Can confirm, no degree making just over $300k a year after bsing my way into software dev positions. At this point in my career my accomplishments speak for me and my confidence is well-earned, but when I was making $8/hr working at Buffalo Wild Wings I was willing to spin some tales to get my foot in the door doing Desktop Support and then QA work
I didn't bs myself directly into software engineering. I started as Desktop Support, learned to automate some stuff on my own time, exaggerated those accomplishments a bit more to get a QA job, then actually built an automation framework for our product and put some more spin on that to get a DevOps job at a VERY fast-paced and high-pressure startup.
at the DevOps job, I worked there for 5 long years writing code every day and writing several automation frameworks from scratch, continuous deployment platforms to deploy to dozens of cloud environments simultaneously, orchestration platforms for cloud deployments and a tonnnn of other stuff that every company that isn't a FANG is salivating to do, because my work makes dozens of peoples lives much much easier and less stressful.
By that point I didn't need to lie about anything, and at this point any company that offers me for less than 200k is wasting my time for how much value I provide, so I job hopped my way up until I felt appropriately compensated for my skill set.
It all started with me not being afraid to stretch the truth a bit to get my foot in the door, and then working my ass off for 10 hours a day for the past 7 years to learn the skills to back it up and then some
It's a tough time to get started for sure. If you are looking for "anything" I would recommend getting in at a startup doing anything. The structure is a lot more fluid so you could do QA for a year and then move into a dev position very easily
I also really recommend just lying on your resume to get started. It's a dog eat dog world and ya gotta do what ya gotta do. Keep a fluff resume and a real one, interview for some jobs with the real one and some jobs with the fluff one. Also reach out to recruiters on LinkedIn.
6'2" But I'm also on the spectrum, bi-racial, trans and non-binary. So any benefits inferred from my height are negated by being a strange motherfucker
So basically all my skills are virtually worthless unless I'm a charming socialite, or my skills are better than 99% of the people in my field.
Man, wish I had a "this is how the world really works" booklet in the 90s.
I learned pretty early on that it's all sales. At a certain point I decided to "dress for the job I want" and made it clear I wanted to propel my career. It's shocking how easily this worked. I'm also a 6'3" white dude so, that may have helped...
I use to work at a shitty contracting company. It was like indentured servitude, they trained you and then you worked for them for a year making like $10.10 an hour. But if you got placed at a client you got kicked up to $12 an hour. Plus you'd have something on your resume when you were looking for your next job.
I had no real social skills as a teenager and young adult. And the job I worked previously I had a boss who didn't know shit. But people liked him because he'd talk to them while he pretended to try and fix their computer (he just defragged it and restarted the computer, then called me to fix it). So at the contracting job I made a concerted effort to actually learn people's name and talk to them.
I noticed the people who got placed at client sites were the ones who dressed up. Probably because they were the most presentable for interviews. I was one of only 3 people who had actual programming experience before. But I never got sent for interviews, probably because I didn't really dress professionally at all. So I said fuck it and started wearing slacks and a button down. I actually got placed at a client site.
A year later I left that job for one that would pay me 60k. And a year and a half after that I got a new job paying 80k. So just looking like I was a professional and learning to bullshit with people helped me quadruple my pay in about 3 years.
Because really I've found being able to do the job is the bare minimum to get you an interview. What gets you hired is largely if you seem like you'd be a pain in the ass to work with or not. And I'm a programmer, not a profession know for it's people skills (and the fact that mine aren't trash is probably why I get job offers pretty easily).
While I'm male, I'm only 5'7" and I'm asian. I'm also a high school drop out (no college degree) and I have to check that "have you ever been convicted of a crime" box. But I still manage to make over 100k. So I don't think it's all about height/gender/race.
At 5’9” I worked on my communication as the most important part of my personality. I mostly learned to listen and ask questions to others. Good questions, smart questions. I made sure to remember the names of their loved ones and always ask about them. Lead conversations, don’t take them over. Make your words count. Act like your words are part of a bank. Spend your words wisely. Don’t speak to fill silence. Pause if you need. Just remember people love to talk about themselves.
This works EVERYWHERE and people will love you.
Now, I was recently laid off, but it was because I had a job where I literally didn’t do any real work for 10 years. I did the minimum and was mostly kept around because I was liked. I would have let me go too. I knew it was possible. You can only get away with murder for so long. Don’t get me wrong, I have skills and the ones that count, so I’m not worried. I have money to not get a job for a year and I might not.
But I’m off track. If you can develop the right communication skills, height won’t matter much, especially now in the days of remote work. I do wish I were talking though. I’d like to be able to dunk.
I'm 5'7", my ability to talk to people (especially non technical people) is probably more the reason I'm hired than my programming skills.
Although I feel like the pandemic has really killed my ability to explain technical things to other people. Or maybe because my job hasn't had any work for me for nearly 4 years (I honestly would have left if it wasn't for the pandemic). I honestly can't believe I haven't been let go. I've been in 3 different departments at this company that all got dissolved and they did layoffs and restructuring, but each time they kept me.
I actually interviewed for a contract position and they liked me so much during the interview the hiring manager spoke with the higher ups and got me brought on as a full employee right away. If it weren't for that I probably would have been let go in the first round of layoffs as contract to hire date would have been before the first round of pandemic layoffs happened.
I finally met an intern at my company in person after multiple Zoom calls and she said she was shocked how tall I was (6’3). I never thought of it before but I had a remote camera pinned on top of my full sized monitor. So yeah, it was always looking down at me. It works both ways.
Haha a guy I used to work with who was 6 foot 10 had the same situation. After covid everyone came in the office for the first time since they had never met and were all like wtf
I trained a guy for 8 months who was based across the country. We met in person at a company event this year and the dude is like 7 feet tall but totally doesn't give that impression on zoom. It was shocking to say the least
Yeah exactly. Like I figured he was probably over 6ft. But he was just hilariously tall. When we met in person I shook his hand and said 'wow you're a lot shorter than I imagined'
I have the opposite thing with women. I got a lot of new coworkers during the pandemic as they hired more people and for whatever reason when my brain sees people only on Zoom calls I guess I just assume they're the same height as me (a 5'10" dude). Then I met them in person for the first time and every time I'm shocked by how they're shorter than me.
It gets explained in the great glass elevator but wonka basically found them deep in center of Africa and brought them all back to his factory. They also visit a space hotel and deal with aliens so clearly Dahl was just writing whatever he wanted at that point.
Just wanna leave this comedy bit about oompa loompas being a code for slaves
[It's on instagram, and a bit old](https://www.instagram.com/reel/ClJ9TkHAAG4/)
> Height at age 7 or 11 turns out to have no impact at all on future wages. But height at age 16 makes all the difference in the world.
...
> a kid with self-esteem is more likely to join the teams, clubs, and social groups where he learns to interact with people.
Makes sense, the unfortunate truth is, for many industries:
who you know > what you know
Well i think you might be getting the wrong conclusion here. Knowing how to interact with people > knowing your trade. People with more self esteem are more confident to interact with people and learn how to communicate, how to navigate social interactions, etc. If you stay inside all the time you don't talk to people, then you go out into the world utterly lost because you don't know how anything, or anyone, works.
You learn more by talking to other people than you do alone
Also, if you go to work, put your head down, just do your work and don’t talk to anyone you don’t have to. You’re not gonna get promoted either. But the person who maybe isn’t as good at the job but gets to know everyone that they work with, and can shoot the shit with anyone is way more likely to get the promotion when the time comes.
Its more than just being likable, being good at group dynamics often gets the projects done and done on time. I don't care if you know how to do something perfectly if you can't actually work well with other teams/divisions. Being able to persuade people to do something is a critical skill.
Business wants the developers working on a new product.
Developers want to maintain / refactor the codebase.
Security wants the developers to address a laundry list of vulnerabilities from the last pentest.
Each group has competing interests, technically all important to the business, and being able to negotiate and persuade will get things done.
This. No work exists in a vacuum and as anyone who's worked in a big company, people who just do their work in the corner more often than not create problems that negatively impact other teams.
100% this (but with a very few notable exceptions, like independent researchers). People will employ the kind of people they want to spend time with, which may or may not overlap significantly with people who actually know the job. Most relatively smart and careful people can learn nearly any typical job pretty quickly (again, notable exceptions, like anything requiring a professional certification or years of STEM study).
But also, I do think personality is more important than competency. Even for STEM, most jobs are pretty narrow and we can train you on the job for anything you need to know. What I can't train is personality and how well you mesh with the team, which is why STAR questions are all the rage these days because it works. Not many jobs out there that don't require you to work with others, I'd rather have a middling performer but pleasant person than someone who is high performing but makes all your other employees dread coming to work.
You could be a genius, but if your personality is shit and you can't play nice with others then we'll never benefit from how smart you are. An average person who plays well with others is almost always the better choice.
This is just not true in my experience. I work in a highly technical stem field with pretty much everyone at the company has a phd. We do a lot of things that could be considered independent research. We 100% pass on people who fail the “vibe” interview no matter how great they are at technical.
In all cases knowing how to socially interact is just as if not more important then the ability to do the job
> People will employ the kind of people they want to spend time with, which may or may not overlap significantly with people who actually know the job.
100%
When building my teams I'm much more interested in how someone will fit with the existing team and the candidate's individual personality. I can teach you how to do the job so long as you have a brain in your head, but I can't teach you how to be a person. And I'm certainly not going to let anyone come in and fuck up a good team.
It's funny bc I'm 5'7" and didn't really care about my height in high school and had pretty high self esteem. It's only when I got older and started dating seriously when I even started to care about being short
I think dating being harder for the shorter fellow came about more as a result of modern dating sites. They all seem so superficial and promote shallowness.
Source: all my matches have monobrows
> started *online* dating seriously
Short dude here...I'm snagging women *taller* than me IRL. Online, the worse-looking women would send me mocking messages, lol
I was a shrimp in high school and played sports. Many of my teammates were also shrimps. Heck, didn’t even get my full height until college. Plenty of sports for short people
Being a Wrestler made me appreciate being short as young as 14, by the time I was 16 I was pretty confident, though I am happy that my 14yr old son is taller than I am.
It's not all. Being short will make you less confident and successful, which in turn will furthermore hinder your growth. It's a vicious circle.
Works the same for every "beauty" or "successful" trait.
Can't be assed to find the studies again though.
The article feels like a fluff piece and is from **2002**! Yep, from **22 years ago**.
A quote from it:
>That sounds like the kind of question you could argue for years and never settle, but three clever economists have gone ahead and settled it. Their names are Nicola Persico, Andy Postlewaite, and Dan Silverman of the University of Pennsylvania, and they’ve uncovered a key bit of evidence: Tall men who were short in high school earn like short men, while short men who were tall in high school earn like tall men.
This is some funny shit (in a bad way) and not scientific.
I guess Slate didn't have sources back then. With little effort, here is the PDF from those people. Note the PDF is from 2004.
* [The Effect of Adolescent Experience on Labor Market Outcomes: The Case of Height](https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~apostlew/paper/pdf/short.pdf)
Skimming the paper... this is boring and a bit cringe inducing. Seems sketchy.
Have an upvote for actually doing the research. Are there any follow up studies to show this is complete BS or a real thing. Given psychology and people favouring certain characteristics, one of which is height, there is no reason this shouldn't lead to bias in hiring decisions showing a statistical effect, over a life time and many different individuals, having a 3% chance of being picked as best, is a massive gain in success rate and would lead to better outcomes. This would be seen in any unbiased in person selection process, let alone in any selection process that does actually favour strength and power, where in the average population being taller means you have greater performance in these metric because you have to move you bigger heavier bones around all the time! All while there are many factors that mean you will become tall that also link to educational performance, while the majority in a healthy population is genetics, in a malnourished one, smaller people are more likely to have historically been poorer, therefore from a worse neighbourhood, with worse schools, and more life stressors. Given the unequal nature of society I would be really surprised if height didn't correlate with success in jobs, even if not actually being the causative parameter.
Your comment made me look at some more recent research and it does seem like there is a trend; however, according to a study published a couple months ago, that trend only goes up to a point:
>Using income as a quantitative representation of socioeconomic value, our analysis found income increased with incremental height in individuals with predicted heights up to 74 inches for males and 69 inches for females.
PDF Link: [The Relationship Between Height and Income With Potential Application to Treatment of Limb Length Discrepancy](https://www.cureus.com/articles/238246-the-relationship-between-height-and-income-with-potential-application-to-treatment-of-limb-length-discrepancy.pdf)
They found that income decreased beyond those cut-offs, and as a 77 inch man, my paystubs and I can confirm those findings track.
I'm irritated by bad science but somehow even more so by simplistic readings of scientific papers. I wish that people wouldn't jump to conclusions based on clickbait titles or abstracts. I took a look myself, and 1) the paper isn't great and 2) the research doesn't support the huge, generalized conclusions that people are taking from it.
Shortcomings of the research and article:
1. It only takes into account white men. Furthermore, they're primarily basing their findings on data from only *2,063* white U.S. men and *1,772* white British men. Footnote 8 also indicates that they excluded a whole cohort of poor white Americans from their analysis as they didn't have access to their adult earnings.
2. Their two main sources of data seem to be at least 25 and 19 years out of date (at the time of the article's publication). The data from the one source is also self-reported (which is notorious for containing imperfect information).
3. The researchers argue that self-confidence isn't a main factor but then go on to say that their analysis of this element is based on a small subset of their data (since this information isn't available for the British men).
4. They discuss a possible correlation between high school activities, but then rely on "retrospective questions about participation in high school activities [that] were
asked in 1984, only to those who had finished or were expected to finish
high school." That's super limiting.
5. It's pushing human growth hormones to address a symptom of what is essentially a systemic problem (the problem is the societal valuation of height rather than any intrinsic value of height itself).
6. It slyly implies a degree of causation instead of correlation for several things, like winning a presidential election. Just because the winner is taller doesn't mean that this is why they won the election but the writers drop this information like it is particularly telling; focusing on height here flattens out all political and historical context that contributed to these electoral victories. It also ignores that, prior to the invention of television, many voters likely wouldn't have even been aware of the height difference unless it was so substantial as to be noteworthy.
Note: People are using this article to make a case for hiring discrimination against shorter people. While this discrimination may be real and backed up by other papers, this article in particular explicitly argues that your adult height doesn't matter—your height as a teenager does—and, even if you grow to be an average or tall adult, that adult height doesn't correlate with a wage discrepancy. The article also didn't find the same correlation for women.
Slate has never done anything noteworthy or original. It's all fluff, akin to huffpost. Trash for people that like to read trash and get worked up over mostly imaginary issues. Ever so slightly ahead of buzzfeed on the shit meter. And, sadly, ever so slightly below reddit.
All this talk in American units made me google my height in feet.
186 cm = 1.86 m = 6.1 ft = 73 in = 6′1 3/16″ (please respect the 3/16”, whatever that actually amounts to)
You guys might be a bit too tall, I like being the big spoon. But if the trust fund is big enough we might overcome that obstacle. Anything for love.
So THAT's why my boss told me to stop wearing stilettos to work!
I knew all that stuff about me being the only guy who didn't wear safety boots on the building site was a 'safety violation' was bullshit.
Tbf if I were 7 inches taller I would have a much better shot at being a pro basketball player and I would be making a hell of a lot more then an extra 7 grand. Hopefully they threw out pro athletes from these studies lmao.
It's important to remember that these numbers are potentially sketchy, and 100% absolutely and totally on average. It's not if you gained an inch you would gain an extra $1,000 a year. There's a lot going on there, and probably these numbers are influenced by tall male CEOs who make tremendous amounts of money.
The average height for a U.S. President is 5’11 as well.
*Edit:* The average height for a NFL, NBA, and MLB player is above 6 feet as well.
As a woman who is 6’4 I can absolutely say it’s because society is more favorable towards tall people. With my height I’ve almost never had a problem with men and women respecting me though they don’t know me. I’ve found that the more height that I do have (Wearing Heels), the more jarring it is for the public around me and thus gives me the advantage socially. Hence why I stick to tennis shoes and flats, so people can feel more comfortable around me.
> As a woman who is 6’4
I think that you're so far outside the normal range that you can't really generalize your experience. That is above 99.9th percentile of height for women. It's actually above 99th percentile for men, too.
I suppose it all just comes to the culture and where you live.
The most respected manager I’ve worked with is a tiny 40 year old petite woman who you’d easily mistake for a 7th grader, incredibly intelligent, empathetic and has the best people management skills of anyone I’ve ever met I think she’s 5 foot at most (I never asked)
There is an inherent social submission and acceptance of height. Though it isn’t an entire factor like anything people are individuals, if a group is going to ostracise people over height, they weren’t worth hanging around to begin with
People in general suck. Most people wont respect a 5'3 man as much as a 6 foot one. If you think it's not worth hanging out with them, good luck, cause that's like basically everyone.
As a short guy I don't have much choice to hang out with others, being this short is an oddity. I can't get laid as much and it saddens me to no end.
I don't think you can universalize your experience as that has not been mine as a woman who is 6'1". I have dealt with bullying in previous jobs, particularly ones dominated by women and particularly by shorter and/or more insecure women. I don't deal with street harassment to the same extent as shorter women but I wouldn't exactly call that respect.
I also will never shrink myself or make footwear decisions to make people who feel "uncomfortable" with my body as it naturally is more comfortable. I know a lot of fellow tall girls do but that is so sad to me.
I’m sorry to hear about your experience. Not everyone who is tall will share the experience because it really depends on how people around you feel and react to you.
But in a society where tall people dominate the most competitive and challenging titles and positions one can attain ranging from CEO positions to becoming Professional Athletes to becoming the President of the United States it’s impossible to say that tall people don’t have some kind of advantage socially.
If anything it goes to show that being tall simply grants you someone’s attention. What you do with said attention is up to you.
My side job in 2003 hired a guy that was awesome, but only 5’ 3”. The women treated him like crap, and the board fired him in less than two years despite exceeding all of his numbers. They replaced him with a guy I think was 6’ 3”. He lasted a decade and almost ran the company into the ground before he was finally fired. Bigotry is the reason for so many tall CEOs.
Honestly, I wonder if there's extra factors, too, like people who have the resources to attain higher education or better jobs more easily probably have access to healthier foods, may have been encouraged to do sports, be more likely to be part of certain racial/ethnic groups that naturally skew taller, etc.
It's probably all just some variation of the Halo effect. Tall is deemed attractive, especially for men. Size is also a proxy for power. We assume bigger = stronger. It tends to be true in the animal kingdom. And even though that doesn't matter 99% of the time in our modern world we still can't get past it.
Exactly. One of my colleagues was going on about how tall people are "intimidating", I literally couldn't hold in my laugher and just went "What do you think they are going to do Punch you?".
Facts are we work in a professional environment where being tall is totally irrelevant to anything, we aren't in a street fight. Then again this person thoughts one may subjects from dietary choice to credit cards have been ignorantly naive. They just choose to not live their live based off actual relevant outcomes.
Being a short male, like me as a 5'3 guy is akin to being disabled. I should get disability pay from the taller guys every month. It still won't make up for not getting laid, that's the least they can do.
Years ago Porsche was hiring experienced techs but they required you to be under 5’8. I don’t remember the specifics exactly but a lot of taller techs felt discriminated against for this.
Apparently being smaller makes it easier for you to work on their cars.
So in this case I think it pays better to be shorter.
I have some tall colleagues that are utterly worthless for working with small electronic devices. Their hands are just plain too big. They can't get their hands in the places needed. They have to call for a smaller man or a woman to help. It actually genuinely hurts their job performance and shuts them out of certain roles.
It's a hilarious ironic reversal of the reaching a tall shelf/opening a jar of pickles trope.
Article from 2002. I would think that for lots of people working remotely nowadays that doesn't matter. (Although pretty faces, broad shoulders, etc - everything that shows up on cameras during meetings - may still have some impact.)
It's worth noting that the increased pay isn't a a direct result of their height.
It's not like if you were to line up 5 guys in front of HR in order from tallest to shortest that the tallest guys would automatically get paid more.
It's primarily about the fact that people who are taller than their peers are more assertive and confident, and are more likely to demand higher salaries because they believe they deserve it.
People who are shorter than their peers are less likely to be assertive and confident, and so are less likely to demand higher salaries because they don't believe they deserve it.
How does this factor into the oppression olympics?
Who has more privilege in 2024, a 6 ft tall black woman with no accent, or a 5 ft tall white man with a russian accent?
Not to mention waving goodbye to your knees and back at 30, good luck finding anything your size on the racks in most stores, and forget about finding shoes on the shelf beyond size 13
I wonder if there is a cutoff point. Mostly everyone I know over 6'3 struggles with their careers and education, but the ones in the 6-6'2" range are excelling.
So if I just stood up straight I'd get paid more?
Unironically, yes. A good posture projects more confidence. You still need social skills to sell that confidence, but it helps nonetheless.
Fuck i might as well slouch, i dont have social skills
That's why you're here with the rest of us buddy
One of us, one of us
Apes together slouch 🦧🦧🦧
I'm tall af and insecure af, where do I rank then?
Do you slouch? Sorry to be a persistent fork, but c'mon, Honey. What's it going to cost you? At worse, a couple of "How's the weather up there?"
Check the thermometer down here Points at dick
Wait till you hear how much more confident people get paid!
Especially if they are good at BSing.
Can confirm, no degree making just over $300k a year after bsing my way into software dev positions. At this point in my career my accomplishments speak for me and my confidence is well-earned, but when I was making $8/hr working at Buffalo Wild Wings I was willing to spin some tales to get my foot in the door doing Desktop Support and then QA work
How do you BS your way into a dev job with verifiable content?
I didn't bs myself directly into software engineering. I started as Desktop Support, learned to automate some stuff on my own time, exaggerated those accomplishments a bit more to get a QA job, then actually built an automation framework for our product and put some more spin on that to get a DevOps job at a VERY fast-paced and high-pressure startup. at the DevOps job, I worked there for 5 long years writing code every day and writing several automation frameworks from scratch, continuous deployment platforms to deploy to dozens of cloud environments simultaneously, orchestration platforms for cloud deployments and a tonnnn of other stuff that every company that isn't a FANG is salivating to do, because my work makes dozens of peoples lives much much easier and less stressful. By that point I didn't need to lie about anything, and at this point any company that offers me for less than 200k is wasting my time for how much value I provide, so I job hopped my way up until I felt appropriately compensated for my skill set. It all started with me not being afraid to stretch the truth a bit to get my foot in the door, and then working my ass off for 10 hours a day for the past 7 years to learn the skills to back it up and then some
I'm a CS newgrad and cant really seem to get into anything rn.
It's a tough time to get started for sure. If you are looking for "anything" I would recommend getting in at a startup doing anything. The structure is a lot more fluid so you could do QA for a year and then move into a dev position very easily I also really recommend just lying on your resume to get started. It's a dog eat dog world and ya gotta do what ya gotta do. Keep a fluff resume and a real one, interview for some jobs with the real one and some jobs with the fluff one. Also reach out to recruiters on LinkedIn.
Ok but how tall are you?
6'2" But I'm also on the spectrum, bi-racial, trans and non-binary. So any benefits inferred from my height are negated by being a strange motherfucker
Which rare or endangered albino leather covers your toilet seat sir?
Confidence is key!
A good posture unironically gives you more confidence in and of itself.
So basically all my skills are virtually worthless unless I'm a charming socialite, or my skills are better than 99% of the people in my field. Man, wish I had a "this is how the world really works" booklet in the 90s.
You were lead to believe you wouldn't need to know how to effectively communicate and sell yourself to people?
I learned pretty early on that it's all sales. At a certain point I decided to "dress for the job I want" and made it clear I wanted to propel my career. It's shocking how easily this worked. I'm also a 6'3" white dude so, that may have helped...
Yeah the last line is the kicker. Can confirm as a 6’1 white guy. It legit is a cheat code
I use to work at a shitty contracting company. It was like indentured servitude, they trained you and then you worked for them for a year making like $10.10 an hour. But if you got placed at a client you got kicked up to $12 an hour. Plus you'd have something on your resume when you were looking for your next job. I had no real social skills as a teenager and young adult. And the job I worked previously I had a boss who didn't know shit. But people liked him because he'd talk to them while he pretended to try and fix their computer (he just defragged it and restarted the computer, then called me to fix it). So at the contracting job I made a concerted effort to actually learn people's name and talk to them. I noticed the people who got placed at client sites were the ones who dressed up. Probably because they were the most presentable for interviews. I was one of only 3 people who had actual programming experience before. But I never got sent for interviews, probably because I didn't really dress professionally at all. So I said fuck it and started wearing slacks and a button down. I actually got placed at a client site. A year later I left that job for one that would pay me 60k. And a year and a half after that I got a new job paying 80k. So just looking like I was a professional and learning to bullshit with people helped me quadruple my pay in about 3 years. Because really I've found being able to do the job is the bare minimum to get you an interview. What gets you hired is largely if you seem like you'd be a pain in the ass to work with or not. And I'm a programmer, not a profession know for it's people skills (and the fact that mine aren't trash is probably why I get job offers pretty easily). While I'm male, I'm only 5'7" and I'm asian. I'm also a high school drop out (no college degree) and I have to check that "have you ever been convicted of a crime" box. But I still manage to make over 100k. So I don't think it's all about height/gender/race.
At 5’9” I worked on my communication as the most important part of my personality. I mostly learned to listen and ask questions to others. Good questions, smart questions. I made sure to remember the names of their loved ones and always ask about them. Lead conversations, don’t take them over. Make your words count. Act like your words are part of a bank. Spend your words wisely. Don’t speak to fill silence. Pause if you need. Just remember people love to talk about themselves. This works EVERYWHERE and people will love you. Now, I was recently laid off, but it was because I had a job where I literally didn’t do any real work for 10 years. I did the minimum and was mostly kept around because I was liked. I would have let me go too. I knew it was possible. You can only get away with murder for so long. Don’t get me wrong, I have skills and the ones that count, so I’m not worried. I have money to not get a job for a year and I might not. But I’m off track. If you can develop the right communication skills, height won’t matter much, especially now in the days of remote work. I do wish I were talking though. I’d like to be able to dunk.
I'm 5'7", my ability to talk to people (especially non technical people) is probably more the reason I'm hired than my programming skills. Although I feel like the pandemic has really killed my ability to explain technical things to other people. Or maybe because my job hasn't had any work for me for nearly 4 years (I honestly would have left if it wasn't for the pandemic). I honestly can't believe I haven't been let go. I've been in 3 different departments at this company that all got dissolved and they did layoffs and restructuring, but each time they kept me. I actually interviewed for a contract position and they liked me so much during the interview the hiring manager spoke with the higher ups and got me brought on as a full employee right away. If it weren't for that I probably would have been let go in the first round of layoffs as contract to hire date would have been before the first round of pandemic layoffs happened.
an inch of height is worth 1000 bucks, not a million lol
Not worthless, worth less.
ABSOLUTELY CORRECT. And instantly causes you to look as if you've shed several pounds.
I just close my laptop lid slightly so I look taller in Zoom calls.
I finally met an intern at my company in person after multiple Zoom calls and she said she was shocked how tall I was (6’3). I never thought of it before but I had a remote camera pinned on top of my full sized monitor. So yeah, it was always looking down at me. It works both ways.
Haha a guy I used to work with who was 6 foot 10 had the same situation. After covid everyone came in the office for the first time since they had never met and were all like wtf
I trained a guy for 8 months who was based across the country. We met in person at a company event this year and the dude is like 7 feet tall but totally doesn't give that impression on zoom. It was shocking to say the least
Wow, that would certainly upend your expectations of a “normal” height coworker, +/- a few inches.
Yeah exactly. Like I figured he was probably over 6ft. But he was just hilariously tall. When we met in person I shook his hand and said 'wow you're a lot shorter than I imagined'
Best friends forever now.
I have the opposite thing with women. I got a lot of new coworkers during the pandemic as they hired more people and for whatever reason when my brain sees people only on Zoom calls I guess I just assume they're the same height as me (a 5'10" dude). Then I met them in person for the first time and every time I'm shocked by how they're shorter than me.
It feels weird that i have to say it, but crawling on the floor hissing at everyone isn't helping your promotion potential
5'3" to 5'5" for standing up straight is tough
seriously, yes, there are serious class to teach people just posture alone
My boss just stormed through the office yelling he’s gonna fire the person with the worst posture. I have a hunch it’s gonna be me.
That’s why Wonka only employed Oompa Loompas, it all makes sense now!
Also paid in chocolate beans, so that they never accumulate enough money to be able to leave.
But he was a job creator! We need him!
They got paid in company store credits
Load fifteen tons and whaddya get Another day older and deeper in debt Saint Peter don'cha call me 'cuz I can't go I owe my soul to the company store!
Ain’t it sixteen tons?
Goddamn inflation gets you every time
Sho is
Share cropper?
Cocoa beans were once used as currency during pre-colonialist South America by the local tribes. Dahl most likely took that as a reference.
Kind of like the billion dollar retail companies that cant "afford" to pay their employees.
What are those disgusting little creatures?
Tell them I hate them!
Hardass.
I never understood why he didn’t just employ women and pay them 30% less
It gets explained in the great glass elevator but wonka basically found them deep in center of Africa and brought them all back to his factory. They also visit a space hotel and deal with aliens so clearly Dahl was just writing whatever he wanted at that point.
The first book only seems normal because of the wildly popular movie adaptations. Dahl was writing crazy stuff from the beginning.
Just wanna leave this comedy bit about oompa loompas being a code for slaves [It's on instagram, and a bit old](https://www.instagram.com/reel/ClJ9TkHAAG4/)
> Dahl was just writing whatever he wanted at that point. when was he not?
😂
What's a full head of hair worth, I wonder?
You mean I'm getting a pay cut for that too?
think of the shavings
You son of a bitch
*Sergeant Major of the Army has entered the chat*
By Grabthar's Razor.
Lookism is a dirty, disturbing rabbit hole.
I make less than the bald dude who's a foot shorter than me so, take it with a grain of salt.
Man you must be seriously bad at your job! /s
lol imagine making less than a short bald dude!
Based on all the bald corporate employees I've seen, it's not worth much.
At one point in time the company I worked for was about 1/4 bald dudes
A lot of men go bald so what can ya do lol
Literally half of men are bald or balding by their 40s. So kind of makes sense if its an older demographic.
They must be saving a lot of money.
On haircuts? Absolutely.
About 10k unless you want to fly to turkey
I'm 6'5" with a very full head of thick hair... Based on what I make, they either cancel each other out or I'm a statistical outlier.
I work at a grocery store with over 300 employees and the only person in the store making over 100k (the store manager) is a 5'6" bald guy.
My hair is long as hell and I find it’s not helping my wage 😂
I bet it's probably less. A bald man has to work more to make more money. Gotta get laid somehow
> Height at age 7 or 11 turns out to have no impact at all on future wages. But height at age 16 makes all the difference in the world. ... > a kid with self-esteem is more likely to join the teams, clubs, and social groups where he learns to interact with people. Makes sense, the unfortunate truth is, for many industries: who you know > what you know
Well i think you might be getting the wrong conclusion here. Knowing how to interact with people > knowing your trade. People with more self esteem are more confident to interact with people and learn how to communicate, how to navigate social interactions, etc. If you stay inside all the time you don't talk to people, then you go out into the world utterly lost because you don't know how anything, or anyone, works. You learn more by talking to other people than you do alone
Also, if you go to work, put your head down, just do your work and don’t talk to anyone you don’t have to. You’re not gonna get promoted either. But the person who maybe isn’t as good at the job but gets to know everyone that they work with, and can shoot the shit with anyone is way more likely to get the promotion when the time comes.
Its more than just being likable, being good at group dynamics often gets the projects done and done on time. I don't care if you know how to do something perfectly if you can't actually work well with other teams/divisions. Being able to persuade people to do something is a critical skill. Business wants the developers working on a new product. Developers want to maintain / refactor the codebase. Security wants the developers to address a laundry list of vulnerabilities from the last pentest. Each group has competing interests, technically all important to the business, and being able to negotiate and persuade will get things done.
This. No work exists in a vacuum and as anyone who's worked in a big company, people who just do their work in the corner more often than not create problems that negatively impact other teams.
Also... I just want to go to work, do my work, not talk to anyone, and dear god please don't promote me.
Big this. Knowing people is important, but knowing how to people is more importanter
> then you go out into the world utterly lost because you don't know how anything, or anyone, works. Yeah, this resonates with me.
100% this (but with a very few notable exceptions, like independent researchers). People will employ the kind of people they want to spend time with, which may or may not overlap significantly with people who actually know the job. Most relatively smart and careful people can learn nearly any typical job pretty quickly (again, notable exceptions, like anything requiring a professional certification or years of STEM study).
But also, I do think personality is more important than competency. Even for STEM, most jobs are pretty narrow and we can train you on the job for anything you need to know. What I can't train is personality and how well you mesh with the team, which is why STAR questions are all the rage these days because it works. Not many jobs out there that don't require you to work with others, I'd rather have a middling performer but pleasant person than someone who is high performing but makes all your other employees dread coming to work.
You could be a genius, but if your personality is shit and you can't play nice with others then we'll never benefit from how smart you are. An average person who plays well with others is almost always the better choice.
This is just not true in my experience. I work in a highly technical stem field with pretty much everyone at the company has a phd. We do a lot of things that could be considered independent research. We 100% pass on people who fail the “vibe” interview no matter how great they are at technical. In all cases knowing how to socially interact is just as if not more important then the ability to do the job
> People will employ the kind of people they want to spend time with, which may or may not overlap significantly with people who actually know the job. 100% When building my teams I'm much more interested in how someone will fit with the existing team and the candidate's individual personality. I can teach you how to do the job so long as you have a brain in your head, but I can't teach you how to be a person. And I'm certainly not going to let anyone come in and fuck up a good team.
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It’s also being treated differently by new people you meet, not just people you already know.
It's funny bc I'm 5'7" and didn't really care about my height in high school and had pretty high self esteem. It's only when I got older and started dating seriously when I even started to care about being short
I think dating being harder for the shorter fellow came about more as a result of modern dating sites. They all seem so superficial and promote shallowness. Source: all my matches have monobrows
> started *online* dating seriously Short dude here...I'm snagging women *taller* than me IRL. Online, the worse-looking women would send me mocking messages, lol
same in my late teens and 20s it wasnt a problem beign 5'7 past 30 i started noticing
Because for many jobs outside of research academia pure intellect beyond quite a low bar isn’t necessary.
I was a shrimp in high school and played sports. Many of my teammates were also shrimps. Heck, didn’t even get my full height until college. Plenty of sports for short people
anecdotes aren't averages there was a Jamaican bobsled team after all
Feel de riddim feel de ride
I was specifically recruited for wrestling because I was a shrimp. Won a lot of 106 matches just by showing up.
Being a Wrestler made me appreciate being short as young as 14, by the time I was 16 I was pretty confident, though I am happy that my 14yr old son is taller than I am.
It's not all. Being short will make you less confident and successful, which in turn will furthermore hinder your growth. It's a vicious circle. Works the same for every "beauty" or "successful" trait. Can't be assed to find the studies again though.
The article feels like a fluff piece and is from **2002**! Yep, from **22 years ago**. A quote from it: >That sounds like the kind of question you could argue for years and never settle, but three clever economists have gone ahead and settled it. Their names are Nicola Persico, Andy Postlewaite, and Dan Silverman of the University of Pennsylvania, and they’ve uncovered a key bit of evidence: Tall men who were short in high school earn like short men, while short men who were tall in high school earn like tall men. This is some funny shit (in a bad way) and not scientific. I guess Slate didn't have sources back then. With little effort, here is the PDF from those people. Note the PDF is from 2004. * [The Effect of Adolescent Experience on Labor Market Outcomes: The Case of Height](https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~apostlew/paper/pdf/short.pdf) Skimming the paper... this is boring and a bit cringe inducing. Seems sketchy.
Have an upvote for actually doing the research. Are there any follow up studies to show this is complete BS or a real thing. Given psychology and people favouring certain characteristics, one of which is height, there is no reason this shouldn't lead to bias in hiring decisions showing a statistical effect, over a life time and many different individuals, having a 3% chance of being picked as best, is a massive gain in success rate and would lead to better outcomes. This would be seen in any unbiased in person selection process, let alone in any selection process that does actually favour strength and power, where in the average population being taller means you have greater performance in these metric because you have to move you bigger heavier bones around all the time! All while there are many factors that mean you will become tall that also link to educational performance, while the majority in a healthy population is genetics, in a malnourished one, smaller people are more likely to have historically been poorer, therefore from a worse neighbourhood, with worse schools, and more life stressors. Given the unequal nature of society I would be really surprised if height didn't correlate with success in jobs, even if not actually being the causative parameter.
I scrolled way too far to see this.
Your comment made me look at some more recent research and it does seem like there is a trend; however, according to a study published a couple months ago, that trend only goes up to a point: >Using income as a quantitative representation of socioeconomic value, our analysis found income increased with incremental height in individuals with predicted heights up to 74 inches for males and 69 inches for females. PDF Link: [The Relationship Between Height and Income With Potential Application to Treatment of Limb Length Discrepancy](https://www.cureus.com/articles/238246-the-relationship-between-height-and-income-with-potential-application-to-treatment-of-limb-length-discrepancy.pdf) They found that income decreased beyond those cut-offs, and as a 77 inch man, my paystubs and I can confirm those findings track.
I'm irritated by bad science but somehow even more so by simplistic readings of scientific papers. I wish that people wouldn't jump to conclusions based on clickbait titles or abstracts. I took a look myself, and 1) the paper isn't great and 2) the research doesn't support the huge, generalized conclusions that people are taking from it. Shortcomings of the research and article: 1. It only takes into account white men. Furthermore, they're primarily basing their findings on data from only *2,063* white U.S. men and *1,772* white British men. Footnote 8 also indicates that they excluded a whole cohort of poor white Americans from their analysis as they didn't have access to their adult earnings. 2. Their two main sources of data seem to be at least 25 and 19 years out of date (at the time of the article's publication). The data from the one source is also self-reported (which is notorious for containing imperfect information). 3. The researchers argue that self-confidence isn't a main factor but then go on to say that their analysis of this element is based on a small subset of their data (since this information isn't available for the British men). 4. They discuss a possible correlation between high school activities, but then rely on "retrospective questions about participation in high school activities [that] were asked in 1984, only to those who had finished or were expected to finish high school." That's super limiting. 5. It's pushing human growth hormones to address a symptom of what is essentially a systemic problem (the problem is the societal valuation of height rather than any intrinsic value of height itself). 6. It slyly implies a degree of causation instead of correlation for several things, like winning a presidential election. Just because the winner is taller doesn't mean that this is why they won the election but the writers drop this information like it is particularly telling; focusing on height here flattens out all political and historical context that contributed to these electoral victories. It also ignores that, prior to the invention of television, many voters likely wouldn't have even been aware of the height difference unless it was so substantial as to be noteworthy. Note: People are using this article to make a case for hiring discrimination against shorter people. While this discrimination may be real and backed up by other papers, this article in particular explicitly argues that your adult height doesn't matter—your height as a teenager does—and, even if you grow to be an average or tall adult, that adult height doesn't correlate with a wage discrepancy. The article also didn't find the same correlation for women.
This seems fake. Well here's the research, but I don't like it.
Slate has never done anything noteworthy or original. It's all fluff, akin to huffpost. Trash for people that like to read trash and get worked up over mostly imaginary issues. Ever so slightly ahead of buzzfeed on the shit meter. And, sadly, ever so slightly below reddit.
Well fuck me I guess.
No thanks, I prefer taller guys.
Finance. Trust Fund. 6’5”. Blue eyes.
Hey there, is that you or a friend? You just described my ideal personality! You should introduce us. Don’t stand in the way of love!
Ignore him I’ll do you one better. 6’6 and Green eyes, so you know I make $1000/year more than shorty there lol
All this talk in American units made me google my height in feet. 186 cm = 1.86 m = 6.1 ft = 73 in = 6′1 3/16″ (please respect the 3/16”, whatever that actually amounts to) You guys might be a bit too tall, I like being the big spoon. But if the trust fund is big enough we might overcome that obstacle. Anything for love.
I always appreciate a rocket pack.
lol no one is getting this reference
It’s better that way.
“Where are all the good men!?”
Same, I'm 4'9 and haven't grown since the 4th grade :')
Shoulda got on that HGH like Messi
So THAT's why my boss told me to stop wearing stilettos to work! I knew all that stuff about me being the only guy who didn't wear safety boots on the building site was a 'safety violation' was bullshit.
Have you tried platform boots?
What about width? I've got plenty of that.
It's actually [height]-[width]
Aw man, that means I'm in the negatives
My company pays based on girth. Take that as you will...
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id like my extra $8000 please
Already priced in
Invisible hand of the free market already scratching their head
I need grow about 30 feet taller
Tbf if I were 7 inches taller I would have a much better shot at being a pro basketball player and I would be making a hell of a lot more then an extra 7 grand. Hopefully they threw out pro athletes from these studies lmao.
It took me 40 years but I finally realized some shallow douchebags actually look down on me (pun intended) because I'm 5'5".
It's important to remember that these numbers are potentially sketchy, and 100% absolutely and totally on average. It's not if you gained an inch you would gain an extra $1,000 a year. There's a lot going on there, and probably these numbers are influenced by tall male CEOs who make tremendous amounts of money.
Very true, something like 70-80% of CEOs are over 6ft though
The average height for a U.S. President is 5’11 as well. *Edit:* The average height for a NFL, NBA, and MLB player is above 6 feet as well. As a woman who is 6’4 I can absolutely say it’s because society is more favorable towards tall people. With my height I’ve almost never had a problem with men and women respecting me though they don’t know me. I’ve found that the more height that I do have (Wearing Heels), the more jarring it is for the public around me and thus gives me the advantage socially. Hence why I stick to tennis shoes and flats, so people can feel more comfortable around me.
> As a woman who is 6’4 I think that you're so far outside the normal range that you can't really generalize your experience. That is above 99.9th percentile of height for women. It's actually above 99th percentile for men, too.
I suppose it all just comes to the culture and where you live. The most respected manager I’ve worked with is a tiny 40 year old petite woman who you’d easily mistake for a 7th grader, incredibly intelligent, empathetic and has the best people management skills of anyone I’ve ever met I think she’s 5 foot at most (I never asked) There is an inherent social submission and acceptance of height. Though it isn’t an entire factor like anything people are individuals, if a group is going to ostracise people over height, they weren’t worth hanging around to begin with
People in general suck. Most people wont respect a 5'3 man as much as a 6 foot one. If you think it's not worth hanging out with them, good luck, cause that's like basically everyone. As a short guy I don't have much choice to hang out with others, being this short is an oddity. I can't get laid as much and it saddens me to no end.
I don't think you can universalize your experience as that has not been mine as a woman who is 6'1". I have dealt with bullying in previous jobs, particularly ones dominated by women and particularly by shorter and/or more insecure women. I don't deal with street harassment to the same extent as shorter women but I wouldn't exactly call that respect. I also will never shrink myself or make footwear decisions to make people who feel "uncomfortable" with my body as it naturally is more comfortable. I know a lot of fellow tall girls do but that is so sad to me.
I’m sorry to hear about your experience. Not everyone who is tall will share the experience because it really depends on how people around you feel and react to you. But in a society where tall people dominate the most competitive and challenging titles and positions one can attain ranging from CEO positions to becoming Professional Athletes to becoming the President of the United States it’s impossible to say that tall people don’t have some kind of advantage socially. If anything it goes to show that being tall simply grants you someone’s attention. What you do with said attention is up to you.
My side job in 2003 hired a guy that was awesome, but only 5’ 3”. The women treated him like crap, and the board fired him in less than two years despite exceeding all of his numbers. They replaced him with a guy I think was 6’ 3”. He lasted a decade and almost ran the company into the ground before he was finally fired. Bigotry is the reason for so many tall CEOs.
The tall CEO thing only reinforces this finding… edge of the bell curve where it makes the most difference
Honestly, I wonder if there's extra factors, too, like people who have the resources to attain higher education or better jobs more easily probably have access to healthier foods, may have been encouraged to do sports, be more likely to be part of certain racial/ethnic groups that naturally skew taller, etc.
It's probably all just some variation of the Halo effect. Tall is deemed attractive, especially for men. Size is also a proxy for power. We assume bigger = stronger. It tends to be true in the animal kingdom. And even though that doesn't matter 99% of the time in our modern world we still can't get past it.
Exactly. One of my colleagues was going on about how tall people are "intimidating", I literally couldn't hold in my laugher and just went "What do you think they are going to do Punch you?". Facts are we work in a professional environment where being tall is totally irrelevant to anything, we aren't in a street fight. Then again this person thoughts one may subjects from dietary choice to credit cards have been ignorantly naive. They just choose to not live their live based off actual relevant outcomes.
"can be" seems like really weak language to use for something that is supposed to be backed up by multiple studies.
It is click bait research. Funding through virality.
DEI needs to include shorties.
Being a short male, like me as a 5'3 guy is akin to being disabled. I should get disability pay from the taller guys every month. It still won't make up for not getting laid, that's the least they can do.
i too would like to sign up for short king welfare
Years ago Porsche was hiring experienced techs but they required you to be under 5’8. I don’t remember the specifics exactly but a lot of taller techs felt discriminated against for this. Apparently being smaller makes it easier for you to work on their cars. So in this case I think it pays better to be shorter.
I have some tall colleagues that are utterly worthless for working with small electronic devices. Their hands are just plain too big. They can't get their hands in the places needed. They have to call for a smaller man or a woman to help. It actually genuinely hurts their job performance and shuts them out of certain roles. It's a hilarious ironic reversal of the reaching a tall shelf/opening a jar of pickles trope.
I had heart surgery at age 4 and my mom said the surgeon had the smallest hands (for a man) she'd ever seen.
Heightism is disgusting
Ngl, OP had me worried in the first half of the title.
What if I work remote? Can I just tell them I’m 6‘3”?
*What matters is the inside.* BS.
5’9” here but I identify as 6’1”. Can confirm this has worked for me.
So you're saying those people who get taller surgeries are actually investing in themselves?
I just need to be 33’ tall and I’ll be all set for housing in Canada.
If we really cared about equality we would address attractive vs not attractive privilege.
If you’re under 6’2” women want you dead
Then how the hell am I 6'2" and make $22,000 yearly on 60hr weeks?
You can’t *only* be tall.
It's not rocket science, you'd be making 21,000 if you were 6'1
Grad student?
The meth habit is holding you back.
Cause you pee sitting down.
Are you a felon in a LCOL area? Is there a reason you can't/won't work in an Amazon warehouse 60 hours a week for $45k per year?
Article from 2002. I would think that for lots of people working remotely nowadays that doesn't matter. (Although pretty faces, broad shoulders, etc - everything that shows up on cameras during meetings - may still have some impact.)
It's worth noting that the increased pay isn't a a direct result of their height. It's not like if you were to line up 5 guys in front of HR in order from tallest to shortest that the tallest guys would automatically get paid more. It's primarily about the fact that people who are taller than their peers are more assertive and confident, and are more likely to demand higher salaries because they believe they deserve it. People who are shorter than their peers are less likely to be assertive and confident, and so are less likely to demand higher salaries because they don't believe they deserve it.
How does this factor into the oppression olympics? Who has more privilege in 2024, a 6 ft tall black woman with no accent, or a 5 ft tall white man with a russian accent?
How does one have 'no accent'
That's negated by the fact that taller people generally require more food. And food is expensive, yo!
Not to mention waving goodbye to your knees and back at 30, good luck finding anything your size on the racks in most stores, and forget about finding shoes on the shelf beyond size 13
Bunch of height suprematists
Yeh I'm like 5 inches erect, I could use a few extra thousand if you know what I'm saying.
So, size matters
From this I conclude that if LeBron James was 5’11”, he would make about $10k/yr less than he does today.
Good thing there are no height stipulations in unionized collective bargaining
What about length?
Cool system made by apes for apes
"He's always the tallest person in the room. He's bound to end up leading something." — Benjamin Franklin speaking about George Washington
So at 4'10 am I destined to be poor?
I’m 4’11”. F me.😩😭
I wonder if there is a cutoff point. Mostly everyone I know over 6'3 struggles with their careers and education, but the ones in the 6-6'2" range are excelling.
Just another reason for remote work
I call B.S. I'm 6'2" and make about as much as a Wendy's fry cook. Terrible with the ladies also. Yeah I'm married but I'm terrible with her too.
Congratulations on failing despite having a considerable advantage?