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Author Topic: New trend in Northwest espresso: embarrassingly dressed baristas  (Read 23024 times)

redglasscurls

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I really would be genuinely entertained. There is a difference between the miner situation spluff mentioned, where it is an inherently dangerous job, and this one, where you take what should be a regular retail job and knowingly turn it into one where you risk huge torso burns.
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Denn Du Bist, Was Du Isst   (you are what you eat)
also, related to burning stuff: a friend threw up on a hot water heater once, the vomit steam burned her face. awesome!

tania

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maiada and lunchy said in this thread they would work here, and maybe they were joking but regardless, i have met maiada and known lunchy on this forum long enough to remain confident that they are both very cool intelligent people. their choice of hypothetical employment doesn't suddenly negate all that. yeah, if they chose to work there i'd honestly probably think "oh i don't really get why you would do that" but that's my criticism of the job description, not them. knowing that, do you still feel comfortable assuming everyone working at one of these coffee shops is a moron?

there are a lot of different reasons why people choose to do what they do. sometimes people can't find another job, and sometimes people are putting themselves through school and could really use the $100 in tips every day, and sometimes they are 20-something and very attractive and it is legitimately hard for them to find jobs that don't involve being a 20-something attractive girl cos other people don't take them seriously, and sometimes they want to work there cos they already know they are so smart and awesome that it doesn't matter what anyone thinks of them.

basically i think it is a good habit to not judge people before you know them.
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Not to sound mysoginist, but I hate women.

Orbert

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Benji is a man who is making a lot of sense.

Are you kidding?  I simply said that all other things being equal, I'd rather drink coffee while admiring babes in bikinis than drink coffee while staring at the walls.  Benji replied with some essay about the social implications of women serving men while underdressed, power disparities, sex or the implied promise of possible sex, and a bunch of other shit that was nowhere in my post.

I reject the Orbert's assertion that me stating a preference for not going to the sexy coffee shop is somehow irrational. I'm making a fully rational choice.

I didn't say your preference is irrational.  I said that it's pretty fucked up that women are choosing to serve coffee while underdressed, and somehow it's the guys who are embarrased to go there because they imagine all kinds of other implications and connotations attached to it.  If you don't want to go there because you imagine that it places you in a position of power over the server, or somehow objectifies you the customer, or that there's implied possible sex and that bothers you, fine.  But you're making it a lot more complicated than it needs to be.

A woman in a bikini on the beach is not promising you sex, and she is not implying possible sex.  Why is she somehow doing that if she's at work?

A woman serving you coffee that you have paid for is not exercising power over you, and she is not objectifying you.  She is conducting a business transaction.  This is not affected by what she's wearing.

It is entirely possible to have a polite conversation with someone less than fully dressed.  I have no idea why people would think otherwise.  If you cannot do it because you're thinking about implied possible sex or power disparities or female subservience... well, I guess that would be a problem. 

Stating a preference for not going there is not irrational, and I never said it was, but your justification for it sure as hell is.  A bikini does not imply sex, and serving coffee is a business transaction, not some kind of symbolic power thing.


On a lighter note:  Hey, I'm "the Orbert"!
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There are 10 kinds of people in the world: those who understand binary and those who do not.

Barmymoo

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sometimes i substitute "egalitarianism"

This is without doubt the most important word I've ever learnt, and I think it's your duty to go forth and teach people not only what it means, but also how to spell it and how to say it. And then how to embrace it as their life's goal.

Seriously, though, I think a lot of people call themselves feminists when in fact they are indeed talking about egalitarianism and for all the reasons that have already been discussed they don't get taken seriously, or they get taken too seriously, because of the connotations of feminism.

In response to Orbert's most recent post, I'm not sure where I stand on this issue really but I have to say that someone who makes the business decision to go from staff uniforms, which are usually a blouse/shirt and trousers/skirt, to a bikini, is probably only thinking about sex and attractiveness. It isn't, as discussed, because it will be safer for the staff or because it will enhance their ability to make coffee. There isn't really any other reason to bring this in as a dress code other than the fact that people will relate it to sex, or at least sexiness. It's like trying to argue that erotica has nothing to do with sex because it's literature. Just because it isn't as overt and explicit doesn't mean it isn't intended to create connotations and imply connections.
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There's this really handy "other thing" I'm going to write as a footnote to my abstract that I can probably explore these issues in. I think I'll call it my "dissertation."

benji

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In response to Orbert's most recent post, I'm not sure where I stand on this issue really but I have to say that someone who makes the business decision to go from staff uniforms, which are usually a blouse/shirt and trousers/skirt, to a bikini, is probably only thinking about sex and attractiveness. It isn't, as discussed, because it will be safer for the staff or because it will enhance their ability to make coffee. There isn't really any other reason to bring this in as a dress code other than the fact that people will relate it to sex, or at least sexiness. It's like trying to argue that erotica has nothing to do with sex because it's literature. Just because it isn't as overt and explicit doesn't mean it isn't intended to create connotations and imply connections.

Yeah, that's pretty much what I would say. A woman on a beach isn't usually trying to sell me anything. She's just hanging out on the beach. These baristas are being told to wear bikinis because it will, hypothetically, convince me to buy coffee and leave a big tip. I find attempts to manipulate me based on sex somewhat distasteful. I can, and have, gone in to detail about some of the dimensions of why I find it distasteful, but it's really nothing more then that. If that's me making things too complicated, so be it, but I really don't think it's that complex.
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Professor Snuggles

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Why doesn't this thread have more pictures of hella rude titties in it, is what I want to know.
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tania

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Stating a preference for not going there is not irrational, and I never said it was, but your justification for it sure as hell is.  A bikini does not imply sex, and serving coffee is a business transaction, not some kind of symbolic power thing.

a bikini on its own might not imply sex or subservience, and neither might a barista serving a customer, but an establishment in which a customer base comprised primarily of men is being served exclusively by very attractive half-naked females sure could. how is that irrational? you don't have agree with me that it's creepy, but it can't be that hard to at least understand what that could symbolize and why it would be disconcerting to some.
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Not to sound mysoginist, but I hate women.

jhocking

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A woman in a bikini on the beach is not promising you sex, and she is not implying possible sex.  Why is she somehow doing that if she's at work?

It's a context thing, due to societal norms, like I mentioned in my post before. And if you feel that societal norms are a dumb reason, then I humbly disagree, because I think societal norms are a pretty important thing for maintaining cohesive communities.

Inlander

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Depends on the society and on the norms in question.
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jhocking

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what are you talking about, all societies are exactly the same

Alex C

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Social norms have done an awful lot for us, when you think about it. I mean, it's unfortunate when people get out of hand just because someone else doesn't conform, but having some common customs and behaviors allows us to communicate more effectively and quickly ascertain what we can expect out of a situation. Without some base commonalities we'd be back in the stone age guessing whether that group of people across the river intends to bash our heads in or not instead of waving hello and talking about the weather.
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the ship has Dr. Pepper but not Mr. Pibb; it's an absolute goddamned travesty
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