Heightism at my office
May 14, 2018 10:58:07 GMT
Heightism Report, supportfortheshort, and 1 more like this
Post by zed on May 14, 2018 10:58:07 GMT
There is a lot of heightism at my office. Where I work nearly all of my female coworkers are at least 5'9" without heels. Since my female coworkers almost always wear heels, effectively they are 6 foot minimum if not taller. My male coworkers are also extremely tall being mostly at least 6'1" or 6'2" and taller. Our jobs involve working with executives and executive assistants who are also tall.
There is some heightism were a person gets made fun of for being short. For example, several of my coworkers made fun of a 5'6" maintenance guy for being short who had repaired a problem in our office's ventilation system. Fortunately, for the maintenance guy, they didn't make fun of him to his face but waited until after he was finished and left.
Most heightism at my office isn't directed at a person like that. Instead it involves directing conversations to be about height. This happens enough where I know how tall the boyfriends and husbands of my female coworkers are. One conversation about what we did over the weekend turned into being about height when a female coworker started talking about how she went speed dating. The speed dating event was for tall men and women only so all the men had to be at least 6 feet. Apparently, this was checked before it started so all the men were actually 6 foot or taller. My female coworker who did this complained that the men at this speed dating event weren't tall.
Another aspect of heightism at my office is coworkers with kids bragging about their heights. I hear a lot how their kids are in clothes for kids 2 or 3 years older than their actual age. Or how people think their kids are older. Or how their kids are off the charts with respect to height. In one case, one of my coworkers "complained" how his son got so big so quickly that they had to order diapers for him over the internet because the diapers in stores were no longer big enough for him (and he was way too young to start potty training). Another coworker told a story of how he and his wife were measuring their son's height, and their son wanted to measure mom and dad's height. They did that and my coworker discovered that he was 6'7" instead of 6'6". We all heard that story the day after it happened.
Even conversations about vacations can lead to commentary about height. For example, one of my coworkers went on vacation to a country with a lower average height than here. He couldn't shut up about how short the people were.
Because most heightism in my office isn't directed at any one person, there is no good way to object to it.
There is some heightism were a person gets made fun of for being short. For example, several of my coworkers made fun of a 5'6" maintenance guy for being short who had repaired a problem in our office's ventilation system. Fortunately, for the maintenance guy, they didn't make fun of him to his face but waited until after he was finished and left.
Most heightism at my office isn't directed at a person like that. Instead it involves directing conversations to be about height. This happens enough where I know how tall the boyfriends and husbands of my female coworkers are. One conversation about what we did over the weekend turned into being about height when a female coworker started talking about how she went speed dating. The speed dating event was for tall men and women only so all the men had to be at least 6 feet. Apparently, this was checked before it started so all the men were actually 6 foot or taller. My female coworker who did this complained that the men at this speed dating event weren't tall.
Another aspect of heightism at my office is coworkers with kids bragging about their heights. I hear a lot how their kids are in clothes for kids 2 or 3 years older than their actual age. Or how people think their kids are older. Or how their kids are off the charts with respect to height. In one case, one of my coworkers "complained" how his son got so big so quickly that they had to order diapers for him over the internet because the diapers in stores were no longer big enough for him (and he was way too young to start potty training). Another coworker told a story of how he and his wife were measuring their son's height, and their son wanted to measure mom and dad's height. They did that and my coworker discovered that he was 6'7" instead of 6'6". We all heard that story the day after it happened.
Even conversations about vacations can lead to commentary about height. For example, one of my coworkers went on vacation to a country with a lower average height than here. He couldn't shut up about how short the people were.
Because most heightism in my office isn't directed at any one person, there is no good way to object to it.