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A Day In the Life of a "Booth Babe"
jfruh writes "Booth babes," promotional models paid to showcase products, are ubiquitous figures at tech trade shows. Ever wonder what they think of their jobs? Well, it may not surprise you to learn that standing up for eight hours in heels isn't much fun. Some enjoy the work, while others don't enjoy being the subject of stares. And one model adds that 'The industry is now moving towards making models show more skin.'"
Why not quit their job?
These women have taken a job where their bodies will be used to manipulate the minds of lonely men by displaying their sexual atttributes, and then some of them have the gall to be upset that they're being regarded as sex objects? Wake me up when someone intelligent is interviewed. They oughta be happy that someone will pay them for something if standing around in heels is one of their finest talents.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Nobody pays us for standing around. Imagine having to do actual work.
Ever wonder what they think of their jobs?
I couldn't care less. Why is this on Slashdot again?
How do you...
Ah, yes, there's a certain form to these things, let's see...
First you write "Obligatory" and then your medium.
Ok. I can do this.
Khm.
Obligatory Penny Arcade.
Yes! Nailed it!
"We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams [...]."
These comments should be funny...
No sig today...
She said problems with sexism have been absent from her own work as a model. "I'm used to it," she said
Just because you are used to it doesn't mean that sexism is absent. There really needs to be a boycott of companies that use these tactics. The tech industry is probably the last major holdout in the understanding that women are not simply sex objects. Women refuse to work in the tech industry because of sexual harassment. Unfortunately, the field becomes dominated by men who don't understand it, which then perpetuates the alienation cycle.
"Her other part-time job as a dancer" ... dads, it's up to you to keep your daughters off the pole. 'Nuff said.
Breakfast served all day!
This career is dead-end, 100% shallow (they don't even have to know what the fuck it is they are holding) and based on their looks.
It's also an obviously annoying work-place.
However, your reviews are based on your abilitiy to smile and how you look, meaning it only requires you to do exactly ONE thing.
And they complain?
Work in mcdonalds or any other no-skill job and see how funny it is.
Fucking whiners.
I'm sorry.These women take jobs that are sexist (their job is to arouse the customer and link sexiness and sensuality to some plastic product that isn't really sexy at all) by some sexist companies and then get ogled by the people who are supposed to ogle them.
No. Sympathy. At. All.
While I don't agree with the whole concept of booth babes (I would prefer having real people from the companies instead of models. Not scantily clad, just real people who know the product) it is very hard to sympathise with those who choose to take part in it. They knew what the job was about when they took it. If I take a job that entails wearing a Borat style Mankini then I know I will be the subject of stares (not for the same reasons as these women, but still, my crotch will garner some stares) and then it's my own stupidity to blame if I'm unhappy about being stared at...
But, again. Stupid companies. Stop using booth babes. It makes the industry look adolescent in nature, and is disrespectful to all women, and even more disrespectful to women in tech.
THIS kind of attitude is why many of us geeks can't get a date.. change it!
There's respect for achieving great things, and then there's respect for being a fellow member of our species. I'm guessing it's the latter that they want.
There's respect for achieving great things, and then there's respect for being a fellow member of our species. I'm guessing it's the latter that they want.
What they want is to not be treated like a sex object, after accepting a job as a sex object.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Have any of your friends ever had to stick at a crap job because they needed the money? Are you this sympathetic? Are they still friends with you?
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Please tell me where a 40 yr old male or 50 yr old female can apply for the job as booth babe?
A model is no more a sex object than a store mannequin is a sex toy. They are selling products, they are not hookers. Get some perspective.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
ajv is exactly right. There is a deep current of misogyny that runs throughout the nerd world, I think primarily because a lot of guys (and lets face it, nerds are predominately male) who believe that girls simply don't give them the time of day because they are nerds, I'm sorry but that is not the case.Some girls will, just like some guys wont give you the time of day because you're a nerd. Then when the rare event of a girl being a nerd, she is usually given so much attention by guys that she is often time put off from announcing she's a girl. Don't believe me? Look at any forum where a user is a girl and see how many of the posters fall over her every word simply because she's a girl. There are girls who love the attention and off they go. But why should every girl who doesn't like the attention be subjected to such harressment?
In the case of booth babes, I doubt all these women have the luxery of picking and choosing which events they attend. I'm sure there is fierce competition for the positions and that if you want the good modelling jobs you also have to do some of shit ones too. Everyone here seems to be treating it with a "put up and shut up" attitude without thinking beyond their own limited perception. Just because a women, or a man for that matter, is a model doesn't mean they are talentless, doesn't mean they're bimbo's, doesn't mean they're stupid and most importantly, doesn't mean they are without emotions. There is also a difference between being looked at and being leered at.
There is no -1 disagree
*fewer
"ook at my low user ID, I've been here for longer than some of you have been alive."
No one cares. I'm probably the same age as you but I don't go around pointing it out as if it somehow adds extra weight to the argument.
"I am literally white hot angry with whomever did it b"
You'll get over it.
"f you have a daughter, I expect you'll want her to be a geekgrrl. If you want that outcome, you will join me in boycotting booth babes."
Actually if I had a daughter I'd let her do whatever she wanted. Unfortunately you obviously don't realise it but you're just another one of those self righteous prudish males who seem to think that women should only do the jobs YOU approve of. Newsflash pal - its the WOMEN who get to decide whether to do it , not people like you.
I suspect in another century you'd be at the pulpit foaming at the mouth and damning any woman who dared go out with an unmarried man or wear a short skirt or speak before a man gave her permission.
You know what - Fuck you and your kind.
First of all everyone is a sex object (unless they are unlucky). Second of all no one is only a sex object. Models emphasizing their sex appeal to sell stuff to men are the same as strippers who sell drinks, and are certainly on a low, lazy, and overpaid rung of sex work.
It's all in the mind
If you think that you have less options, you _will_ have less options
Oh very much so. But the thing to remember that modifying your thought process is right up there with some of the hardest things in life.
Low self-esteem is something that feeds off of itself and just gets worse with time. Depression is not far behind, which puts the person into real trouble because that kills any motivation to try to improve yourself.
The sad part is that there is still this common misconception that low self-esteem and depression are easily overcome. The sufferer just simply can't "Start feeling better". Without professional help, there is really no way out, thus limiting his/her options for life and careers.
'He who conquers others is strong; He who conquers himself is mighty.' -Lao Tse
Blah blah blah feminism blah blah blah don't exploit women blah blah blah if I had a daughter blah blah blah.
In fact most of us didn't read it because there weren't enough pictures.
-Styopa
It's simple really. So simple, I'm surprised you don't get it. Women want to be stared at by attractive men, and don't want attention from fatties and goons.
You aren't trying hard enough.
I live in Brazil, where booth babes are a fixture at any trade show. My daughter has been one of them. She's in college, speaks three languages and looks fantastic in a short, tight dress. She gets paid several hundred dollars a night to engage prospective customers outside the booth and qualify them as to whether to bring them into the booths for the salespeople to work them over. Speaking three languages, she's in demand for this job - she's tired at the end of a show, but it's good money and she meets interesting people. She's not a prostitute - she knows that she's being ogled, but she's worked hard on her looks and is proud of them. She gets propositioned occasionally, but she's a big girl and can handle herself. Next year, she'll graduate with a degree in Chemistry from University Federal do Rio de Janeiro, one of the best universities in Brazil, and will go into pharmaceutical research. She's not being degraded - she goes into her job with her eyes open and feels like this is a heck of a lot better than other jobs that she could get.
Jesus, I'm glad I don't live where people debate this shit endlessly.
Plus, the Dunning-Kruger effect doesn't help.
Speaking as someone that's dealt with depression since I was a pre-teen along with the extreme lack of self-esteem, it's incredibly demoralizing and makes it difficult to advance. Every time a promotion came up, I would tell myself I was going to go for it and try and psych myself up but in the end my own fear of failure and disappointment kept me from even trying a lot of the time, and when I did actually manage to get promoted, due to the way I internalize everything, I was never able to let the "shit roll down hill"...it always stopped at me and compounded my neuroses and lack of self confidence.
Coupled with the stigma that still comes along with mental health issues, particularly in the work environment (you can miss a day if you wake up puking your guts up and nobody bats an eye...try and miss a day because you feel like you're a worthless piece of shit that ruins everything he touches, see how that goes over), it's really quite debilitating. This is why it makes me so fucking angry when people make glib comments about the subject, because it really is a handicap. It would be ridiculous to tell someone that lost an arm "just think positive and everything will be okay", but for some reason, when the subject of depression comes up, there are still a large number of people out there that think you can just turn it off.
God, I fucking wish I could just turn it off. I wish it was as simple as telling myself I'm awesome every morning while I'm staring at myself in the mirror, or reading a few self-help books.
Don't paint everyone with the brush that you've been painted with, some have less options.
It's all in the mind
If you think that you have less options, you _will_ have less options
“If you always put limit on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them.” -- Bruce Lee
You know what I find sexist: Being seen as someone who is more driven by his libido than his rational thought processes, which is the premise of employing "booth babes". Those women are actively and willingly participating in this sexist (misandrist, in this case) type of advertising and have the nerve to complain about the cases where it succeeds.
It could be a matter of finding the right drug.. or the right supplement.
I have used supplements to cure in a medical way, gout, high blood pressure, and hemorrhoids. By "medical", I mean the results were very fast and repeatable. Not, "take this for 60 days and there will be a 5% improvement".
The esteem issues may be related or unrelated to your depression. You might be able to reduce the size of your emotional problems slightly and make the total load easier. Esteem issues are often parent related. If you have any open issues with your parents, you might be able to resolve those and get some closure.
I had work induced depression last year and had to go on anti anxiety and anti depression medication. I'm still left with sleeplessness now that we are past that period. I think my adrenal glands are still messed up from so much stress. And the hemorrhoids came from sitting in a hard plastic chair for 70 hours a week for several months.
I hope you find something that helps. It sounds like you are intelligent, rational and successful.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
The sad part is that there is still this common misconception that low self-esteem and depression are easily overcome. The sufferer just simply can't "Start feeling better". Without professional help, there is really no way out, thus limiting his/her options for life and careers.
The really depressing part is that there is no treatment for moderate depression that works significantly better than placebo. SSRIs only actually work on people with severe major depression. The most empirically supported type of talk therapy, CBT, is effective only in anxiety disorders.
There's really no effective treatment for depression, because depression isn't really an illness. It's a rational response to an abusive world. The real sickos are the ones who are ok with the way things are.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I remember reading this article by a guy who wants to discourage the use of booth babes. Here's one of the suggestions that appealed to me:
The Tactics: Actually, this part is pretty simple. When the first person at a booth approaches you, treat him or her exactly the same way you would a sales or implementation engineer. Ask questions regarding the technology. Ask about planned life cycles of the software, on use counts, and other things. Treat them exactly as you would an equal.
If this person is a booth babe (or a clueless marketing droid), they will inevitably hand you off to the lead technical (or sales) person at the booth. Here comes the important part: Demand to know why they wasted your time with manning the booth with clueless people. Don't discuss sales or tech with this person (which is what they will desperately want to do at this point). Ask why their company wastes everyone's time and their investors' money using people who provide no value. Tell them that you will not be doing business with them, regardless of their technology, because you believe that any company that needs to hide behind tricks, gimmicks, and sex appeal, can not offer you any value. Point out that a great number of their competitors don't need to use flimflam to sell their wares. Then walk away.
I know at least two people who cannot advance in their careers because of the exact problems that you mention. They can hold a job, do the job, but their chances of improving themselves beyond that is nil. To advance, you need to be able to maintain a confident outlook for a long period of time, even through adverse conditions. This is not possible when you have devastating depressive moods that color your thinking and prevent any type of progressive forward thinking.
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
OK people, let's not be quite the gynophobic nerds we're made out to be.
First, RTFA. There was essentially no complaining at all in the article, besides a little "it's tiring to stand in heels for eight hours" Really really sad the number of slashdotters who without reading the article just assumed that it was a bunch of women whining. Not to mention the number of posts here responding to accusations of sexism that were never made. Defensive much?
Second, to the parent post, you know what the one who didn't like it did? She quit and got a different job.
Given that like every third slashdot post is someone complaining about their job, you'd think people here would maybe cut these women a little slack. Or is it really that offensive to hear a women who's job is to be professionally pretty talk about it just like it's any other job?
I used to attend the West Coast Computer Faire in the late 1970s. Skinny red-hair Gates was there hawking his BASIC and FORTRAN. There were not many apps for software developers at the that time so MicroSoft stood out even then.
No, not trolling, just kind of depressed at the reaction.
Note that the first quote you provide is in the reporter's voice, not any of the models. To some extent, this reads like the kind of story where the reporter started with an angle and wrote it regardless of what the actual subjects say. The direct quotes are all pretty down to earth: "But the work is pretty relaxed and you don't have to do a lot in order to get paid," "It's not a great feeling to see that, but there's nothing that can really be done. We work to promote products," "I'm used to it" and so on. Of the four women quoted, three don't say much more than that a job's a job, and standing and smiling all day is harder than it looks. Ellen Lee, the only woman who's quoted complaining about the job, is pointed out as looking for other work.
These all seem within the usual spectrum of responses when people are asked about their jobs. I guess the formula "You knew that [X] existed when you took the job, so you have no right to complain about it." just doesn't ring true for me. If X = {'carpal tunnel syndrome', 'stupid management', 'TPS reports'}, I suspect there'd be a supportive reaction from slashdoters. So why when X = 'sexisim' is there such a huge angry response?
In short, you have nothing to gain by assuming failure. It gains you nothing. If you glibly assume success, and then fail, you still are not in any worse a position than if you assumed failure from the outset and did nothing.
I remember in college someone on an IRC channel complaining that he couldn't get a date because asking girls out was hard. Thing is... there were obviously girls in the channel. The thing that struck me, other than being surprised to see a female in an IRC channel (this was like 1995) was that instead of trying chat them up, he was making himself into a pity party. Now, say what you will, but if a girl is willing to listen to you feel sorry for yourself, she's probably open to listening to you in general. Girls don't usually waste time listening to men be whiners unless they actually think well of them.
Needless to say, I felt that an obvious opportunity was being wasted. I berated him for allowing his waangst to override his ability to see opportunity, and then simply asked one of the girls out. I expected to fail, obviously, but I wanted to demonstrate that failure doesn't kill you. Instead she accepted and we ended up dating for a few months until the end of my senior year.
There is only really one set of characteristics that separates highly successful people from others: recognizing and acting on opportunity. While I admit, being reckless is not a good idea either, you would be surprised about the number of opportunities out there that are really pretty low risk. The catch with those is that they don't come regularly and you can't psych yourself up to take advantage of them, you have to just see them and go for it. Being smart enough to see the angles helps a lot, but that shouldn't be a problem in this forum.
You have to accept failure as a possibility of any action, but you have to understand that inaction is always worse than a failed action. Doing nothing ensures that you get nothing.
One interesting thing is how broad the spectrum of depression is. For instance, you mention you had work induced depression. That sounds difficult, and I'm glad you were able to find a way to get through it. It's always difficult to discuss this because a great many people really, really struggle, and it feels somehow holier than thou to say "well, yes, but I'm talking about something different here..." I truly mean it; I think it's awesome that you've come to where you are, and I'm sorry that you still have troubles hearkening back to those days. I hope your recovery will continue.
Now, the sometimes awkward bit. I'll put a TL;DR summary of the below here: For some people, depression is a different beast. We've struggled all our lives to understand it, to combat it, and there IS no "emotional problem" or "open issues with parents" that cause it. Much like a diabetic, it's just there, and just like taking insulin, we take our meds to lesson our symptoms, but these symptoms are always, always, always there, in good times or bad. Often, the best we can hope for is "Take for 60 days with a 5% improvement."; lord knows that the 5% improvement I get from my Lamictal and Depokote cocktail might just be what holds this job down by letting me stagger to the shower in the mornings, instead of sleeping through the alarm and feeling vaguely disappointed I woke up at all. The same goes for important relationships; I have my girlfriend and kids to love; even with my meds, it's a large task; without them... well, I already had one divorce, causing me to lose nearly everything. That is not something I'll risk again, even though it's still difficult. The symptoms themselves are less "horribly sad and emotionally troubled" and more "completely empty and motivationally lethargic" from what I've found, and that is simply not a feeling that's easy to convey.
The long version:
Another area of depression, though, is no "reason-induced" depression; it's just there. To many of us that have struggled with depression all our lives, our parents tell us that even as a very young child we were "moody". Of course we feel bad when we go through the normal struggles of life; job issues, deaths of family members, divorce, etc, just like everybody else, and we can get through those moments, just like everybody else. My dad's death and my divorce were rough, but at no time did I think I couldn't get through them, bad as they were, unless I was also feeling this second kind of depressed, too. I guess I had something of a rough childhood, but there's really no trigger point I can point to that says "Yup. That's why I got sad for no reason last Saturday and couldn't shake it until yesterday". Even "sad" or the common meaning of "depression" aren't the right words. It's more a feeling of complete and total apathy, lethargy, no motivation, just no... substance or will. I think of it more as simply and totally "empty" than "sad", and most of my focus group members have felt much the same.
In my early 20s I would wonder if I was "self-faking" it (something like the Dunning-Kruger link above) to avoid success, or that if I could just find the right supplement or eat right or exercise I'd feel better, but was the lack of motivation my problem? Everybody else seemed to think so, well-meaning or not. If I could power through and find that one thing I need to shake this shit off, would I feel better? I felt so hopeless after I'd let myself get dragged to various drug stores or gyms and find that the latest thing to "cheer me up " STILL wouldn't work. What a pain in the ass.
I had an epiphany one night in my late teens when all my buddies convinced me to take ecstasy. Being on the high-octane side of the bipolar coin at the time, I thought this was a balls-to-the-wall good idea. While everyone at the party was having a great time, I got nothing, all night and after 3 or 4 pills (I assumed the first 2 were duds). May has well have been a handful of Tylenol. In the 12 years since, I've tried q
From your own link: In prescriptive grammar fewer is the prescribed comparative to be used in relation to grammatically plural, discretely quantifiable nouns, i.e., count nouns. The comparative less, it is argued, should be used when speaking of a grammatically singular noun (including mass nouns). Descriptive grammarians, however, are only concerned with the extent that this distinction applies in actual human usage.
"Fewer" is for counts; e.g. "fewer and fewer people know the difference between lose and loose". "Less" is for amounts, e.g. "I have less gasoline in my car than I did yesterday."
If you have fewer cornflakes in the box, you have less cereal.
BTW, the wiki article is incredibly badly written. Actually, I should have said "poorly written" but who the fuck cares as long as the meaning is clear?
I hope I've educated a few people.
Free Martian Whores!
That's modeling. Below the top 100 or so supermodels, nobody is making much money. If you've spent any time in LA, you've met actress/model/waitress types, competing for low-end modeling jobs. There's trade show work, like this. There's catalog modeling ("OK, the next item is S-3721, the beige skirt, and hurry it up, we have 50 more to do before lunch"), fit modeling for designers ("it's too loose in the back, stand still while we get the pins in"), and extra work in movies ("be in makeup at 4 AM, we shoot at dawn").
In the early days of Autodesk, the company was doing about 30 trade shows a year. They hired two young women to run the trade show operation. They were both California blondes with cheerleader personalities who liked to travel. They could do a small trade show alone; they knew how to use the software and do demos. For bigger shows, they'd have assistance, but for smaller ones, it was sometimes just the two of them. It surprised some people that they weren't just decorative, and it amused them to be underestimated.
They had booth setup down. They had a space-frame booth made in Scandinavia which fit into a large rolling suitcase. (Those were rare in the early 1980s) They'd roll their cases up to a booth space, take out the space frame, grab hold of the ends, pull to unfold it, and lock it open. Setup took about two minutes. One of the women described to me the look of anger and hatred she got from union labor at Chicago's McCormick Place when doing this. She grinned back, and wasn't intimidated.