Being friends with handsome guys isn’t always easy. But having a super handsome colleague can also be a heavy burden. On his X account (formerly Twitter), a company employee recently shares the pain he experienced having a much more attractive office neighbor than him. “I have clearly become the ‘ugly friend’ of the office”, he laments, next to his colleague “a lookalike of Filip Nikolic, the singer of 2Be3”. All the little touches and kind words from colleagues addressed exclusively to his superb colleague ended up getting the better of his morale. When it comes to preferential treatment and discrimination at work, beauty is unfortunately not left out.
In 2021, the International Labor Organization pointed out that among workers, physical appearance was the second criterion of discrimination behind origins and skin color. The phenomenon was even more visible among women than among men. But beyond the numbers, these differences are constantly reflected, on a daily basis, in behaviors of varying character and magnitude.
An evil as widespread as it is difficult to defeat
Our brain plays tricks on us. As unfair as it is, we judge books by their covers much more than we would like. This is what Jean-François Marmion, psychologist and author of Psychology of the beautiful and the ugly (Editions Sciences Humaines, 2020): “The perception of the beauty of others is specific to work. We have a better view of beautiful people and we attribute inner qualities to them. If a colleague seems good-looking at first glance, he must be someone funny, intelligent and competent. »
If this pampering was limited to simple smiles and free coffee pods, everything would be fine in the best of all possible worlds. However, this preferential treatment can have real economic consequences. “Employees considered beautiful tend to be better paid and are more likely to escape economic layoffs,” specifies Jean-François Marmion. He adds that “conversely, people whose environment makes them feel ugly find themselves in a vicious circle where they can be isolated.”
Crack down, easier said than done
Under the French Labor Code, this behavior is punishable. But as Jean-François Marmion indicates, tapping the fingers of slanderers is not an easy task: “It is not easy to provide evidence. Discrimination based on physical appearance still remains difficult to enforce. Especially since France a priori tolerates discrimination based on appearance over which we can have an influence, such as clothing or haircut. »
So, this evil of which we are all complicit seems hard to stop. But we cannot help but have a moved thought for this employee who is the victim of a nasty twist of fate (and who is only undergoing what my office colleagues experience on a daily basis at 20 minutes).