I guess I am hearing a lot of complaining about rules against
discrimination.  I guess I have seen the ugly side of it too often to have
much sympathy.  Though slightly inconvenient for the people who have to
follow the rules,  discrimination is serious, frustrating and life-changing
for those who have to bear the yoke:

Consider a 35 year old woman, recently widowed, with impeccable credit,
being refused a loan to get a house because "we only consider the husband's
credit rating, and since your husband is dead, he can't pay now can he?"
This woman happened to be my mother, who was out on the street with my
sister on her hip and me tagging along behind.

How about a well paid electronics technician whom I used to work with - who
calls a car company and makes a deal over the phone to buy a new Toyota.  He
shows up, they take a look at the color of his skin, and tell him he can't
afford the payments prior to any credit check.  He got mad and walked off,
bought the same car from a dealer 50 miles away, and made every payment
promplty, of course.

How about a handsome, tall, debonair young white guy who worked down the
hall from me, who was totally and completely incompetent to do his job, but
boy he really looks good with that big square chin!  The guy can hardly
operate the big orange switch on his PC, let alone get any use out of it,
but doesn't he cut a fine figure?  This useless paperwieght was hired over a
very competent black guy, not so handsome, who had been doing the job very
smartly as a temp and thought he had an inside track.  The black guy didn't
dress so sharp, except on interview day, and that was cited as a reason.
The handsome new guy? He shows up in the slouchiest rags, but being
handsome, he can get away with it.

These stories happen every day, and not just years ago, they happen now.
People into rationality like Engineers should be on the forefront of hiring
because of qualifications, not looks, color, gender, and other irrelevant
criteria.  We engineers are into results, not appearances, rationality, not
emotional impressions.

--Lawrence




>Like most things in life things work both ways and what can be seen
>by a vociferous lobby group as discrimination could be just the
t>hings that get that very group of people the job and if the employer
>is sympathetic (yet to work for one of those out here), if someone
>has a mild hindrance to there working abilities companies can then
>make allowances for performance levels or lack thereof.

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