You're Fat. You're Ugly. You're Fired!

I read a rumor the other day that the powers that be at a certain restaurant chain have declared that no fat or ugly people are to be hired, and that the ones who are already employees must be fired. (I won't name the chain, but I don't think they Bee the Apple of their fat or ugly employees' eye.)

Of course, there's outrage amongst the fat and the ugly. "They can't DO that! It's discrimination!"

From a legal perspective, that just ain't so, unless you're in one of the tiny number of places that have laws designating fat people as a protected class. (I'm pretty sure nobody has laws protecting unattractive people, so the uggers are shit outta luck.)

Anyhow, part of the pissing and moaning about this rumored beautifying of the wait-staff has to do with the place in question having a Weight Watchers menu as part of their offerings. Why, the chubsters want to know, if you are trying to attract large customers, do you not want their equally large sisters serving the nutritious, calorie-conscious portions?

Well DUH. It's kind of the same reason that no one wants to go to an aerobics class taught by a fat chick, or a Jenny Craig counselor who's a heifer. You want to see where you're going, not where you were or are. A fat waitress serving up the weight-loss food just doesn't work.

And then there's the rest of the customers. They don't want fugly servers any more than they would want their food to look like shit. An appetizing waitress enhances an appetizing meal. A lard-ass takes away from it.

Years ago there was a rumor about Jack Welsh, the GE guy. He just fuckin' HATED fat people. Every time GE would buy up a company, they'd have to hide all the fat people when he came to visit. He even sometimes demanded that fat people be fired on the spot.

His beef (tee hee, I said beef) was that fat people were not just visually unappealing. He claimed they were also less productive, and more expensive benefits-wise.

The fat folks shouted HOGWASH!

Turns out ol' Neutron Jack was right, though. The serious whales ARE less productive, because they have lots of chronic health problems. They use their medical insurance more because of those problems too.

Jack saw intuitively what a bunch of studies proved later on. Fatties are bad for the bottom line.

(No word on how he felt about ugly people, but I'm gonna guess that he wouldn't have wanted one serving him his meal in a restaurant.)

The bad thing about ugly is that there's not much you can do about it that doesn't involve expensive surgery and shit. The good thing about fat is, it's easy to do something about it. Put down the fork, push away from the table, and go for a nice walk.

And stop claiming you can't help being fat. It's not like being black or something. You weren't exactly born that way.