Woman fired for not wearing high heels

[Pumped]

The deal with waiters wearing heels is pretty silly. If you have never worn heels, of course they will be uncomfortable! I have a pair of boots with a 3" block heel that I can wear all day. When I first bought them I could only wear them for maybe an hour at a time. Heck, I have worn new men's low heeled dress shoes that I could not wear for much more than an hour because they were so uncomfortable until they were broken in.

[Shyheels]

Happens with hiking boots all the time. Running shoes too.

[Chorlini]

20 hours ago, Shyheels said:

I read in a newspaper article the other day that health problems caused by wearing high heels cost British businesses £260 million a year - this was from evidence presented to the parliamentary commission into wearing heels in the workplace. (Yes, with all that is going on in Britain and the world, our politicians have nothing better to do) One wonders - indeed, marvels - at the capacity of "experts" to snatch BS figures out of thin air and have them solemnly accepted and recorded as "fact".

Here truly is an instance of Mark Twain's "lies, damned lies and statistics".

Wasn't it Winston Churchill who said: 'I only believe the statistics I falsified myself'?

The problem with statistics is probably not so much the numbers, but how you interpret them. We all suffer from confirmation bias and are prone to accept those numbers which support our viewpoint. They say British business suffers X amount of losses due to high heel related health problems, I pose that maybe part of those problems, if not the core is not so much high heels, but crappy high heels. Because if most women wear the wrong size bras and suffer from back pain issues, then is it too much of a leap of faith that it may be a huge health problem that millions of women are squeezing their feet into shitty Chinese shoes whose only goal is to be made as cheaply as possible?

Also, as with every claim and number being made in the political realm, follow the money. As a Dutch saying says, whose bread one eats, whose words one will speak.

[Shyheels]

I am just wondering where and how they come up with any figures at all. How many people do you suppose actually report that they cannot show up for work because of having worn high heels? How often do you suppose heels crop up on HR and company medical reports? Two hundred and sixty million pounds worth?

 I suspect the 'experts' are, off their own bat, extrapolating a certain percentage of lower back complaints and deciding that these can be sheeted home to high heels.

Edited August 1, 2016 by Shyheels

[Chorlini]

20 hours ago, Shyheels said:

I am just wondering where and how they come up with any figures at all. How many people do you suppose actually report that they cannot show up for work because of having worn high heels? How often do you suppose heels crop up on HR and company medical reports? Two hundred and sixty million pounds worth?

 I suspect the 'experts' are, iff their bat, extrapolating a certain percentage of lower back complaints and deciding that these can be sheeted home to high heels.

A very good point. There is a lot of statistical research being presented and accepted as fact without the media doing any in depth examination into the validity of the socalled research and what kinds of extrapolations were made. I suspect that the more anyone who is critical of a research piece gets shouted down and being called names, the more likely the basis of said research is actually a load of unfounded bullshit.

[Shyheels]

Speaking as a journalist of over 30 years' standing, those in the media these days are dreadfully uncritical of just about anything that is handed them. There is little in the way of research or critical analysis being done any more and almost no independent fact checking. Churning out copy fast is key, accuracy...well...nice if it happens

Edited August 1, 2016 by Shyheels

[Chorlini]

I suspect this plays no small part why so many people distrust the media. When the media keeps on telling you A and you see B happening around you a disconnect starts to happen. And uncritical journalists barely doing any fact checking parroting what everybody keeps saying makes a hell of a lot more sense then secret shady kabals controlling the media as so many people seem/want to belief. Occam's Razor, the simplest most plausible solution.

[Shyheels]

Absolutely. Occam's Razor all the way.

As far as the media proprietors' direct influence goes, what often happens is that editors and journalists will self-censor, guessing what they think the distant and lofty proprietor wants to see/read and then doing their reporting and writing accordingly. Half the time, as long as the circulation is good, I suspect nobody at the top gives a damn. They're in business. They want to make money. Lots of it. Text is just grey matter to fill in the space between the pictures and the ads.

Edited August 1, 2016 by Shyheels

[at9]

The three cardinal rules of journalism. With a liberal dose of cynicism

Make it quick, make it snappy and make it up!

Occam's Razor isn't always correct but it's an excellent starting point.

[Bubba136]

4 hours ago, at9 said:

The three cardinal rules of journalism. With a liberal dose of cynicism

Make it quick, make it snappy and make it up!

Occam's Razor isn't always correct but it's an excellent starting point.

I've actually been in situations where print media reporters actually interviewed each other while covering a story and submit stories to their editors based on their conversations.  Is it any wonder that most everyone I know no longer believes anything that is printed in the newspaper?

Edited August 2, 2016 by Bubba136

[Steve63130]

86.7% of statistics are made up.

Including this one!

LOL
 

Steve

[Shyheels]

"Never trust anything you read on the Internet" - Abraham Lincoln

I love Evelyn Waugh's novel Scoop. Written in the 1930s it was a black comedy, rich in irony, about journalism. Waugh himself was a journalist and knew exactly what he was writing about, and although it is a parody and written 80 years ago there is so much truth in that novel that it almost isn't funny. Almost. It is a very funny book, much of the fun coming from its grotesque truths. Lord Copper and his newspaper, The Daily Beast, may be fictional, but I swear I have worked for them and witnessed and experienced things oh-so-similar or in the same vein as many of the events in that novel. Definitely worth a read if you've not read it.