Now you’re just being silly - who would do something that strange?
Can the tree type or file?
It all depends on if the other one is a Jew.
Is it illegal in your hypo to discriminate against obese people? Don’t fight the question, just answer it yes or no. If no, then hire normal weight due to less time out on sick leave and other costs. If yes, then flip a coin.
Or, cage match to the death.
I’d hire the fat one, because fatties gotta stick together.
Posting without reading thread:
I’d hire the other person all other things being equal. They are intrinsically less of a health liability to company’s insurance. They are also less likely to have health problems that will result in missed days at work.
I begin negotiating with both, offering initially a salary of $1 a year plus benefits, with an expectation of working 60 hour weeks including Saturday. I hire whichever one settles for less.
Crap, he’s got AIDS? That’s probably why he got TB, too. Maybe I should hire him so that he can get some health insurance.
Couldn’t the head of the company down-size ‘The Decider’ & hire them both?
New hires = lower salary, less accrued vacation time, benefits don’t kick in for 60 days and they are considered to be technically on probation for 6 months. Likely they’d Both be so grateful to have a job that there’d be little time for any “all things considered, lets justify my mean spirited derision of employee ‘X’ and all snicker while losing productivity” BS.
From a company point of view, its pure win-win.
C’mon, Rand, we’re running a company here. Think outside the box… 
Neither of them would settle for less than the other one. Do you see why?
I love Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar take on this:
"Cæsar. Let me have men about me that are fat,
Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep a-nights:
Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look,
He thinks too much; such men are dangerous.
Antony. Fear him not, Cæsar, he’s not dangerous:
He is a noble Roman, and well given.
Cæsar. Would he were fatter; but I fear him not:
Yet if my name were liable to fear,
I do not know the man I should avoid
So soon as that spare Cassius."
My daughters workplace are laying people off, although she’s a great worker she has had to take time off for playing on the national team, obviously this could work against her in the cold hard light of who’s next for the chop.
I’ll take the obese one please, we’ll have more in common!
Well, there’s obese and there’s OBESE. Quite a few people are medically obese and nonetheless not enormous (requiring special chairs, etc) or - especially with large-breasted women - really really fat or unhealthy.
And then, it depends what the job is. You didn’t specify that. You said office-based, but a lot of office-based jobs have an at least partially customer-facing role. Then, if the person were severely obese and it were an industry that cared more about looks, I might perhaps prefer the skinny person - unless they were skinny like Gareth out of the British version of The Office. You know, the one who played a zombie in Pirates of the Caribbean without any need for make-up?
If it, were, say, something like data entry, then I honestly wouldn’t know. I would probably dither until one of them got back in touch to see whether they’d got the job, then hire them.
Nobody is identical except weight. This is ridiculous. I honestly don’t understand what the point is in this question, but I wouldn’t know who I’d hire. I’m obese but I’m still a hard worker. I worked construction for a long time before I decided to stay home with my daughter a few years. I almost never took off work, I kept up with the skinny folks, and I was generally a jolly person to know. So maybe I’d consider that and hire the obese person. Of course I’ve been not-obese and worked just as hard. I don’t see how weight really matters once you get past the stereotypes. Now if it was someone who has to be wheeled in, with those giant sausage arms that look like they’re about to bust out of the casing, who talks about their ten-year goal to be the fattest person in the world, who can only wear those fuzzy slippers because no other shoes will go on them, well then I doubt I’d hire them over the one at a healthier weight. Then again I wouldn’t hire anyone super-skinny with sores on their faces and missing teeth, with eyes that dart around the room like they’re looking for something to steal.
Is that what I’m supposed to do here? Look to both extremes? Or are we talking about some 50 pound difference?
I almost said this, but then I decided to give the job to the obese person, because given the stats we have about discrimination against the obese, that person will be at a disadvantage to finding work. So I would hire them in some act of obesity affirmative action, I guess.
Because you made it up?
Awesome! I am using this when someone complains about my rambling.
Is that really an advantage? If they’re the same gender, she could be a real pain in the ass to work with. And if it’s a guy, there could be torrid romantic love triangles involved, which even if I’m not a leg of the triangle would cause workplace tension and become my problem if these people work under me. Can the fat one be a monk? A monk wouldn’t bring drama to the workplace.
Dude, just because someone is attractive doesn’t mean they’re gonna turn the office into Melrose Place.
I’d hire the skinny person cuz I’m fat and I wouldn’t want to have to fight the new guy for the last piece of office birthday cake.