I started a post about this particular topic and I decided to delete it and take a different approach to it. I’d like to give you the scenario I experienced a couple of days ago and let you tell me what your thoughts are on it. I’m just curious as to how many people see it the way I did. Then I’ll tell you how I reacted.
I’m in my office and a female co-worker (around 5’9″, cute, great personality, average size) came in and started talking about going to the gym we both have memberships to. Another co-worker, a male, came in and joined the conversation.
The female co-worker was panting a little and out of breath because she had taken the stairs to my office. The male co-worker asked the female why she was panting so hard and she said she had taken the stairs and she was trying to catch her breath. The male responded, “why didn’t you take the elevator?” The female replied, “Oh no! That would ruin my reputation!”
Any thoughts? Input? Just curious as to how you would’ve perceived that last statement.
Angry Gray Rainbows 
I presume her reputation is not of being a person with elevator-phobia. So she has the reputation of an active fit person or of one who takes every chance to exercise?
How many floors were involved? At the risk of sounding snarky and because I don’t know all the facts, if she is panting that means she either pushes herself harder every time she runs up many stairs, or she hasn’t been doing it long because she wouldn’t be winded. I am not sure where you are going with this but it has appealed to my curiosity. FWIW – I sometimes feel “less than” around the mega exercisers.
I think she wants a cookie for taking the stairs.
Taking the elevator as “ruining one’s reputation” just sounds like Healthist moral superiority mishmash to me.
The idea being that lower status people take the elevator, or rather that higher status people exercise whenever possible, even if not logical or plausible.
Ruin her reputation as an
…active person???
…green/environmental type of person???
It’s a strange one, I can’t figure it out!
Does she have a reputation as being a person in really awesome shape who takes the stairs all the time? If so, is she really proud of said reputation? Then, I can understand that taking the elevator would conflict with that reputation.
Or maybe she’s a prude and thinks that what if she accidentally got in the elevator alone with a man and her “reputation” was compromised – lol.
Obviously, there’s lots to say here about how she’s seeing her choices of how to get from one place to another as a performance, as something to be watched and judged. But what I also note is how differently an average sized woman panting from taking the stairs is treated (why didn’t you just take the stairs?) to how fat women are often treated. If you are fat and you take the stairs, and then are panting, the panting can be seen as pathetic. And if you take the elevator… yup, seen as pathetic.
My first guess is that it was a throwaway, meaningless line that was meant to be funny but doesn’t make any sense when you think about it. My second thought is that she might have built up a reputation of being one the few people to take the stairs in her office.
I think your co-worker was having a dig at herself – she’s seen (or likes to regard herself) as an exercise nut.
I gotta say I LOVED all the responses. Some of you saw it the way I did and some didn’t. I think the response that resonated closest to what I was thinking was bigliberty’s.
A little more background may be in order so let me try to fill in some blanks.
I work at a police department which has about 80 officers and about 20 civilian workers. I am a civilian and one of very few females. This is a macho place – you can smell the testosterone as you get closer to the building. Once inside, you see the officers and I would say, as a general rule, most of them work out and are in pretty good shape. I would also say that they show no mercy toward fatty co-workers (male or female).
Most of my co-workers are very respectful of me and rarely do I hear anything derogatory about the way I look or how I present myself. (the bully who used to do this on a regular basis quit working here) Although a catty comment will sometimes come out.
This female co-worker I’m referring to is young and single, tall and cute and I would say of “medium” build – not fat, not slim. Her goal of going to the gym is to lose weight, not to feel better.
I took her comment as meaning, “if I took the elevator, people would think I was LAZY.” (as she sees fat people) Or maybe, “if I took the elevator, people would JUDGE ME” (as she judges fat people). Or maybe she meant, “if I took the elevator, people would see me as BAD” (as she sees fat as being bad).
After she made the comment, I looked at her with my cute 280 pound blonde haired blue eyed body and said, “has my reputation been ruined because I take the elevator?” Right then my phone rang and she left my office while I was on the phone. I’m sure she could tell by the tone of my voice that she had hit a nerve with me so she left.
I’m just so sick of there being such a stigma attached to be fat. I’m not lazy! I’m not worthless or useless or hopeless! I’m not “bad” because I’m fat! What is wrong with taking the elevator??? I go to the gym, I work out on the machines, I walk on the treadmill, I use the stationery bicycle but steps are still too hard for me right now. I feel like I have to justify why I take the elevator when it’s really no one’s freakin’ business why I take it.
After all my ranting and raving I can see the pain in the female’s eyes. She talks to me about how she ate way too much at lunch and has to go to the gym and work extra hard to lose that weight. She’s constantly talking about eating and losing weight. She has a lot to learn about life and acceptance.
Yes, she hit a nerve but she also helped to reinforce in me the fact that acceptance is the way to go.
thanks again for all the great comments!!!!
*sarcasm intended for the following comments*
It is very clear to me that she has been vying for the title of “Stair Queen” since birth. She has always envied the graceful rise and fall of each set of glorious stairways and steps she encounters. Their ebb and flow countenance, the masterful design of them, their purposeful existence. As a child, she often gazed headily upwards while lounging at the bottom step, wishing one day to be their Queen. Her dreams were filled with visions of a Heaven full of staircase after staircase, all bearing her royal crest. She imagined them in various stages of glorious decadence–robed in lavish carpetry, brightly colored tapestries, finely honed and polished woods, shiny brass fittings, and twisted iron or wooden railings.
It is for this reason that she has acquired the self appointed reputation as “Queen of the Stairs”, and thus defends her status at every mention them.
or…..
she just likes that squishy feeling inside that makes her feel like she’s better than everyone else.
Happy Friday!
Regina T, bravo! enjoyed your response immensely!