Beautiful Faces

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Can you measure beauty? Abercrombie would have to answer yes. You’re either a 0 or a 5.

Avoiding monotonous folding, one of my coworkers and I decided to get candy out of the staff office, which was there because we won “the bucket” for that month. The bucket is a HUGE tin of candy that the company sends to stores who get two perfect reviews from secret shoppers in a month. While picking through the jolly ranchers, taffy, and skittles, I noticed the regional manager’s store evaluation, which she completes every other week. I wondered, what does she look for, what is she complaining about (because nothing is ever perfect, especially when you are in charge). The first thing that caught my eye, as I quickly skimmed her messy handwriting, was that she seemed obsessed more so with the appearance of employees, rather than the appearance of the store (or perhaps appearance of the store in her mind incorporates appearance of employees). Personally, I don’t care how great looking the person is who works in the store, if it’s messy or hard to find things or if I don’t like the clothes, I’m not going to buy anything. On another note, while I might look at the people working at the store and think, ‘oh that’s cute’, if I think the person wearing it looks better in it then me, then I most likely won’t buy it. Anyway, in her notes, she complained that the manager was not enforcing the ‘look policy’, specifically in regards to jewelry and make-up (neither of which you are allowed to wear, unless the make-up is ‘natural’ ha). Then, she continued to complain about the ‘look’ of the male ‘models’ working at the store. Apparently, only one meets her standard of what an Abercrombie male should look like and she had no problem writing this bluntly. At one point she said, “Bill is the only one we could put on the Holiday Casting Card” and we need “HOT HOT HOT” guys. Interesting. On a side note: the HCC is this little card abercrombie sends out around the holiday season and people vote for the best looking boy and girl on the card. The two that are chosen are paid double to stand in the front of the store and greet people for a week. Sounds like a good deal to me, but apparently Bill is the only worthy male contestant. Lucky Bill. I flipped the page, feeling sad for my male coworkers, who although might not be gorgeous, are really nice and friendly. I noticed a rubric towards the bottom of the page. She answered ten questions and chose either 0 or 5. Let me reiterate, it was either 0 OR 5. All or Nothing. This might not have been that bad, until I read questions 3 and 4. “All the female models currently working have beautiful faces” and “all the male models currently working have beautiful faces“. That week the girls had received a 5 and the males a 0, but of course being curious, I flipped to another review, and both the girls and the guys had received a 0. Is beauty all or nothing? Is beauty collective? One person with an “non-beautiful” face destroys the beauty of everyone else? How would a manager fix a score of 0 in that category? or an employee for that matter?

Would you change your face.

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