Looks Are Destiny

I can often predict a person’s destiny by his or her appearance. For example, if a regular photograph of you looks exactly like a DUI mug shot, the police will eventually arrest you. Here’s a perfect example:

http://tv.msn.com/tv/article.aspx?news=261203&GT1=7703

I can also tell by your weight whether you are likely to have a job that involves frequent travel on commercial flights. You rarely see obese people flying for business. If you walk down any sidewalk in America, every fourth person is so large he’s keeping an entire village in Pakistan employed just making his pants. But when you board a commercial flight, you rarely see people that large. And if you do, they’re heading to Disneyland.

It’s a similar situation with unusually attractive women. If you see an unusually attractive woman on a commercial flight, she’s either traveling with an unusually attractive lover, or meeting one at the other end. She’s the one touching up her makeup before landing.

People who have bad eyesight when they are kids, including me, rule out all careers that require vigorous physical activity, especially ones involving the outdoors. By the age of eleven I had ruled out football, professional modeling, and the lifeguard arts. I focused my attention on math, and doodling insulting pictures of my peers. I figured one of those two things would pay off.

I also ruled out any profession that involved risking my life to save other people. I ask too many questions for those sorts of jobs. For example, before I rush into a burning building to save someone, I want to know if that person is more deserving of life than me. If not, there’s no point in getting incinerated just to make the world a worse place. Recently I gave a talk to a classroom of 9-year olds. It wasn’t hard to identify the ones who would do a cost-benefit analysis before rushing into the burning building. That shit starts early.

Hair and height are great predictors of future careers. If you’re a guy with a good head of hair, and you’re over 6’4”, you’ll probably have a career in upper management. The universe will also allow you to be an entrepreneur, lawyer, or doctor. You are not allowed to work in a toll booth.

If you’re unusually good looking, you’re not allowed to perform any job that’s unpleasant. The exception is that you can wait tables in a nice restaurant until someone either proposes or offers you a lucrative contract.

Question of the day: Do you look suspiciously similar to other people who have jobs like yours?

Comments

[jim lips]

i see nazis in your future

[lisa levy]

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[John]

It looks great

[sung]

Sometimes I use a picture of Wally to represent myself on Internet cafes, etc., and people would ask if it is a caricature of myself.

[Almost Lucid (Brad)]

No. And I don't have any friends at work either. The two are related.

[Farrar Hudkins]

I work in public radio, which is full of slightly pudgy guys with facial hair and glasses. I was already fifteen pounds overweight and wore glasses when I got the job, but my beard has since grown from the goatee to the full-blown cheekbones-down jawline-expander.

I have also learned that the IT world is also full of pudgy guys with facial hair and glasses -- except for management, who shave.

And never trust a boss with a moustache.

[Fullstop]

Not only they look the same, but their cars also look the same.Have you noticed that?

[Fullstop]

Not only they look the same but also their cars looke the same. Have you noticed that?

[beano]

( she tried modeling but was ONLY 5'8.5 inches tall and was a bit overweight - like 128 lbs )

Are you mad?? That's not even 9 stone 2, and is a fine weight for a 5' 8" woman! According to A LOT of sources, that is the lower end of healthy! Jeeeeezuz!~!

[Kim]

Bit late, but hey, what you said is very true. Sometimes you are just that kind of person, so you choose the job that suits you.
Travelling through Africa I met up with a group of people, and one day I wore a skirt and top that brought the comment:'You look just like a teacher in that'. I am a teacher, and I could never wear that outfit again!
Another time some kids asked me about a ball they had thrown into a school. Afterwards one said 'See I told you she was a teacher'. It was a SatuI didn't work at the said school. Very scary! Though everyone thinks I am a primary teacher, and I am a high school Maths and IT Teacher. (ages 13-18)

[John M]

Its interesting> It reminds me of Americana. Now I live in Paris, ( currently in India) - and I remember a friend of mine ( she tried modeling but was ONLY 5'8.5 inches tall and was a bit overweight - like 128 lbs ) She said " you know Ajay, I go to America and everyone in the company.. looks the same" - even most cities - not in the coast - look alike.. Its like a factory or something :)

[Mikey Benny]

Interesting... I used to be morbidly obese (5'10", 310) with a job where I frequently traveled on commercial airlines for work. Now I'm just a run-of-the-mill fat-ass (235) with a job where I travel on commercial airlines for work. What do you have to say to that, buddy? ;)

[Bill]

I have to mention, that you can change your destiny by changing your looks. If you are a hot babe, say, like that rocket scientist cheerleader someone pointed out, and then you decided that you should start shooting heroin and living in the streets, you will probably get pretty ugly pretty fast. I realize I'm generalizing, but if you check out any of the drug users on Vancouver's skid row, you'd know what I mean. And once your down and ugly, and living on a piece of cardboard behind Safeway for a while, your chances of being recognized as a rocket scientist cheerleader diminish considerably.

And of course, it works in reverse. Take a mostly ugly person, and pretty them up with some thigh cream and a $200 facial mask, some plastic surgery and botox, and bam! they're a weather person! Well on their way to becoming famous. Again, no one would know that they were once the fat pimply dude that worked on computers all day.

Finally... I, like many of you, work in IT. And sadly and scarily, I see so many people in my field that dress like me or resemble me in some way, that it's disturbing. Even clothes selection is similar. And, sadly, the haircut. And even body shape. I guess sitting on your ass for 7-8 hours a day in front of a computer affects your body shape. Wow, who'd of thought?

[bee]

This post reminds me of something I read just a few days ago in the (by the way very enlightening) book "blink" by Malcolm Gladwell:

"In the U.S. population, about 14.5 percent of all men are six feet or taller. Among CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, that number is 58 percent. Event more striking, in the general American population, 3.9 percent of adult men are six foot two or taller. Among my CEO sample, almost a third were six foot two or taller."
(...)
"Not long ago, researchers who analyzed the data from four large research studies that had followed thousands of people from birth to adulthood calculated that when corrected for such variables as age and gender and weight, an inch of height is worth $789 a year in salary."

So, if you want your kids to be successful with minimal efforts, go for the genes of tall people...

[Sheeda]

I always thought of myself as "average." Average height, average weight, average looks, average intelligence. One day I read an article that said the average American female is actually five inches shorter, 4 dress sizes larger and a good 40-50 pounds heavier than me. So, does that make me above average or below average?

I have been a self-employed technical writer for the past 18 years, and I can definitely tell the scientists from the engineers. (But I can't tell them much!) Folks seem to remember me... I don't know if it is the extremely short hair (convertible car, bike rider and runner) or the safety boots and mini-skirts. (The very BEST way to keep their attention in the engineering bays.) Whatever the reason, I have had many happy "playdates" over the years that really broke up the tedium of writing 500 page installation and service manuals.

None of the other writers I've met look like me, to our mutual relief. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to change out of my pajamas and into some running clothes before I settle down to a little billable labor...

Life is truly grand when one is not like the rest of the children!

[Mark Cohen]

I'm in middle management and I'm one of the only bald guys at our company. My boss is bald, but he just quit. Personally I think that was some form of sinister genetic selection. I refuse to quit so I will from now on keep one eye looking up for the falling grand piano that Destiny must have in store for me. I justify my survival based on the fact that I'm marginally taller than my peers so they may not have noticed that I've got a chrome dome yet. I might just work standing up for the rest of my life now in the hope of reaching some form of propmotion one day

[infinity_1024]

Contrary to most replies you've got, I'm just short of 6', not well built at all, my hair is invariably unkept and I wear spectacles without which I might bump my head into anything or run into my manager. And as people say, I look very geeky. Which I'm not, just careless. And what do I do? I write code for a living. So do my very fasionable and outgoing male and female collegues. If it were the reverse, I would've been proud to stand out.
I just don't fit in here.

[foo]

No. I look like Devin Townsend with more hair, but can't play guitar.

[Nelly]

I'm a black female engineer. I'm going to go with "No" on this one. If you're talking about level of attractiveness, this is too varied among engineers to even be relevant.

[BetteTheRed]

Two of the most truly beautiful men I have ever seen in real life were clearly regular workers - one in overalls, the other on the back of a garbage truck.

I also suppose it depends on how one defines beautiful. The garbage man was a classic blonde surfer type, but the guy in overalls had African features, with light skin and hair and the greenest eyes I've ever seen.

[Penny]

Just realized: in humid weather I totally have Tina hair, so I guess I do look like my job.

[BTTFVGO]

I guess, stereotypically, I look like all the other carpenters out there... Not the Norm Abrams of Bob Villa type, but the younger "roague" look. I wear a do-rag, t-shirt (or wife beater), jeans and boots. My dad says all construction workers are hoodlums (96%, at least) and most of them I've seen all look the same...

It was kind of strange. Once, our crew was in front of a competitor's crew, and, strangely enough, they looked just like us but with different clothes. You had the two bosses - the skinny long-brown haired guy, the fat guy, the tall short haired blond dude and the dude with the shoulder length brown hair and the do-rag. On our crew, the exact same description... No, really! It was like looking a mirror but they were wearing different clothes - it was kind of spooky. Anyway, it must just be the stereotypical construction crew.

I think the old "stereotypical" view - picture the dudes in the hard hat sitting on a concrete wall hollering at any woman with a pulse - is just that - stereotypical malarky. Most construction workers are like the original cowboys of the west - young, full of testosterone, and ready to take on the world with a strange, almost eerie confidence. Then again, you can picture the commercial with the construction workers hollering at the dude with the Arby's, completely ignoring the beautiful piece of works that keep passing by. Hmmm... for some reason I'm thinking Arby's... ^_^

[Penny]

"Do you look suspiciously similar to other people who have jobs like yours?"

Apparently I look like a freshly-minted doctor, because when I worked in a hosptital where the medical residents and interns got to eat free when I got to the register the cafeteria cashiers always reached for the doctor list. I'd have to say "No, I'm not a doctor, I'm the switchboard operator." and I'd think "you see me every fricking day! Whatsamatter with you?"

But that was a long time ago, now I guess I probably look like a middle-aged doctor, but I'm a tech writer these days.

[Scott]

Ya, it's scarry. I'm an engineer and look a lot like Dilbert. Wide in the middle, I have glasses but don't wear them, and the shirt and pants. The only thing I don't have is the tie. My wife tried to get me to go as dilbert last Halloween... She gave me a tie to wear... Not nice...

[Perry P. Perkins]

"Do you look suspiciously similar to other people who have jobs like yours?"

What a depressing question. I think I'm going home for the day to sit in a dark room.

-Perry