I-Like-To-Bike

See
"Perhaps" is just as useful as "Maybe" when suggesting anything is possibly true or false, eh?

wphamilton

Regarding backpacks, I see a lot of guys coming in with them in our offices. It's not as unprofessional as it once was, and I think that's probably because of laptops. You don't carry a bare laptop out (data security) and a backpack is apparently as acceptable as a laptop case these days. I'm still old-fashioned enough that I wouldn't even consider carrying one on an interview. Thinking back though, I've seen them when interviewing job candidates and didn't think anything of it.

What I did though, stopped around the corner, toweled off a bit and put my white shirt and tie on, rolled into the parking lot, took my suit coat out of the panniers and strolled in. You wouldn't have seen any difference. They only knew I biked everywhere because the tech consulting firm that got me the interview bragged about it beforehand.

Machka 

I carry a backpack to work ... and I'm definitely not the only one. It's a good way to haul a lot of stuff. As it happens, I'm also a student, one course per semester, so I use it for that too.

I don't think I've ever used it for an interview, however.


As for interviews ... my most recent interviews were phone or skype. See Scenario 2 way up the page. And my employer was relieved I use public transportation (or walk or ride my bicycle). See Scenario 3 way up the page.

Before that my next most recent interviews were internal ... so they kind of knew I walked to work and did a whole lot of cycling as well.

tandempower

The scorn might not be wholly about biking. Some people may be resentful of exceptionally healthy people in general, because they just seem weird. I don't notice this prejudice in myself now that I have lived so many years prioritizing health, eating vegetarian, etc. but I can remember a time when I was younger where really healthy-bodied people seemed almost like aliens from another world. I wasn't thinking about their slim bodies and pleasant appearance being due to good health, diet, exercise, etc.; I was just looking at them in terms of normal vs. exceptional appearances and they just looked a little . . . different.

McBTC

No one is scornful of bicycle enthusiasts. LCF-enthusiasts are however scornful of cars and have no love for bicycles or the sport of cycling as many car-enthusiasts do. There are far more bike-buyers who own cars than bike-buyers who are LCF. No bicycles that are purchased on Ebay are delivered by bike.

Mobile 155

This sounds like another created myth to me. The people of the US spend 650 billion on the recreational industry. Of that 50 billion is on weight loss. The Bureau of Labor statistics says 24.2 Billion was spent on fitness in 2014. You don't even want to guess how much is spent on beauty and grooming. I cannot see people being resentful of a healthy looking candidate interviewing for a position. That sounds like another of those internal fears someone might use as an excuse. I simply don't see any practical evidence of such a prejudice. If anything the unfit would be at a disadvantage in a selection process with fit candidates.

Walter S

tandempower

That should give you an indication of why their might be resentment for those blessed few who achieve a healthy weight. The competitive mind lusts after healthy, beautiful people of its preferred type while envying and resenting those it sees as competitors, who have better health, looks, success, or other competitive advantages.

But that's not even what I was talking about. I was just talking about the perception of cycling bodies as being 'different.' E.g. you have men who work out with weights but don't do enough cardio who get bulky unlike cyclists and runners who get more streamlined. To me as a young person, the cyclist/runner body type looked more 'gay' to reference a popular prejudice of the past. I also noticed that vegetarians often seemed to have less built-in aggressiveness of attitude, and even slightly higher voices, which made them seem different from the normative masculine ideal of a tough guy with a low voice who stereotypically eats beef as his main staple. Now I notice those same attributes in myself as a health-conscious vegetarian who does more cardio than weight lifting, but I don't perceive such people as being 'different' or 'weird,' as I did in the past when I more focused on trying to fit in with what I perceived as 'the mainstream.'

I think unhealthy, unfit people probably are at a disadvantage insofar as they deviate from aesthetic norms. The crucial element here I want to emphasize is that this has to do with subconscious perceptions of difference. This is not people consciously, rationally scrutinizing others and judging them based on thought-out misgivings about their looks. It is people just feeling more comfortable with what they are familiar with; and because it is more common for people to try to look fit and healthy than to actually be fit and healthy, it looks 'different' when people take the route of daily exercise rather than working out with weights and dieting to keep weight low.

I think this has changed somewhat since there is more effort put into exercise in recent years than in the past, but normative perception ebbs and flows, I think. When Lance Armstrong was a national hero, a lot of people were cycling and so the cycling body was probably regarded as less 'different' looking than during cultural moments when cardio is less popular and people are spending their energy on other things.

Mobile 155

I am sorry but I would be willing to wager that you cannot tell the difference between a person that does a spin class and controls their eating and one that cycles five days a week to work by looking at their physical appearance. I am suspicious that you even know your own VO2 max or even optimal HR for sustained riding. Not that for the average person that is necessary information. For one that claims to know a fit runner from a fir gym rat or spin class advocate that might be helpful. I know for a fact that I can't judge how someone got fit just by looking at them. I once got beat going up a hill by an old guy with a full sized bike pump strapped over his handlebars and he didn't look like he could walk 500 feet. It sounds like you are making baseless assumptions about what people you don't know are thinking about people they have just met.

I ride in group rides, solo rides, long distance rides and have seen body types that look as different as you might see in the average non cyclists. And if you cannot tell there is little or no chance a Personnel director or interviewer would be able to tell either. I still call myth. You have LCF people in here that couldn't ride a bicycle up a 5 percent grade for 1/4 of a mile. One even posted the difficulty they had while on a vacation. They might be fine ever day of the week for a mile on flat ground but that is in no way an indication of being in better shape or fit than someone that works out in a gym and rides mountains every other weekend. As they say on myth busters, I call this busted.

Some my disagree but I see no evidence of you contention that people are resentful of people that are healthy or fit. Nor would they be willing to work so hard and spend so much to become what they resent. I still say these myths are self administered. And no I don't ride as much as our two friends from Australia.

tandempower

I have lost the ability to distinguish visually between people in the way I used to do automatically as a symptom of my mental orientation toward social-cultural conformity. So I don't know what other people see and what they don't see. All I was doing was reflecting on a perception that I had when I was younger where ultra-healthy people seemed 'different.' I don't see them that way anymore because I'm not focused on such a narrow spectrum of people as being 'normal' as I was at that age, but I know the more you differentiate between what you perceive as normal and mainstream and what you perceive as 'different,' the more salient the visual appearance of people will stand out to you when you see them.

I sure don't. I'm a little like Robert Redford's character in A Walk in the Woods when a guy asks him why he chose a certain model hiking pack over another similar model with slight differences and he responds that it was better than carrying his belonging in his arms.

Not assuming, speculating based on personal reflections about how I viewed others in the past. I hope you're right and no one aesthetically differentiates between the looks of LCF people and how drivers look. I was just speculating about a reason a job interviewer might not favor an LCF person without actually seeing them come in on a bike.

That's true. There are all different body types among cyclsts. But that doesn't mean that you couldn't have two people who are LCF and one 'looks more LCF' to an interviewer while another 'looks more normal.' I would like to think that's not possible, but it certainly happens that people will look at two people who are gay and say that one looks more gay than the other. Obviously you can't tell someone is gay from looking at them, yet some people still manage to view some people as gay-looking or just not masculine (enough) and this could factor into their judgment when hiring.

I agree with you about LCF not necessarily making you fitter than a more committed athlete. But all you're really doing here is pointing out that reality doesn't fit stereotypes. That's true, thank goodness, but somehow it doesn't stop people from being prejudiced and discriminating. I can't say how non-LCF people see LCF people because I'm one of them so I don't think I look any different from anyone else. But I also don't really care how people look or dress generally. I go out in clothes I wear to do manual labor and I don't worry about whether I look like I'm homeless, but I see people who dress nicely and they look like they're in a different class from workers and homeless people and all the other 'low class' people, so to those well-dressed people, us poorly dressed people must look really shabby. I mean, I can see the difference even though I don't care about it, so imagine what people see who really DO care.

Mobile 155

You sure see things when looking at other people and can see the differences between two that the rest of I don't see. Still the bold underlined part is the part that busts the myth that you created in your speculation.

tandempower

I wouldn't expect you to admit that people see differences in this way and show favoritism subconsciously, and it doesn't surprise me that you would take my mention of it as an opportunity to attack me personally as if I am the only person who's ever done it - when the irony is that the fact I'm talking about it means I am free of it in a way that many other people probably aren't (yet). But there's no point in going back and forth with a person who's insistent on denial and counter-attack, so let's agree we've gotten our respective points across and agree to disagree at this point.

jon c. 

People who don't own cars look as normal as anyone else and cover pretty much the entire range of appearance. I can't imagine anyone concluding in an interview "I don't think this individual owns a car."

Someone might appear as if they couldn't afford a car, but that a question of economic perceptions which really has nothing at all to do with living car free.

Machka 

WOW.

Just ... WOW.

Machka 

+1

+1000!

People come in all sorts of shapes, sizes, etc. etc. etc. People are all different. I highly doubt that a person could walk through my office and point out those who cycle, those who row, those who go to the gym, those who spend a lot of time walking and/or hiking, those who participate in running events, those who don't do much of anything in the way of exercise (OK, you might guess a couple of those) ....

As for looking car free ... I look the same now that I'm car light (including wearing some of the same clothes) as I did when I was car free. I'm the same height and weight. My hair is a similar length and colour.

And when I'm dressed for work, I'm not sure that you'd pick me for a cyclist. If you put me in a row of a random selection of my coworkers and asked which one did a lot of cycling, I'm not sure I'd win the most votes. About the only way you might guess is if you saw my hands toward the end of summer ... that would probably be the give-away and only if you knew what you were looking for.

badger1

Amazing, innit?!?

Odder and odder; I increasingly feel like Alice when I venture in here:

cooker

You indicated the backpack was a job killer earlier on, others say it isn't. So yeah, "maybe" seems to be accurate.

Mobile 155

Same here because I often wear Knit back gloves. And in shorts I have a cyclist tan. But not in work cloths. As far as the rest of it I have been in many shapes and sizes over the years, depending on what I was doing at the time. When I was wrestling I was built like a fire plug. Playing tennis I was far closer to average upper and lower body. Football fire Plug again. Baseball a bit more like a runner. Some of the most fit people I know are swimmers and almost all of them have more body fat than runners. I swim like a barge. I am still calling the psychic ability to tell who looks more like they are LCF between two employee candidates as compared to anyone else a myth.

Mobile 155

Yes at times it does seem like Jabberwokey is alive and well. Inventing a prejudice that cannot be seen today but was seen in another person's youth and suggesting that the unseen thing is hindering someone that is LCF from getting a job.

I get so confused.

Machka 

You'd have a really tough time determining who was "LCF" and who wasn't here.

I'm going to say "most" of my coworkers walk, cycle or use public transportation. By "most" I mean 51% or more ... I couldn't say for sure because some of them walk, cycle or use public transportation some of the time and drive some of the time. But because parking is a bit of an issue here, and because it is often just as easy to walk, cycle or use public transportation, let's assume 51% of my coworkers do that rather than drive.

A smaller percentage of those 51% could be car free. But how would you know? Of the people who pour off the bus and into the office building, how would you know who of them took the bus because they don't own a vehicle ... or took the bus because their partner uses the vehicle ... or took the bus because they prefer not to drive ... or took the bus because their car is in the shop?

If your potential new employee emerged from the bus looking like all the other business people emerging from the bus, and appeared in your interview room it would indeed take psychic ability to know a) that the person took the bus (unless maybe you were on the bus too), and b) why that person took the bus.

Same with walking down the street. In the mornings here, the sidewalks for kilometres around are full of business people walking to work, a potential employee who joins the throngs and walks to an interview wouldn't stand out ... and unless you somehow had some inside information, you wouldn't know that person's car status.

Machka 

Offices here have a standard "uniform" ... and until you know whether the office you're interviewing for follows the standards or is more relaxed, you dress in the standard "uniform" for every interview.

The standard "uniform" is ....

Black dress pants (men or women)
Black pencil skirt and black tights (women)
Black dress shoes
Long-sleeved dress shirt, preferably white but another subdued colour might work (men or women)
Suit jacket in black or dark grey (men or women)


So, if you're an interviewer faced with a small collection of people dressed like that, you're not going to be able to tell too much about them until you actually read their CVs and get talking to them.

Mobile 155

Perhaps if we were more like Sherlock Holmes we could tell? But as you suggest other than a fictional detective I think it would be almost impossible to tell. With the exception of a back ground check showing a DUI and or a license revocation.

Machka 

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Bianchi and Ferrari announce partnership - BikeRadar

wolfchild

Dressing like that and then riding a bicycle for 10 miles to an interview with a backpack in a hot humid weather or wet weather and the applicant would look and smell like a wet dog by the time they arrive at an interview. I am sure the interviewer would take notice.

Machka 

You wouldn't dress like that then ride, would you.