A graduate lost out on his dream job because bosses at an air traffic control centre said he was too tall.

Ben Sargeaunt-Thomson, who is 6ft 10in (2m 8cm) tall was offered a place as a trainee for the National Air Traffic Services (Nats) in Swanwick, Hampshire.

But the offer to the 23-year-old, from Northampton, was later withdrawn because the company thought his 38-inch (0.96m) legs would pose a safety risk.

Surely this is just another form of discrimination.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/hampshire/4727179.stm

His hopes of rreaching the lofty postion of head controller dashed!

(sorry)

Yes mate - pure descrimination.

Surely this would be good for them! . . give him a pair of huge illuminous gloves and he can stand out on the runway and bring down the planes!!!

As I have my own business I know there can be problems with health and safety regulations concerning people. There could be many reasons for this particular discrimination - not least the fact that special arrangements would prove too costly for employment to meat those criteria.

For instance - a desk normally made for the average joe would be unsuitable for someone his size and if not modified would cause health problems. So they then have to make modifications for the short as well as the tall, the large and the small. These positions then become great for the person doing the job but not much use for others. So when they leave the job or get promoted or whatever - the position they occupied needs altering yet again.

I am not sure of all the details but we seem pretty quick to judge the large companies regardless. Maybe they have good reason for their actions?

Dragon

Good job no-one took that view with Professor Steve Hawking who, as we all know, relies on a speech synthesiser in order to communicate. Perhaps this is a case for the DWPs access to work scheme.

There are always going to be exceptions to the rule as you know. Being picky and selecting the odd person or two out of 60 million is taking things to extreme.

Course - there are always going to be those who think everyone should be treated the same no matter what, but it is not always practicable.

Like I said - there are always those quick to jump on the righteous bandwagon. I am sure there are other jobs this chap could do that pay just as well and will keep him happy.

Maybe we'll see a complaint next from the 30 stone bloke who wants to be a test driver for the Mini range?

Dragon

Originally posted by Dragon
I am sure there are other jobs this chap could do that pay just as well and will keep him happy.

Dragon

He can come & clean my upstairs windows, pick my apples, put my Christmas decorations up/ take them down again & clear my gutters ready for winter for starters! :D

it is utter rubbish.

There is no reason why a 6ft 10 person cannot work at a workstation. They may have to raise the desk but that should be up to the company to do.

It may be utter rubbish - epecially as I have no idea what is invcolved in the job. And simply raising the desk may be the answer. But what if he is supposed to work at one of those fitted consoles?

Have you watched the simpsons? Homer works at a fixed station so altering the height of it would not work.

Like I said - I have no idea of the particulars or the safety requirements. I take it you do have such information and bow to your knowledge in this instance.

I still reckon some are too eager to jump on the wagon and take to task others without knowing all the relevant details.

Dragon

I'm 6ft 6in, and am very tall sat down - if you know what I mean! :)

I've never had a problem having my desk raised in any job I've ever had. Lots of modern desks are now easily height adjustable without the need for a physical block to be placed underneath the desk.

Are we talking a normal desk here or something connected to a great deal of electronic machinary? I am really in the dark about all this. The only thing I have seen that may come even clsoe to air traffic control has been in films and the equipment used is not so flexible as an office desk.

The images some of us get from watching too many television programs eh? Any air traffic controllers want to fill us in on any problems? Do we really victimise for being 'too tall'?

Amazing.

Dragon

Originally posted by Dragon
It may be utter rubbish - epecially as I have no idea what is invcolved in the job. And simply raising the desk may be the answer. But what if he is supposed to work at one of those fitted consoles?

Have you watched the simpsons? Homer works at a fixed station so altering the height of it would not work.


Indeed - picture of consoles used in the ATC station are here : http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/873765.stm

Wheras in Luxembourg [in his new job] the guy will be at a place where they have adjustable desks...

Fair enough. So - do I take it that the reasons given by the 'company' if any were offered were purely ficticious?

No - I am not taking the side of the companies here, but I refuse to shout outrage at the first hint of unfairness. With the state of the country and the employment laws the company stands to make a large payout in compensation if it has been found to act without good reason. Mistakes are made, of course.

Thanks for the link and the info. Still need more before I arrive at a conclusion and decide whether what has happened is right or wrong in my opinion.

Dragon

Originally posted by wendygs
Good job no-one took that view with Professor Steve Hawking who, as we all know, relies on a speech synthesiser in order to communicate. Perhaps this is a case for the DWPs access to work scheme.

I doubt very much Stephen Hawking would have been accepted into ATC either, for obvious reasons.

I wonder if all us oldies who were deemed to be too short for the police all those years ago could lodge formal complaints to the powers that be now?:suspect:

I would not swear on it but I believe the police still have a minimum height requirement which must, in the light of this topic, be descrimination.

I suppose if you have a gang of thugs they are more likely to think twice before attaking a line of six feet tall men as opposed to a line of men no taller than five feet, regardless of the amount of damage those trained police men may inflict - so height can act as a deterant.

There are situations - jobs - where height and build have to be taken into consideration. My comment about the 30 stone person wanting to test drive mini's could also be seen as descrimination.

By the way - I am feeling rather lazy so is it correctly spelled discrimination?

Dragon

Police dont seem to have min height restriction - but your weight should be in proportion to you height' - so over-weight Ooompa Loompa's need not apply :

http://ww2.northumbria.police.uk/ePolicing/Web/WMS.nsf/FAQContentDocs/FAQ003271?OpenDocument

Originally posted by Kristian
I'm 6ft 6in, and am very tall sat down - if you know what I mean! :)

I've never had a problem having my desk raised in any job I've ever had. Lots of modern desks are now easily height adjustable without the need for a physical block to be placed underneath the desk.

I was forced by health and saftey at NUD to have my desk raised with the high tech wooden blocks. I had no issues but we had a few jobsworths in the H & S Department.:loopy:

Originally posted by robbie
I was forced by health and saftey at NUD to have my desk raised with the high tech wooden blocks. I had no issues but we had a few jobsworths in the H & S Department.:loopy:

NUD is where I first had mine raised. I used to have backache before that, but it really did help.

I definately notice a difference if I sit at someone else's desk now.

Under the law this is indirect sex discrimination and so it is an illegal reason for refusing to give someone a job. It is indirect because althought they are not saying he can't have the job because of his sex, the criteria they are applying (that you have to be under a certain height) means that it is much more likely to be men who are unable to meet this criteria than women.

Do the police and fire services still have height restrictions? I certainly know a relatively short man who recently joined the police (he's only an inch or two taller than me, and I'm only 5'4"). Am I correct in thinking that if they do have a height restriction then they actually have different heights for men and women (so women don't have to be as tall in order to join) - thus helping to level the playing field a bit, as a similar proportion of men would be exclided from joining as women? But then of course you can argue that if a 5'2" woman can do a job perfectly well then a 5'2" man can as well - but different height restrictions could well exclude one but not the other - whereas having the same height restrictions would lead to discrimination! If the police etc don't have height restrictions any more then perhaps this is why - they're damned both ways!

Anyway, back to the point. Certainly under disability discrimination law employers are obliged to make 'reasonable adjustments' to the workplace in order to make it accessible. This is also the case with sex discrimination - for instance a factory only employing men could not refuse to employ a woman on the basis that they don't have two sets of changing facilities - they would have to provide the additional facilities. So this is what should have occurred in this case - they should have looked into an adjustable desk. Now they are just paying the price for their stupidity.

Originally posted by Dragon
Maybe we'll see a complaint next from the 30 stone bloke who wants to be a test driver for the Mini range?

Actuallly he was a train driver. One of those freight ones where you have to walk between a piece of the engine and the side wall to get to the cab.

A driver got too big to do this and was trying to force the company to make the trains bigger or move the engine or something :loopy:

Originally posted by robbie
I was forced by health and saftey at NUD to have my desk raised with the high tech wooden blocks. I had no issues but we had a few jobsworths in the H & S Department.:loopy:
I had some twonk insist that my eyes should be level with 1/3 of the way down the screen. I insisted these were guidelines for typists - he said it was computers.

Well obviously a CAD station can't be a computer then, coz my eyes need to be level with the centre of the screen to draw :rant:

Originally posted by Strix
I had some twonk insist that my eyes should be level with 1/3 of the way down the screen. I insisted these were guidelines for typists - he said it was computers.

Well obviously a CAD station can't be a computer then, coz my eyes need to be level with the centre of the screen to draw :rant:

Well this HSE leaflet says that as a guide the eyes should be level with the top of the screen - depends on the posture of course - see page 12 - and i expect the references at the end probably say something for users of larger screens...

http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/indg36.pdf

I always find at work that I have to shift the screen off the base unit so i get it to the right height - otherwise i get a crick in the neck :|

What does it say about having your legs swinging a foot off the floor, rtapper?

I'm only five foot tall :P

It says 'Employers may elect not to employ Oompa Loompas, or to provide Circus stilts' :P

FYI, the guy lost the employment tribunal

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/4227752.stm

Flabbergasted by the bit at the end of the article :

A spokeswoman for Nats welcomed the decision, adding it was not feasible to fit a purpose-built desk for just one employee.

She said the service had a £1bn investment programme underway to provide new adjustable workstations.

ONE BILLION ? Jeez :rant:

How can it possibly cost £1Billion to fit adjustable desks?!? Are they made of ivory or something?

This won't be the last we hear of this. He has the Employment Appeal Tribunal, then the Appeal Court, then the House of Lords, and finally the European Court to go to before he has to let it lie.

Good for the company is all I say at this point.

When I worked for a company involved in moving big heavy cages around, it would have been discrimination not to accept a person four feet tall to do the job, even though they would not have been able to see over the cages at what lay ahead. The company would have had to have special cages built that did not exceed the persons height.

A bit extreme, but I think some people do tend to go over the top on these cases.

The man has a job doing what he enjoys. Sorted.

Dragon

It's probably just me, but frankly, I think we're becoming obsessed with sexism, racism, ageism and now heightism.

Shall we start allowing kids into pubs so as not to discriminate? Let 5 year olds drive cars. Why, let me become a brain surgeon without qualifications because it's discriminatory not to let me. Let men wear dresses, women grow moustaches (okay, so this is happening right now). Yes, let's have a One Size Fits All Society.

After all, Blair and Co seem to be working on creating one and his subjects seem hell bent on crying foul every time someone is told they can't do this or that for whatever reason.