Manager who told woman to lose weight for 'client-facing' job gets hit by instant karma

Body-shaming has been a constant type of discrimination faced by women in various places. And although it isn't gender restricted, it's mostly women who are subjected to it. To weigh in on this, here's the story of a woman who was asked to lose weight by her new manager, but it soon got picked up by karma.

Posted on the popular Reddit subreddit r/BestofRedditorUpdates, the post made by u/fakeenamee shares her experience of being humiliated by a manager who required her to lose weight to impress clients at the company where she was working. The woman revealed that she had been working for the company for over 8 years, until it was sold to a larger corporation. After the acquisition, a new team was appointed, from which a manager was posted to whom the woman was reporting. The woman revealed that one day, he claimed that she wasn't fit for a client-facing role and that she must either be demoted or take unpaid leave to lose weight. The woman who was taken aback by the comment asked why the rule did not apply to her other obese male co-workers, to which the new boss did not reply. 

The woman then later went and consulted a lawyer, but before she could proceed with legal measures, she received a call from HR that turned the tables around. Apparently, the conversation between the two had reached the senior authorities, after a friend whom she had confessed to, reported it to someone. The woman was later called to the meeting and was interrogated by he company's legal team, as she could see them squirm in shame over the matter. In a twist of events, the HR offered her the position of manager, as she fully deserves due to her experience, along with a high salary and bonus package, while also assuring that the said manager would be fired from his position. Although the move was to avoid any legal suits from the woman's side, she took the offer and won against the manager!

A study authored by the Institute for Employment Studies in 2020 explored how weight-based stigma and body-shaming in workplaces are common and linked to concrete employment harms: reduced hiring chances, fewer promotions, bullying/harassment at work, a persistent wage penalty, higher sickness absence, and poorer workplace inclusion. The study also stresses economic consequences for employers (lower productivity, higher turnover) and calls for employer policies to prevent appearance-based discrimination. In the Reddit user's case, the company also undertakes wide training on gender and interpersonal relations to avoid such discriminatory practices.

After the post went viral, many users bashed the manager while heaping praise on the female employee for standing her ground. u/StopthinkingitsMe commented, "That's wild, how do people even say stuff like come back for your job after you lose weight? Just reading it made me wanna flip a table."

u/pedantilawyer wrote, "This company has good lawyers. The way I would LOSE MY SHIT if I found out someone at the company I’m at did this. You can tell legal went nuclear." User u/Sweaty-Training-1055 wrote, "Imagine giving such a big shit about someone else’s weight that you get yourself fired."

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