notation to himself of “fat asshole” it makes no nevermind to me, so long as it gets me my order on time and correct.