Social Question

josie's avatar

In the Chilly D's "fat girls" controversy, is it the problem that the girls are fat (I assume that they actually are), or that someone recognized that they were fat and wrote it down. Or perhaps both?

Asked by josie (23360 points ) December 10th, 2012

Or to put it another way, is it likely the girls do not like being fat, so they hope everyone else will not make note of it. What if the guy in question noticed, but simply did not write it down. And why is it national news? If I get shitty treatment at a restaurant, I just don’t go there anymore.
It’s sort of a psychological question, I think.

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6 Answers

JLeslie's avatar

The problem is that it is innappropriate and unprofessional for an employee to call a customer a fat girl to their face, and if it is there in plain writing on their bill it is essentially the same as saying it. If they tag orders with descriptive words describing the customers I don’t have a major problem with that, but it should be impossible for it to print out. In a restaurant I don’t really get it, because aren’t the tables numbered? And, aren’t there a lot of fat people in the restaurant? Maybe they live in a skinny city and there aren’t many fat people.

josie's avatar

@JLeslie About a third of American adults are obese. I bet some of them get that way by eating regularly at places like I imagine Chilly D’s could be.

CWOTUS's avatar

It’s national news because of the silly 24/7 “news cycle” and its insatiable maw. That’s one reason why I avoid “television ‘news’” as much as possible.

JLeslie's avatar

@josie That’s my point. If I walked into a restaurant where I live right now and someone asked me to hand a note to the table where fat girls are sitting, it probably would not be enough infornation for me to get to the exact right table. When I worked in retail we had abreviations so it was not so obvious how we remembered a client.

tedibear's avatar

Part of it is because “fat” is considered an insult in the U.S.. To remark upon a customer in an insulting way isn’t appropriate and is at the very least, unnecessary. Why take the chance that a customer might see something like that and cause a stink?

As for why it’s national news, I’m with CWOTUS.

Seek's avatar

Well, it’s certainly bad for business to categorize your customers by negative traits. What if Starbucks baristas started calling out “Grande nonfat no whip white mocha for the ugly bald dude”?

Signs point to ugly bald dude not coming back for the next white mocha.

Now, I do think it’s a good thing that this gets national attention. Necessary, not really, but it’s still a good thing.

Why? Because sometimes people need to be reminded that other people are people, too. We live in a world where a great number of teenagers have never had a serious face-to-face conversation. Where they sit next to their friends in class and text each other. Where they never have to see the consequences of their words on the faces of the people with whom they are speaking.

And because of all this, people say a lot of very hurtful things, without even considering how it might make someone else feel, or what ramifications it might have on, say, their place of business.

Routinely ridiculing their customers’ outward appearance is not exactly great for job security. Anyone who runs a small business knows that regular customers are what pay the bills. Harassing people isn’t a way to make regulars. No regulars means no business, which means no job for Baron von Judgmental Dipshit.

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