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| *Ostroff, Fair and Company>>>Administrative and Office Support |
How does your work place accept diversity with fat people - are they treated equally? |
One of my employees came to me and was concerned with the way she was having to deal with other employees about her size - she is about 5' and 350 pounds. She has been a large woman who during her 10 years here has grown considerably - mostly as a very good performer but also in her size. She was much smaller when she started but kept gaining after her children. I have tried to offer her ways to deal with this issue by learning to be positive about her size and ignoring and deflecting comments. Even learning how to turn them to her advantage. My skin is likely thicker than hers - both reality and a pun given my large 550 size. I have checked with human resources to see if we have any provisions for being accepting of fat people. However, that was not productive. I guess being fat and obese is not considered a disadvantage in the work place. If you have ideas on this let me know. I would like to add something to our policies since I dealt with this during my gaining. Where I work fat people are treated the same as everyone else. I haven't had trouble at my current job with people picking at me because of my rather large size. It sounds like the people who are doing the picking are either immature or have no respect for her. In any case the picking will not end until she stands up for herself. fat, skinny, lazy, lame, hardworking.... we are all treated the same. does your company have an employee assistance program that your employee can work with to receive some free counseling?? I'm not clear on what exactly is happening in your workplace (are people ridiculing you &/or your co-worker due to size, or is there professional discrimination, such as people-of-size not receiving promotions, etc). I know that at my last place of employment, people-of-size were seldom hired because of the physical demands of the job. . . but no one was ever fired for gaining weight. If the company has published policies about harassment/discrimination, your friend might consider getting a lawyer to look at possible legal action. If she feels like she is experiencing harassment, she shouldn't just take that. I would think it would be just as serious as being sexually harassed. Being obese is not a choice exactly but you werent born that way either, there are ways to go about being healthy. Eating right, exercising, being happy with life. No person should be treated a bit more special for being larger or being criticized as well. You did make that choice not to help yourself, Im not stating that criticism is right because people sometimes are just down right rude, but when one criticizes its because of something they dont like in themselves. Fat jokes, is harrassment just as much as any sexual comments or anything else in the workplace. You need to be happy with yourself and not worry about what others think and if it bothers you so much. Then do something about it, getting people in trouble for comments made at work will only just make it worse upon yourself but show them the words dont hurt. |
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