That incident at Buckingham Palace received a lot of press when it happened last year and the Lady in question was forced to resign.
Oh I believe you! There are just so many things happening in the world at all times and I admit I pay next to no attention to anything happening with the royal family. Why would I, I’m an American and we threw our kings and queens out. 
No, I can see that she MEANT it as a compliment and not the clumsy foot-in-the-mouth gaffe that it actually was. As the recipient, I would recognize that and let it slide that one time knowing that, if I never heard it again, she recognized our previous meeting as an embarrassing faux pas on her part.
The only way I can imagine that it would have been meant as a compliment is horribly sexist: ‘Women are supposed to be tiny! You’re so good at being female!’
Would anybody say it’s a compliment to say “Ooh! You’re so nicely medium sized!”? – no, of course not. Commenting on someone’s being either unusually tall or unusually short isn’t 'You’re so good at that!"; it’s “You’re so odd!” Which is not a compliment.
Possible exception if recruiting for a basketball team, or for cavers who have to fit through tight spaces. Still likely to be annoying unless the person’s already expressed an interest in the job, though.
A while back I saw a bumper sticker that said “100% human. Made in the USA from imported parts.”.
This reminds me of an amusing incident from my youth.
As an Asian American kid in the '70s and early '80s, I was quite accustomed to the “What are you?” question, but I had yet to grasp that “Where are you from?” was the slightly politer form of the same inquiry, not having heard it as often.
I was taking my first solo plane trip, flying out of Newark, NJ (to Michigan, incidentally), and had some minor issue with ticketing or seating or some such. A very kind white couple, thirtyish and dressed in business attire, helped me out. It turned out that we were sharing the same row on the plane, so we got to chatting during the flight. And of course, the inevitable question emerged:
“So where are you from?”
“Watchung…”
“Oh wow, your English is so good!”
“…New Jersey.”
I think it’s impressive that you speak English well after going to school in Watchung. Maybe they were from Livingston or Millburn.
(…says the father of kids from a rival school)
Ha, well, I personally feel like the place started to go downhill once they finished construction on Route 78 and it became a bedroom community for lower Manhattan. Maybe spoken English has deteriorated there in the 20 years since I left.
I think every single one of us has on one or more occasion stuck our foot in our mouth. Most of us agree Officer Lisa’s comment was inappropriate, but without knowing more about her day-to-day professional interactions, it’s not really making me question her judgment. If Sylvia came to me with a complaint about this I’d have a word with Lisa, but I’m unlikely to recommend any sort of sanction. i.e. Unless Lisa has a pattern of putting her foot into her mouth, this isn’t a serious issue.
It was unprofessional.
Nice!
We don’t know anything about Officer Lisa besides the fact she’s approaching age 60 and likely has been a LEO for a 35+ years. Per the OP she’s “quite old school”. Probably a rather crusty personality overall. A life in that difficult line of work leaves a few gouges.
Lisa’s a bit younger than me & most of us here. @Jasmine is one of our youngsters and is younger than Lisa. Let’s turn on our wayback machines and return to the bygone years of our own youth.
If I was to guess about the women who became LEOs back then in the mid 80s, and the sexist selection processes probably still used then, I’m going to suggest that Lisa is maybe (probably?) a tall beefy woman. Not fat: big. The sort that used to be called “horsey”.
Someone who, looking at a cute small person she professionally estimates (mistakenly) as age 17-19, thinks back to her own awkward time in HS wishing she herself was more typical of the other girls in school. Unconsciously she’s thinking “Damn, I wish I’d been small and cute back then; woulda been so much easier than taking all the shit I did for the package I came in. Sigh.”
So she blurts out something coming from 17yo her, despite her now being almost 60. More envious than belittling. Oops.
I can cut Lisa a lot of slack. Far more because she realized her mistake. Sylvia’s feelings were hurt. No debate there. The world would be a (slightly) better place if this hadn’t been said. But if Lisa learned something that sticks, the net is probably positive.
I happen to bear a strong resemblance to a certain mythical character symbolic of the Yule season, and have grown very tired of having strangers yell on the street about how good they’ve been, and wanting to know what I’m bringing them. Worse is sitting in a restaurant and overhearing a parent tell their young snotbearer ‘well, go over and tell him what you want for Christmas’. Just once a young lovely told me she’d been naughty, and hoped we could work it out…
Anywho, I’ve learned that making remarks about someone’s appearance is rarely a good idea, AND I’ve learned that expecting people to understand this is nearly pointless.
Hey, no dissing my home town! I moved out when I was 5, but I still say cawfee.
Yeah, it’s definitely an accident in which driver and bystander were both hurt.
I suppose there’s also a tiny bit of conflict over this because of the way we encourage our offspring to be curious and inquiring; ‘whats that flower?’, ‘how does that clock work?’, ‘where does that door go?’, 'what’s making that sound?, ‘why does the sun move in the sky?’. We encourage our kids to be open with their questions. ‘Why does that man have strange hands?’ is a question they have to learn not to ask out loud.
None of those things apply.
One thing to consider is Lisas two youngest children are in their late teens.
I suspect she just thought she was being mom-like or folksy by saying that.
When she asked me “Should I not have said that?” all I said was “I wouldn’t have”. I then got into my squad and went to another call.
Ah! I love this post. You remind me of the Santa in the Netflix movie, “Violent Night”.
I learned at some point when I was growing up that if a situation is a perfect setup for a one liner or a stale joke, DON’T do it because there is no way the person has not heard it a million times before. One look at you at this time of year would immediately say to me, “No Santa jokes!”
The difference is unlike Sylvia you can easily change your look. Probably with nothing more than a shave. So you intentionally look like that. While it may be rude and irritating to have people do that, unlike Sylvia you can prevent it if you wish.
(grocery store cashier has trouble scanning item)
Customer: “Must be free then!”
(clerk smiles thinly and prays for death)
I have two children, but none in their late teens, and still that’s enough kids to know that calling a teenager “tiny and cute” would earn me a glare that would disintegrate me down to my component atoms.