A funny thing happens when Elizabeth Nill, a sophomore at Northwestern University, goes shopping at Abercrombie & Fitch.
At no fewer than three Abercrombie stores, she says, managers have approached her and offered her a job as a clerk.
"Every time this happens, my little sister says, 'Not again,' " said Ms. Nill, who is 5-foot-6 and has long blond hair. She looks striking. She looks hip. She looks, in fact, as if she belongs in an Abercrombie & Fitch catalog.
Is this a coincidence? A fluke? No, says Antonio Serrano, a former assistant Abercrombie store manager in Scranton, Pa. It's policy.
"If someone came in with a pretty face, we were told to approach them and ask them if they wanted a job," Mr. Serrano said. "They thought if we had the best-looking college kids working in our store, everyone will want to shop there."
Abercrombie's aggressive approach to building a pretty and handsome sales force, an effort that company officials proudly acknowledge, is a leading example of what many industry experts and sociologists describe as a steadily growing trend in American retailing. From Abercrombie to the cosmetics giant L'Oreal, from the sleek W hotel chain to the Gap, businesses are openly seeking workers who are sexy, sleek or simply good-looking.
Hiring for looks is old news in some industries, as cocktail waitresses, strippers and previous generations of flight attendants know all too well. But many companies have taken that approach to sophisticated new heights in recent years, hiring workers to project an image.
In doing so, some of those companies have been skirting the edges of antidiscrimination laws and provoking a wave of private and government lawsuits. Hiring attractive people is not necessarily illegal, but discriminating on the basis of age, sex or ethnicity is. That is where things can get confusing and contentious.
"If you're hiring by looks, then you can run into problems of race discrimination, national origin discrimination, gender discrimination, age discrimination and even disability discrimination," said Olophius Perry, director of the Los Angeles office of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which has accused several companies of practicing race and age discrimination by favoring good-looking young white people in their hiring.
Some chains, most notably the Gap and Benetton, pride themselves on hiring attractive people from many backgrounds and races. Abercrombie's "classic American" look, pervasive in its stores and catalogs and on its Web site, is blond, blue-eyed and preppy. Abercrombie finds such workers and models by concentrating its hiring on certain colleges, fraternities and sororities.
The company says it does not discriminate. But in a lawsuit filed last month in Federal
District Court in San Francisco, some Hispanic, Asian and black job applicants maintained
otherwise. Several plaintiffs said in interviews that when they applied for jobs, store
managers steered them to the stockroom, not to the sales floor. CONTINUE
Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company.
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Weapons of Mass Destruction- Where Are They?
(part of an online convo between two graduate students)
Bluestar [11:19 AM]: Here's the question:
If we assume that WMD's in Iraq don't exist cause we haven't found them can we assume that Saddam and OBL don't exist also? A thought more than a question answer if you like.
Redmoon [11:21 AM]: Well We KNOW for a fact that Saddam and OBL exist because we have proof. We have seen them. People have met with them. On the other hand WMD may have existed, they may have ben dewstroyed, we just have no proof. The sad poart is that if they do exist and we can't find them then now we might be in a far worse situation than before.
Bluestar [11:23 AM]: Good answer but not THE answer. If a picture is proof, like those we have of OBL and Saddam, then Powell's pictures are proof enough.
Redmoon [11:23 AM]: No those were not proof
Bluestar [11:23 AM]: neither are the pictures of OBL and Saddam
---Read the entire convo---
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Listen or Wait
A young and successful executive was traveling down a neighborhood street, going a bit too fast in his new Jaguar. He was watching for kids running out from between parked cars and slowed down when he thought he saw something.
As his car passed, no children appeared. Instead, a brick smashed into the Jag's side door! He slammed on the brakes and reversed back to the spot from where the brick had been thrown. He jumped out of the car, grabbed the kid who threw the brick and pushed him against a parked car shouting. "What was that all about? Just what the heck are you doing?"
Building a head of steam he went on. "That's a new car and that brick you threw is going to cost a lot of money!!"
"Please, mister, please. I'm sorry, I didn't know what else to do!!" pleaded the youngster. "I threw the brick because no one else would stop..." tears were dripping down the boy's chin as he pointed around the parked car. "It's my brother," he said. "He rolled off the curb and fell out of his wheelchair and I can't lift him up." Sobbing, the boy asked the executive, "Would you please help me get him back into his wheelchair? He's hurt and he's too heavy for me."
Moved beyond words, the driver tried to swallow the rapidly swelling lump in his throat. He lifted the young man back into the wheelchair and took out his handkerchief and wiped the scrapes and cuts, checking to see that everything was going to be okay. "Thank you and May God bless you," the grateful child said to him. The man then watched the little boy push his brother down the sidewalk toward their home.
It was a long walk back to his Jaguar ... a long, slow walk. He never did repair the side door. He kept the dent to remind him not to go through life so fast that someone has to throw a brick at you to get your attention.
God whispers in your soul and speaks to your heart. Sometimes when you don't have time to listen, He has to throw a "brick" at you. It's your choice: Listen to the whisper, or wait for the brick...
~ Author Unknown ~
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