On an email with my manager I described a coworker I only worked with once as a small, thin woman that was either born in an East Asian country or has East Asian parents. I don’t know this person’s name. I don’t see a better way to describe her all things considered.
The managers answer: it is disrespectful to describe people according to ethnic background or physical appearance.
My next question for this manager: dear manager, how should I describe this person then?
I don’t know if I’m being genuinely disrespectful or this is a very thin skinned manager. Either way, I had to work with another coworker I didn’t know either. This conversation with manager B ensued:
manager B: ‘today you’re working with mike’
me: ‘who’s mike?’
manager B: ‘that fat guy’
make it make sense.
It’s disrespectful to refer to someone as “the fat guy” too, perhaps moreso.
I’m not sure exactly what you said, but if it was “a small, thin woman that was either born in an East Asian country or has East Asian parents”, then that’s pretty weird.
It may have also been unnecessary to describe the person at all. It depends on the context.
As a fat dude, I think it’s a perfectly valid way to describe me. It’s not insulting nor in this case used to be derogatory, it’s just a fact.