Out of Dangerfield

It´s November, and the weather, after several weeks of unseasonable but welcome sunshine and temperatures in the high tens (centigrade), has finally decided to catch up with the season. So, for some days already, it has been foggy, humid and close to freezing. Which, of course, meant that my winter coat and warmer sweaters had to come out. Luckily, I stocked up on fitting sweaters last year, which I haven´t outshrunk yet (they are a little loose, but tolerably so).
With the colder weather,  I´ve also been exchanging my water cup for a cup of hot tea as a fixture on my desk (actually, it´s the same cup, which serves as well keeping water cold as it does keeping tea warm).

As I am approaching the limit below which I won´t be morbidly obese any more, I find that people approach me about my weightloss more often. Mostly, they do it somewhat hesitatingly, as if fearing to insult me, which IMHO is plain nonsense. Of course I look different- I just condensed more than half of my excess weight! And what with the amount lost, it would be strange indeed if the loss didn´t show at all.

One of the more humiliating moments of my career came one day when I came upon my secretary talking to a client on he phone, who seemed unsure of my name. She asked him whether he wanted to talk to Ms. Stambor, reminding him he´d met me on an earlier occasion, and then she burst out laughing hard at what he replied. Only later did she tell me that the man had asked, "was that the short fat one?" Realizing that this was what people remembered me for, not my professional abilities, was a real bummer.
And it was something I never got out of as long as I was fat. People would see me, and they´d immediately form a mental image of someone who was funny, gregarious, anything but the professional image I wanted for myself.
Since I have lost weight, I find a subtle but still perceptible difference in the way new clients approach me. What it boils down to is being treated more respectfully from the start. Not that I didn´t earn respect before, too, but there´s more of it to start with now. It may not be right, but it´s the way things are. Humpty Dumpty just doesn´t cut it as an authority figure, even in a business suit.  Of course, one could cry fat-ism and discrimination here, but to me, that meant having to be twice as tough and twice as competent in order to be professionally accepted.
My job is difficult enough as it is without dealing with any Rodney Dangerfield moments on top. So, yes, I am glad that these are becoming a thing of the past, along with those extra pounds that are condensing themselves off my body.


Julia