Dec 18 2008
Fat People Are Too Damn Sensitive
Yo fatties, I’m saying this as a fat chick – take a chill pill.
I read this complaint on consumerist and I laughed and laughed. Especially at the part where she said the clerk called her fat and poor. Because if I had that discussion with a clerk, I’d do one of a few things:
- Ask the clerk if there was a way for me to make a written request that the store expand their inventory.
- Leave that store and choose not to shop at Macy’s anymore if I was really offended by the clerk.
- Leave that store and go to the other location.
What’s funny about all this to me is that, as a fat chick, I do a lot of clothes-shopping in a variety of locations. It’s rare that I have the luck to find something that fits reasonably and looks nice. It sucks to shop as a fat anyone, and a clerk who could tell me where there was a larger inventory is giving me useful information.
In fact, I’ve found that the best places for me to shop are predominantly lower-class areas, since there are higher obesity rates the poorer you are. It costs money (and time) to take care of yourself. Nothing this clerk said was untrue, and it wouldn’t be offensive to anyone who accepted that they were, well, fat.
It doesn’t OFFEND me that stores in lower-class areas have a larger selection of larger sizes. If it did offend me, I’d think of myself as a class-ist, superior, fat-ass. I’m none of those things (except the fat-ass). This woman exposed her own insecurities and expects everyone else to tip-toe around them and sugarcoat the world. Ain’t happening.
PS. Why do people, in general, get upset about someone calling them poor (or what they consider, in their warped minds, to be someone calling them poor)? Why is it a bad thing or a judgment at all? I really don’t get that attitude. Whether I’m poor or not, I’m not planning to waste my money on demonstrating my wealth socially.
Wow. So “fat chick” goes to Macy’s, can’t find clothes in her size, Macy’s employee tells her straight that Macy’s has chosen not to cater to her size instead of telling her some lie about stock levels, and then said employee goes above and beyond by suggesting another location where larger clothes may be found — more likely from personal knowledge than from any particular coaching by her employers. None of this is phrased particularly well, but it’s all the truth and apparently offered in a spirit of helpfulness.
In response, fat chick writes scathing complaint about employee and Macy’s in general, alleging that she has been called fat, poor and low-class.
I dunno about poor, but I do know that beating up on people trying to help you makes you low-class.
And what’s so damned offensive about the demographics anyway? If she’s, say, 30 years old and wears a size 18, then 80% of her peers wear a smaller size than she does, with the most popular sizes being 12 and 14. I think Kara will back me up if I assert that a garment designed for a size 12 and then scaled up to an 18 is probably not going to fit well or look great. The “black Macy’s” probably stocks quite a few entirely different garments, not just bigger sizes of the same stuff. For the “average Macy’s”, stocking larger sizes might mean devoting shelf space to something that’s useful for 20% of their customers versus 80%.
If the sizes at the Macy’s in question truly stopped at 12 as the fat chick claims, that suggests that it isn’t an “average Macy’s” and that their demographic skews in the skinny-white-girl direction, which means it may be even worse than 80/20 for them.
I don’t see how this is anything other than good business. No company is going to be more interested in shaming fat women than in turning a profit.
I really hate to step in this except to say I had a similar experience at a men’s clothing store — “try our stores in PG county, they have business clothes for fat black men”. I said “excuse me? how is that relevant”. Clerk said “You know — It’s more acceptable to be fat if you’re black. Fat white guys don’t wear suits. They’re slobs.” He says this to me – fat white guy me. The data may have supported his theory, but this kid really needs some training. I guess he was an equal opportunity jerk at least, but I won’t go back. I guarantee it.
Really? What is this freakish no-fat-white-people phenomenon? Obesity rates are not that much higher for black guys, this must just be some twisted social thing.
Your last sentence made me LOL.
Maybe it has to do with technology? Maybe fat, professional, white people are ordering their clothes online, and fat, professional, black people aren’t?
I think it’s just baloney. Black men as a group are no fatter than white men as a group, and the socioeconomic situation in this country is still such that black men as a group are less likely to have jobs requiring them to wear suits than white men as a group.
From a sterile demographics standpoint, I’d expect the situation to be reversed, with a fat black professional being told “go to the Anne Arundel county store where the fat white guys shop.”
So either this kid at the unnamed warehouse-like men’s clothing store was just a dolt, or we start diving into ridiculous generalizations like, “Black guys like to look nice.”