I never said I had a problem with dwarfs - I know one that is incredible with audio systems

I was too quick to judge the situation

you guys are missing one important point here.

Most companies are smart enough to publish physical requirements for a job

such as:

"You must be capable of lifting 50 lbs over your head.'

"You must be of a sufficient height so as to be capable of operating machinery controls to their full deflection and range of motion."

"You must be no taller than 5'3" or not weigh more than 120 lbs to meet the needs of this position"

"This position prohibits facial hair, hair longer than shoulder length and loose fitting clothing for safety reasons."

etc

it is for this reason you dont see "dwarf" airline pilots out there in those terminals - simply because the airline has stated "for safety reasons, an applicant must be of a sufficient height to operate flight controls to their full range of motion and reach any cockpit switch, button or other interface with minimal effort and without assistance from any device or person."

they have made the people interested in the job aware of this requirement. they do not publish a minimum height in feet and inches... they just make this statement and people who think they might be too short dont apply. period.

the deal here is that most restaurants and retail positions only have the lifting capability.

A quick check of starbucks web site shows no such listing of physical requirements for in store workers.

thus, anyone short tall fat or skinny should be eligible for employment.

the young lady's rights were violated.

she has the right to work, there is no stipulation requiring her to be a certain height, thus if she was fired for asking for a stool to stand on to accommodate her unusual height - she was done wrong.

End of Starbucks please...

I don't know what they serve in the rest of the world but here in the UK its sludge from a septic tank.

Along with every other 'major' coffee-house brand. Really nice coffees are few and far between. :nope:

get yourself into a situation where you are far away enough from home, in a place you would rather not be, in lousy weather and challenging conditions where a half way decent cup of coffee is not found on every street corner... suddenly your taste in coffee becomes a lot less restrictive.

There have been times in my life where i was quite thankful that it was at least black, wet, and steaming hot.

I agree, the only thing i get at starbucks on one of the 2 or 3 times a year i go there is some caramel dessert thing with whipped cream.

im not much of a coffee drinker, but my keurig K-cup dispenser does the job well when im in the mood for it - generally 2 -3 times per week

I'm not much for coffee - but their tea and smoothies are freaking great in the morning to shock your head into the usual mundane routine

She received three days of training, and I assume that was not just reading books and writing homeworks. Why hasn't she asked during the training time - which of course also is a mutual testing time: the company checks if the candidate is up to the job, and the candidate checks if the job is what he wants.

However, company speaks of security concerns and risks to her collegeues and herself. Having experienced two accidents with injured collegaues in two different working place in my past, I do not wipe this statement just off the table. Both times, it was the easymindedness of the victims of said accidents that led to the event. They were lucky that they hurt just themselves, not any of their colleagues. we don't know the conditions in place of where that short lady tried to working. Climbing on chairs with hot liquids or sensitive electronic equipment nearby, maybe is no good idea. And wasn'T this about a job of barista, which means she had to operate an espresso machine? Hot water, hot steam, I say. No good idea to stumble and fall with your hand by reflex grabbing for hold on the machine.

Training likely means she handled the machine before. Why hasn'T she reflected on her height problem before, then?

Beside that, we do not know all aspects of the story, and cases like this often include more than what is printed in the media or the court file. Who knows how she performed and behaved on that day. No company hires somebody just to fire him on his first day. I am almost certain that there was more.

dont you think that during training the trainer would have noticed that the "dwarf" wasnt six feet tall?

Dont you think it would have been obvious that she was unable to perform certain tasks efficiently during her training?

like it or not, in the United States, Dwarfism is a disability.

it is against the law to fire personnel because of a disability, and as an employer, if you choose to hire someone with a disability you must provide reasonable accommodations to that individual.

she has a case regardless of anyone thinking it is unreasonable for her to ask for a stool :doh:

sorry for the way you feel Skybird, but its a fact.

if they felt that hiring her was going to be an issue, they shouldnt have hired her. not hiring her at all would have been preferential to hiring her, training her and then telling her to bugger off because she is too short.

she was hired with starbucks being fully aware of her limitations.

see the Americans with disabilities act title ONE

the very first title of the whole act



false

training means she was being initially familiarized with the operation of equipment, company policy and procedure etc.

I find it hard enough to make an espresso as it is without breaking something - and I'm almost 6ft tall

Some companies and/or agencies in some areas also hire because they get a tax break or other financial incentive for hiring persons of difficult to place categories. Among the many projects I have worked on im my career, I worked 4+ years for the County's Office of Affirmative Action (AA) Compliance. The office is responsible for addressing AA issues regarding internal staff and isuues regarding the County's responsibility to accomodate the public at County facilities and/or firms and entities contracted by the County. The County itself receives additional State and Federal funds for its AA program. Likewise, many non-govermental entities do AA hirings to receive tax preferences, reductions, government contracts, etc.

I was thinking the same thing. :salute:

It was late at night, actually the sun was coming up, and I read more into it than you really posted. :damn:


Magic

wrong

the Americans with Disabilities act expressly lists dwarfism as a disability.

:salute:

Thanks for clearing that up :salute:
Interesting definition by the act, no?

Maybe she handled the tasks and did not complain. So he must have thoiught it is no problem.

Maybe she did not complain and handled the tasks.

I know somebody who would be extremely pissed by being told that. But okay, your business, not ours.

Security concerns that before were not noticable due to the subject not revealing any critical behavior, is a valid reason to replace somebody.

Not if it is all about valid security concerns.

And you do not see any need to ask why they did it nevertheless, eh?

So why did they do it? Where they sytupoiud? Blind? Were they bored and asked for media troubles? Or isn'T it the most likely scneario that during training she did not reveal thnat she had problems to handle a machine to bigh above her? She wanted that job, bit her lips and went through those 3 days, and after that thought she was safe, asking for a stool and then the manager realised that a dwarf who needs a stool to handle a hot pressure machine is a risk. How muzch would she sue Starbuck if the gets injured from hot liquid when handling that macine and somethings goes wrong?

a politically most c ortrect and stupidly formulated law. For example a disability resulting in low physical strength nevertheless is expected to be treated as if the person in question could perform tasks that require much more strength.

I call such laws reality ignoration laws.

And obviously she passed that, including handling that machine. when it was so much stress to reach up there, she obviously hid it to get the job. So the trainer saw no reason to assume a security risk letting her operating the thing. Now she wants to do it from a stool. And Starbuck says that is unsafe. As long as nobody has clear information of that this is just a false claim and they wnated to get rid oif her due to the optics of a dwarf on a stool operayting a mahcine may cause amusement or bewilderment of the guests, I recommend to just takle their word for it, and thus assuming that indeed it is danger involved when having no solid stand while needing to imply force on a lever for a machine. We do not even know if it was a m achine with buttons only, or indeed one of these Italian monsters where indeed physical power is used to press the water through the filter. The article says she worked as a barista, that term is specialised for espresso makers.

People here just have a short aticle, which is not even especially precise. But some immediately took it as granted that this is discrimination for sure, and no other explanation is possible.

That assumption is basing on weak information and thus is a bit - premature.

That's my only position in this thread. Different to some in here I just say that we do not know for sure, and while others claim their position as fact, I want to show you that yoiu simply do not have any facts, and that it could be as well the way I describe it.

Too many people today call "discrimination!" too often too early nowadays.

Wioth laws like this, and mandatory quotas for migrant groups and genders, I would be extremely hesitent to get new employes for my business, if I were a business entrepreneur of any kind. We have comparable follies to this American law in place or being considered in Germany and the EU as well. When by law physical differences shall be ignored, differences should be treated as if being non-existent, and reality should be given a twist as if it were somethign different, than I am loosing willingness to support such a law.

Once again, a thread about basically random crap leans towards peoples ideas and beliefs, which will then turn into a politics thread which will then be turned into a bitching contest. "My E peen is bigger than yours! I can tell because of the pixels".
I'm all for these threads, it's nice to hear peoples point of view, it just seems lately that every other thread on this site is a topic of pointless debate. And yes I do mean pointless. Something that is worth discussing, yep I'm all for it.

Just the fact that every news story in your town is a legitimate reason to post a thread and then start a flame war, no matter how well worded it is, over trivial crap, seems a bit pointless to me. Yes this stuff goes on every day all over the world, it happens, it's called life and yes some people get s**t on, deal with it.

/rant

Edit:
I used to enjoy checking subsim, having a look round and having a laugh. I come on now to all this pointless turd chucking between members and it pisses me off no end. One of my old favourite sites is now one of the most annoying things in my life. I only come on now, to check if I've had any PM's and that's it. Kind of depressing really, I used to come on just for a random laugh and chat, now I avoid General Topics like the plague. I'm sure I'm not the only member who is in the same situation. Opinion's are like a clitoris, every c**t has one. Just leave it at that rather than shouting at eachother, I know you won't feel so manly, as you won't have told the stooooopid fooooorrriner that his cooooontry is in league with Al Quaeda because they have mosques there. But at least it will give people a break from the norm. You never know, once the childishness stops, we might even get new people posting here. Heaven forbid...