Hey, I'm a member of a disadvantaged group...

The college I work at is currently involved in a backend software migration, which is requiring us to visit every machine on campus. Yesterday, we visited our school's department in charge of supporting the disabled.

While I was waiting for a machine to reboot, I started paging through one of the pamphlets they had in a rack - about dealing with people with disabilities. Surprisingly, one of them applied to me - people of short stature.

One of the pieces of advice jumped out at me - don't pet a short person on the head or kiss them on the top of the head. So, of course, I showed the pamphlet to one of our system engineers, one of the few people in our department who I tower over (ok, by tower over I mean by like an inch and a half )- and then patted him on the head.

He thought it was funny, and kept a copy.

I'm not sure how short "a person of short stature" is, or if I technically qualify. But while I've long thought there were a lot of things wrong with me, height has always been low on the list. Maybe I should give it more weight - after all, studies show women dating online look for tall guys, so maybe that accounts for my inability to find love on the intertubes.

Since I'm evidently a member of a group that's clearly disadvantaged, I need to start using this to my advantage. I'm currently applying for a promotion - maybe if I don't get it, I can blame it on prejudice against people of my height. Maybe I can ask for special accommodations at work, like a desk chair with a working height adjuster (I found my current work desk chair in the trash).

Or not. I know nobody (except maybe potential dates, and suing them won't help) judges anything about my height. And I really don't care if you pet me.