Physical descriptions in the office, a No-Go?

[wand3rer]

Bit of an odd one. I’ve been out of the corporate world for over a decade and a lot has changed 😁

My issue is that I’m awful at remembering names, which makes it tricky to refer to someone I’ve just chatted with. I’m usually fine once I’ve seen names around on Teams or in emails. But, early on, I sometimes have to describe people and I’m unsure what is considered okay these days.

For example, the last time I said “a lady who is a little shorter than me with curly hair”. The reaction I got was a bit stiff as if I’d said something off. Just to be clear, the lady was white (I didn't mean afro hair or anything culturally specific).

It made me wonder... Are we avoiding physical descriptions altogether now? What is the right way to handle this? 🙏

• Unreasonable: don't use any physical description
• Reasonable: physical descriptors are fine as long as not loaded with negative or biased undertones

Your description sounds pretty inoffensive to me!

Have you tried referencing by clothing? I can't recognise faces but as I get to know people I recognise their style of clothing which is usually effective. Voices when particularly well fit me and with some people body language.

I agree with this.

You're description sounded fine in itself, but I can easily see how you could get yourself into hot water. E.g. if you worked with someone with a visible disability, both mentioning and not mentioning it could be taken offence to if you're describing their physical characteristics. Outfits are a lot more neutral as descriptors.

The trouble with physical descriptions is that you never know what might upset someone, so they are probably best avoided.

I mean, it is obvious not to refer to someone as 'large', 'short', 'grey', 'old', 'bald', 'the one with the beard' (if female) etc, but people have all sorts of hang ups about their appearance. I would stick to referring to where they sit or the colour of their clothes.

Casting a little spanner in the works here - I can't see that 'curly hair' could cause any sort of offence (as long as it's not a veiled reference to 'race') and you compared her height to your own in an inconsequential way. I'm wondering if the jarring word was 'lady'?

In some/many environments now, it's considered dangerous to assume anybody's sex 🙄 Moreover, 'lady' isn't widely used and might be perceived by a prickly type as patronising or something.

I flatly refuse to de-sex everyone but, if you're anxious to be inoffensive, try it.

... sorry for addendum: having forced myself to think of exactly what I'd say in your situation, I would say 'person' but also 'she'. So, something like 'the payroll person, she's s little shorter than me with curly hair'.

I realise I very rarely specified a person's sex, other than by pronouns.

I can't see how anything you said could be offensive unless someone was going out of their way to be offended. I'd try not to worry about it. The person with the weird attitude is probably just... weird! There's certainly no shortage of the type, these days.

@JMSA
I thought that too 😅

@ByLimeAnt @Brightasarainbow
I'm not very observant when it comes to people 😬 But I’ll keep your advice in mind and will try to pay more attention to clothes so I can use them as descriptors 👍

@ByLimeAnt
While I’m quite good with voices, describing them isn’t easy and it might open another can of worms. For example, I absolutely love a deep voice on a woman but some might not like that description. And don’t get me started on accents 😇

@Brightasarainbow
Yes, fair point about visible disabilities!

@B1anche
It can be tricky, for sure. I felt saying “a little shorter than me” was softer than just saying “short". She was actually a good head shorter 😁

Referring to where people sit is a great shout 👍

Don't use physical descriptions

@GarlicMetre
Could be! I’ll stick with gender-neutral terms like “person” 🙏

I really dislike when women are called “girls” in the office. I didn’t realise “ladies” could feel similar to some.

@fount
No shortage of weird people indeed 😁 I should do more observing (and less talking) until I get a better sense of how things work

@coxesorangepippin
Well noted 😊

I’d make more effort to remember names. If someone introduces themselves to me I mentally repeat their name a few times and try to use it verbally shortly after to commit it to memory. I think this is more professional than descriptions which people may misrepresent “oh I don’t know who the short, curly one is- do you Bob?’

@DailyEnergyCrisis
Yes, I do see now how easily it can become awkward 😬 It's probably safer to focus on remembering names, what someone was wearing, or where they were sitting, rather than stressing about crossing a line. I'll try (harder)!

Blimey. Your description sounds about as neutral as it gets given the context provided, OP. I'm crap with names too, but in this scenario I'd make an extra effort to try to learn them double quick.

Many years ago, as a new member of staff who didn’t know who someone was by name was told to look for ‘the man who looks like an aging darts player’. I knew exactly who that was!

Try better tactics to remember names. Eg find a reason to write their name and role down, eg ‘in case I need to email you’. If you’re put on the spot, say you can’t remember the name and identify them by their job or team.

I've never heard anyone give a physical description of someone in the workplace and would find it strange. And people forgot names often - its a big workplace - we just refer to the team /subject matter and someone may know or suggest an alternate contact.

At my workplace we have a wall with a picture of everyone on, when I was new I’d look at that to find names.

Their reaction was probably a bit off as it's odd to describe someone in that way in a work context I think. You would usually know their team or work area if you didn't know their name and use that to describe them surely?

Associate physical appearance with names, run a poem etc in your head, or find a strategy that works. So she would have been curly sue, another tall Henry etc. Or sing a song, you see them in blue you sing bowie's blue blue Lisa blue etc.