Would you hire a morbidly obese person?

[Anonymous]

I can see it being an issue in IT for some companies. Is the IT job more sit at a desk and monitor? Or is it like where I work and the IT guys are often crawling on the floor and under desks to set up new stations or fix issues? One of our IT guys was just up in our ceiling fixing something, so a morbidly obese guy is not going to be able to do that like this 120lb guy can.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can see it being an issue in IT for some companies. Is the IT job more sit at a desk and monitor? Or is it like where I work and the IT guys are often crawling on the floor and under desks to set up new stations or fix issues? One of our IT guys was just up in our ceiling fixing something, so a morbidly obese guy is not going to be able to do that like this 120lb guy can.

Are there grown men who are 120 pounds?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:IT

I knew this would be the answer. I don't know of any ITers that aren't obese or at least don't have a potbelly hanging over their 2 pleated khaiki pants.

[Anonymous]

What size companies is he interviewing at? My sister owns a small business, and her assistant/admin was obese. She was a great admin, but they had a heck of a time finding an insurance policy to cover her. Obviously that difficulty didn't stop my sister from hiring her, but I could see it being a deterrent for a smaller employer.

DH has an employee who was morbidly obese in a job that requires a PhD but isn't totally a desk job. It did create a problem when he was more junior, because there were a few physical things related to running experiments in their lab that he really couldn't do...and as a junior engineer he was expected to be able to do them. He is a good enough engineer, though he's got other career-limiting quirks that are unrelated to his weight, that they worked around the issues. But it can be a hassle if there is even 5% work that isn't at a desk and a person's obesity limits them from doing that work. In this case, the person has had to lose a fair amount of weight for health reasons.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Isn't it discrimination if you don't hire this person based on weight?

But how are they going to prove it? That's the key and the hard part, from what I understand.

Same as with not hiring workers in their 50s or not wanting to hire female workers in their late 20s/early 30s because you know they'll probably doing the mommy thing soon.

I think this thread is good proof. How many morbidly obese IT people are there who fit this description?

[Anonymous]

It is illegal to discriminate this way. We have these laws for a reason, even if you think you can get away with it without anyone knowing.

[Anonymous]

It would impact my decision, yes. I see morbid obesity as a huge charachter flaw and would have concerns about their ability to perform.

[Anonymous]

Yes, because you really have no choice if its the best candidate…right? That said I was an ER nurse and we had 2 women who were so huge they couldn't really handle the job anymore and everyone else picked up the slack. One time we had a huge trauma come in that required one of us to get up on top of the patient as they were coming in and she just panicked and said "you know I'm too fat lets go guys" and that pissed me off. Ill never forget that.

[Anonymous]

With those characteristics, yes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is illegal to discriminate this way. We have these laws for a reason, even if you think you can get away with it without anyone knowing.

Is it illegal to discriminate based on size? Didn't know fattness was a protected group.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is illegal to discriminate this way. We have these laws for a reason, even if you think you can get away with it without anyone knowing.

I don't think this is a protected category under the law. Can you cite your source?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is illegal to discriminate this way. We have these laws for a reason, even if you think you can get away with it without anyone knowing.

Is it illegal to discriminate based on size? Didn't know fattness was a protected group.

It's not. I can't imagine who this poster came up with that. Fat is not a protected class.

[Anonymous]

This is sad. My DH is around 350, and he has an incredibly difficult time getting a new job. He's an amazing public speaker, a fantastic writer, and works harder than anyone I've known. He's been one of the final two or three candidates in job searches more than I can count. I think the weight is what keeps him from that final offer.

He has a problem with emotional eating because he was abused as a kid. I hate that it continues to hold him back.

I hate that people make assumptions that fat people are lazy. Nothing could be further from the truth for some.

[Anonymous]

When I have issues I tackle them (and I've had some doozies). For someone to be so wounded from childhood that they weigh 350 lbs - well, at some point it seems like he's too lazy to fix the underlying issues that are quite literally going to kill him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When I have issues I tackle them (and I've had some doozies). For someone to be so wounded from childhood that they weigh 350 lbs - well, at some point it seems like he's too lazy to fix the underlying issues that are quite literally going to kill him.

Let us know how your plan to defeat death works out.