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julesnoctambule
2007-03-08 02:52 pm UTC (link)

I'm amazed at all the people insisting it's bad service for the employee to follow store policy when so many of the stories on that site are about customers abusing employees for doing the exact same thing.

If she'd described the customer as anything other than an overweight Trekkie, I wonder if so many people would bother getting offended and up in arms over the sort of post that happens all the time. It's a description, not a damn value judgement!
Makes me think of Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons, actually.

Calling me a pasty-white girl with small boobs would also be neither offensive nor a value judgement -- it's true and a completely valid way to give a mental image of me. Describing someone's appearance =/= discriminating against them.

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	luckdragonfujur 2007-03-08 06:05 pm UTC (link)
	It's a description, not a damn value judgement! It's a description that implies value judgment in a society where the "desirable" is to be thin and where the nerds/geeks/etcetera are at the bottom of the food chain for those who are not into that. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

altoidsaddict
2007-03-08 06:51 pm UTC (link)

Exactly. If it was full of "here's a thin guy, here's a fat guy, there was this other customer who had brown hair..." then it would be descriptive. Bit "fat" and "skinny" and "black" tend to be used, in C_S, as the only descriptor of a nasty customer, where good customers are often only described as "nice" or "good." Not only that, but the customer being fat has absolutely no bearing on the story, and in and of itself is not descriptive enough to allow us to envision him as a person.

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	iwanttobeasleep 2007-03-08 08:29 pm UTC (link)
	I think the fact that she bothered to describe it is a pretty heavy value judgement. If the customer's appearance didn't matter, she wouldn't have said anything about it. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	luckdragonfujur 2007-03-08 08:54 pm UTC (link)
	Yes, but I was trying to explain to julesnoctambule why it is a value judgment beyond a simply "because it wasn't relevant to the story". ^^U (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	iwanttobeasleep 2007-03-08 08:56 pm UTC (link)
	I was agreeing with you. . .and I meant to say that. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	luckdragonfujur 2007-03-08 09:10 pm UTC (link)
	Oh, sorry. .-. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	funwithrage 2007-03-09 03:45 am UTC (link)
	Well, there are some of us who deserve it. Not necessarily a weight thing, but "three-hundred-pound bearded shut-in" provides insta-mental-image, the same way "tanorexic Dior-wearing bottle blonde" would. And I can't really object to either. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	april_hurst 2007-03-08 07:58 pm UTC (link)
	It's not bad service - it's exactly what an employee should do. However, if there's a manager or shift supervisor on duty (and there almost always is), it's best to have him/her come over to handle customers who demand things outside of policy instead of holding up the line and arguing. It's part of a manager's job and also part of why they get paid more. (Reply to this)(Parent)

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