Not being looked in the eye when talking with someone

MawtheMerrier

Germanshepherdsmum

Has to be stated on a marriage certificate of course.

That wouldn’t affect one’s career (!) and nowadays a UCAS form, or UCCA as I think we knew it, would favour the humbler the occupation over the more “professional” as I understand many universities seek to prioritise first time family members’ applications.

I don't know about the situation now, but in the past the name of a woman's father had to appear on her marriage certifcate.

Some women had "unknown" written there.

So if she starts a job and has to produce her birth certificate and her marriage certificate then people see that, it gets photocopied and put in her personnel file.

The father's occupation does not show on a short form copy of a birth certificate.

I got one of those and used it for job purposes, so as to avoid potential damge or loss of the somewhat fragile original. A short form copy being less expensive than a full form copy.

Years later, I read somwhere someone writing that presenting a short form certificate avoids people knowing, but fools nobody.

Oh, I thought, I just had a short form one because it was not so expensive. I wondered if anybody had jumped o some conclusion.

I'm not good at looking people in the eye. It doesn't mean I'm being furtive, up to something or lying (usually!). It means I'm shy, under confident and have social anxiety.

The issue of asking about father's occupation is not about me.

I have no reason to think that the question either helped or hindered me. But the question was on the form.

I have achieved a reasonable level of qualifications. Some people got more, some got fewer. Like most people, I am somewhere in the middle.

Surely it is reasonable to discuss an issue that can affect people's lives, one way or another, sometimes greatly, without it being about me and without "jump to" opinions about me being formed and published.

I only ever had a short form birth certificate because, unknown to me until after my father died, my mother had been briefly married before. So her first married name would have been shown on a full birth certificate. I have never bothered to apply for a full certificate. Presentation of a short form certificate did my career no harm whatsoever. I won't bore people by repeating again what I did, but clearly no damage at all was done.
What was your problem with your father's details being known to your employers?

Surely it is reasonable to discuss an issue that can affect people's lives, one way or another, sometimes greatly, without it being about me and without "jump to" opinions about me being formed and published

I suppose a preoccupation with matters which most find quite unimportant or inconsequential, might suggest a poster has a vested interest in promoting a line of discussion.
For instance, if you don’t “do” handbags, you don’t usually generate a thread about them do you?

Germanshepherdsmum

I have no idea whether this question was still asked when my son went to university, in 2005. Nowadays Oxbridge is very keen to take students from working class backgrounds and state schools. That is a very positive move. Are you concerned that Oxford would reject the Bishop's daughter? Just because her father is a Bishop and an Oxford alumnus, doesn't mean she is the best candidate.

As the actress said…….!

MawtheMerrier wrote I suppose a preoccupation with matters which most find quite unimportant or inconsequential, might suggest a poster has a vested interest in promoting a line of discussion.

I remember a newspaper artcle years ago about whether a letter addressed to a man should use the form Mr. J. Smith or J. Smith, Esq. and there was discussion that many years ago that there was a distinction but in recent times the two styles have come to not represent any social distinction and any man might well reasonably be sent a letter using either format.

Someone wrote that he had worked in a bank and that the policy of the bank was that if a man had more than £50 in his account, the Esq form was used, otherwise Mr was used, and nobody had ever complained (my emphasis)

It occurred to me that, fine, nobody had complained, but, if recipients of the letters had known that the format used was for that reason and so the bank was publishing financial information about them to the postman then the number of complaints may have been enormous.

So, yes, my enquiry about eye contact does relate to me wondering if that affected how some people perceived me, but my concern about asking about the occupation of one's father only relates to me as to being concerned why I was asked rather than being assessed only on myself, my concern over such questions being asked is about the potentially very great consquences that that could have for some people when that informtion is before the interviewer.

Surely I should be allowed to be concerned about how policies affect people even if the policy does not affect me personally and without deeming and publication of the deeming happening..

I don’t ever recall being asked my father’s occupation on any form relating to jobs, indeed any forms relating to anything. I wouldn’t have known anyway in any comtemporary context as he left us when I was tiny and I was brought up by my working mother. Before that he drove a bus which I see as a vital and honourable occupation.

I don’t doubt such judgements are made by elitist and short-sighted organisations. We know they make judgements based on sex and colour and disability despite legislation which makes this illegal. Women, black and disabled people have known this for a long, long time.

I take a pragmatic view which some might view as a cop out. Would I want to work for such an organisation? Would my socialist beliefs fit with their elitism? No, so I don’t stress it. There are usually alternate ways to reach the same ends and to find career fulfilment.

Attempting to merge the two strands of thought which seem to be going on here. There are high achievers with humble beginnings; high achievers on the autism spectrum; high achievers with sight impairment who cannot look people in the eye; high achievers who have overcome a myriad of challenges.

It’s a tough and competitive world for all but those from the most privileged of backgrounds. Short of revolution nothing will change. All you can do for now is to find a place in society which offers fulfilment and never stop campaigning for change on those issues you feel important.

A calm and sensible response OakDryad

I agree, a good reply.

Yet,

> short-sighted

a metaphor relating to a disability!

StarDreamer

I agree, a good reply.

Yet,

> short-sighted

a metaphor relating to a disability!

Oh for goodness sake. Nit-picking or what?

You must have a very limited repertoire of conversation SD, in this case, if this affects you.
Do you ever have chats with friends in real life? Or is here the substitute?
If so, scribe away?

Oh a medical metaphor. I laughed out loud.

Thank you MBM.

I am literally short-sighted and simply wear glasses to correct it as do millions of others who would not describe themselves as disabled.

As a figurative expression, it’s been in in common use for the last four hundred years at least, most often used to criticize politicians then and now.

Good morning, ixion

Yeah, well, it's how it is.

StarDreamer

Oh a medical metaphor. I laughed out loud.

But not laughing your head off
That'd be more a medical catastrophe IMHO.

m.facebook.com/BBCScotland/videos/the-chief-apologises-scot-squad/3575788462507002/

When it comes to apologising for “inappropriate” metaphors ……

OakDryad

Thank you MBM.

I am literally short-sighted and simply wear glasses to correct it as do millions of others who would not describe themselves as disabled.

As a figurative expression, it’s been in in common use for the last four hundred years at least, most often used to criticize politicians then and now.

I too am short-sighted. I wear glasses.

Indeed the opticians made me some which are between distance glasses and reading glasses, optmised for 60 centimetres so that I can use my computer while sat comfortably. I am wearing them now. I change glasses when I start and finish a session on my computer.

I regard short-sightedness as a disability, but I do not regard having it as being disabled.

I just happen to think that metaphors linked to disabilities is a wrong way to express things.

There are such metaphors, relating to short-sightedness, blindness, deafness, mental health.

None related to hidden disabilities as far as I know.

That is brilliant MTM.

I am not going down this rabbit-hole. I apologise to all rabbits and fans of Alice in Wonderland.

The only person here who is remotely concerned about an employer questioning their father’s occupation is you, SD. No-one else here recalls ever having been asked to reveal this information to an employer, nor do they give two hoots about showing their birth certificate when required. You haven’t given an example of your having been asked for this information, nor of its provision having had any real or perceived effect on your career. This isn’t the sort of thing that one thinks about without having had reason (real or assumed) to hide one’s father’s details from the world. To go to the lengths of obtaining a short form birth certificate in order to hide details of your parents from the world is very strange. If you have something to hide, such as the man with less than £50 in his bank account (do you really think the postman would have been privy to this code or given a damn?) for heaven’s sake say so.

I can't stop laughing at where an innocent question about eye contact has led us all to. There are some very deep Freudian implications here but I'm finding it fascinating.

I’m short sighted too. It’s extremely common and not classed as a disability. My father was blind. That is a disability. I will happily say someone is as blind as a bat, or as deaf as a post. I have epilepsy, a hidden disability, but have no objection to people saying they ‘almost had a fit’ over something or were ‘in fits of laughter’. It is everyday parlance, as is saying that something is ‘short sighted’. If you spend so much time worrying about causing some trivial offence it must be very difficult to converse at all. Most people have much thicker skins than you give them credit for.

I was required to state my father's occupation on an UCCA form in the 1960s. I thought it unfair as it was my application. But I filled in the form and moved on. At that age I did not have my level of awareness of how discrimination works that I gradually learned as time went on. Oh don't seize on that as meaning discrimination about me.

I have not been asked by an employer.

I got a copy birth certificate because I did not want to risk damage or loss of the original. I had read of cases where a birth certificate had been returned with the word Checked and an employer's ink stamp on it. Also of the original postage stamp being removed.

Short form or long form are accepted.

I think that a long form copy was about three times the price of the short form one. I had the original, so no need to have a long form copy.

No attempt to hide anything, nothing irregular. Employers required to see and copy a Birth Certificate. That happened.

Also, when I got my occupational pension I had to send my birth certificate by post. So I sent a copy. No way was I going to send the original document issued when my birth was registered. That is conserved in the archive.

Just because I have a level of ntelligence and think about things does not mean that I am stupid.

Who has said you are stupid?
Everyone had to fill in the UCCA form if they wanted to go to university. Did you not get your first choice? If so do you think that was because of your father’s occupation?

In most of Asia you only look your equals or your inferiors in the eye when you talk to them, and you would never ever look a person of the opposite sex in the eye.

In Europe we have of course been told since childhood that it is disrespectful not to look at the person you are speaking to, so this business of where to look always causes problems between Asians and Europeans.

A lot of shy people in any culture would rather not look anyone in the eye, and as many of you mention many eye ailments can pose a problem too.

Unfortunately, we have been brought up to believe that not looking directly at the person addressing you is a sign of guilt or shiftiness, but it is really time we forgot this.