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Tall People Earn More
ayahner writes "Tall people earn considerably more money throughout their lives than their shorter co-workers, with each inch adding about $789 a year in pay, according to a new study. If this is true, I should make a killing! At 6'7" I tower over other developers. It's mostly a distraction, as I can see over even the highest cubes and if I stand just in the right spot, I can receive satellite transmissions. Saves on the cell phone bill. I'm going to go ask for a raise right now, if I can figure out how to work the printer..."
Well of course we get more money! We don't have huge pots of gold to fall back on like short people do! Quit whinin'!
It's because tall people are better.
taken! (by Davidleeroth) Thanks Bingo Foo!
I wish I was a little bit taller, I wish I was a baller, I wish i had a girl with a phone I would call her!
I'm always doubtful about studies like this. While they claim that certain variables like weight, gender, etc. were controlled, I suspect there are other variables that come into play here. Did each participant have the same background? Training? Did they choose the same occupation? Do they live in the same area? Blah blah blah.
This is likely one of those "research causes cancer in rats" conclusions.
if I can figure out how to work the printer..." PC load letter, what the FUCK does that mean?!
--fetch daddy's blue fright wig, i must be handsome when i release my rage
This of course comes as a surprise to noone under the 5'5" mark.
What's funny, or perhaps expected, is that tall people are, as a rule, blissfully unaware of the advantages their height affords them. They bitch about trivialities like fitting into movie seats while attractice girls fling themselves at them and they command undue attention in a conference room.
And if one of us shortish people brings it up, we're told we have a "Napolean complex", as if they even know what that means apart from that Napolean was also kind of short.
Because short people couldn't afford it.
You may think bullshitter type positions...BUT the fact is that when you are negotiating your pay YOU ARE IN MARKETING for that brief moment. So if tall people do better in marketing then tall people in non marketing fields would make mroe too.
The only way to bust a doper--is when you yourself become a smoker!
Actually they do have something to make you grow. It's for people with a genetic disorder called, achondroplasia. This genetic disorder is an inherited disorder that prevents growth. They use a limb-lengthening technique.
How it works:
1. Break your bones in several different places.
2. Attach metal rods so that your bones stay separated a few cm's aparth.
3. Let the bones heal.
4. Repeat until desired height.
However this is a very painful procedure.
Source:
o Genetics Book
o http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/ghr/disease/achondroplasia
Factor in the fact that women earn .75 to every dollar, and we are typically shorter, I have to wonder if this really is a male/female discrepancy versus a tall/short discrepancy.
Can I bum a sig?
I want to see the median pay increase, not the average. I bet NBA players account for 99% of the pay difference.
This observation is as true today as it was in the 70's. I guess that dates me.
Now... the flip side of this is that many short intelligent men chose not to put up with this sort of bullshit. This provides an incentive for them to get out on their own and set up their own firms.
I know of at least 5 major companies in this city who are headed by short men who were driven out of the company they used to work for. In one case the president-owner of the newly formed company declared that he was going to put his former employer out of business and hire every one of their employees.
Well, this has not materialized. Nevertheless his former employer is no longer #1 in the industry and the new company is rapidly moving into that slot so perhaps it just hasn't happened yet.
Tall people can be both smug and complacent at times but the little guys can sometimes really kick ass too!
The median height for American white males is 69"(5'9") while 72"(6'0") is the 75th percentile. (NHANES III 1988-94)
Recent Presidents' heights:
G.W.Bush: 6' 0"
Clinton: 6' 2-1/2"
G.H.Bush: 6' 2"
Reagan : 6' 1"
Carter: 5' 9-1/2"
Ford: 6' 0"
Nixon: 6' 0"
Johnson: 6' 3"
Kennedy: 6' 0"
8 of the last 9 above the 75th percentile not even accounting for lower heights in the past.
Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way...
This has everything to do with how the human animal is hardwired for dominance/submission. Very similar to many animals. More dominant males tend to succeed better. Being taller is a dominance trait. It's not rocket science. It's biology. It drives a lot more human behavior than most people are aware of, or would be comfortable admitting.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
I saw a documentary once where women rated the "date-ability" of men they observed through a one way mirror. All the men were judged to be above average in appearance based on headshots alone.
When viewed in context a taller than average men outranked the smaller men with remarkable consistency. One, identified as having an extensive criminal record, always outscored shorter men. To get the women to accept the shortest (around 5'3") bachelor as "date-able" the researchers had to say he was a doctor who loved to travel on his private jet all over the world and was independently wealthy.
The question isn't whether or taller people are better workers who earn more money through merit, rather it's whether we're still tied to longstanding biological instinct when evaluating people, even in an business context.
-dameron
How would you like to be six inches taller and earn hundreds of thousands more dollars?
You should try our new all-natural herbal enlargement pills!
Those who would give up liberty in exchange for security and DRM should switch to Microsoft Palladium!
It's called the Ilizarov Technique. It was discovered by a Russian doctor and named for him. The basic principle is this: (1) break someones leg, (2) hold it together just like a cast does , (3) tug on it by one millimeter per day, (4) the body fills in the gap with new bone.
Not only that, but the body grows muscle, nerves, blood vessels as required to accomodate the new limb length.
Not only can you make limbs longer, you can twist them back to normal directions, weed out angles left by accidents, etc. I saw an Atlanta Falcons player get his leg lengthened and rotated back into normal position.
Why take bone grafts or coral or cadaver implants ?? Have your body grow its own bone.
Not only that !!! When you take dwarves, and you lengthen their two humorous and their two femurs, it dumps so much growth hormones into the body that the torso, face, etc. grow to more normal proportions.
All in all an incredible technique that is underrated.
Why do I know this? I wrote the original embedded (8051) C software in a robotic distractor which allowed doctors to control this procedure precisely. A doctor could say "I want this limb to grow 1440 times per day, by 1/1440th per millimeter."... or "I want this limb to grow 360 times per day, by 1/360th of a millimeter."
Most fascinating.. the Russians and typical American use is to increase the length of the limb by 1/4 mm four times per day. The device we made allowed much finer control... up to 1/1440th mm 1440 times per day. X-rays showed that the finer, closer to continuous growth "tugging" produced the most normal looking nerve and blood vessels.
I saw this one guy who blew out 8" of his tibia with a shotgun, but the muscle and nerves stayed. Instead of amputating, they brought this guys foot WAY up, so he had this huge ball of muscle on the back of a tiny stump. Then they started growing !!! 200 days later this guy had his entire leg back.
I saw this type stuff again and again while I was helping doctors install the robotic device on patients. Doctors cut a small opening, take chisels to the patients bone, break it, put the frame on, and start the machine tugging the limb apart slowly. It is pure magic.
Deathcow
Back in the 1950's, my father (who is only a mere 6'3") was selected for a sales position over another applicant. He was later told by his manager that the deciding factor was that he was taller.
I put the 'fun' in fundamentalism
Being short, I've researched this topic a bit and while most of the research corroborates this study, another study done by UPenn economists provides an alternative hypothesis. Here's the link to the paper:d =293122
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_i
Basically, their argument is that a person's relative adolescent height is a better indicator than their adult height. Short kids who end up tall earn like short people, while tall kids who end up short earn like tall people. You could extend this and probably make some kind of argument about a child's self-esteem and self-confidence as being the ultimate indicator in how well they do as adults.