I suppose I should have figured it out on that first day, but I have always been a slow learner.

There were two of us applying for jobs at the newspaper on the Prairies and, fortunately, the paper was looking for two reporters. I was the first to be interviewed, and I bounded into the managing editor’s office with my hand outstretched.

“Hold on one second,” he said, “and back up to that door frame.”

“Must be part of Prairie etiquette,” I thought and obligingly backed up one step — it was a small office — to the frame, which had a yardstick glued to it.

The managing editor looked at me closely, made a note on a piece of paper and then invited me to take a seat. He asked about my experience (negligible) and my training (non-existent) and then hired me because there weren’t a lot of people applying for the job.

When I went out, the other guy came in and also had to stand by the door frame. If possible, he was even less qualified, but he also was hired as a reporter. To celebrate, we went across the street to the tavern and compared notes. “I’m getting $60 a week,” I said.

“Interesting,” said my new friend, “I’m getting $65.”

For the life of me, I couldn’t see much difference between us. He was a couple of inches taller, but I was a good 30 pounds heavier. He also had one eye that looked straight ahead while the other moved about in an independent fashion. After a few beers, this seemed a good reason to pay him more — presumably, those eyes could cover two stories at once.

After a year on that paper, I found another job at a bigger paper. This time, I had some actual experience and I was one of three guys hired. By now, I was making big money: $118 a week. But when the three of us went across the street to the tavern to celebrate (in those days, there was always a tavern across the street), I found the others were getting $125 and $135, respectively. Once again, I was low man.

And, again, both were taller — one guy about five foot ten and the other, the one making $135, almost six feet tall. That’s when it dawned on me: the taller you are, the more you are paid.

It took a while for this to sink in because there could have been other factors. Not just experience, but, for example, wearing a clean shirt and shoes that matched, and probably not slouching in the interview chair.

However, even when I learned to sit up straight and finally bought a real suit from a real tailor, a tie with muted stripes and a pair of black oxfords that could have shod a Clydesdale, I found myself always on the short end of the going salary.

A victim of heightism.

For, as we now know, the taller you are, the more you get paid. Somewhere in the southern U.S. there is a university at which professors calculate odd statistics. And they have proven that you can earn 2% more in pay for every extra inch of height. Undoubtedly, that’s why basketball players get so much money.

And not only does height pay off, but there is also a 10% premium for good looks. Which is why plastic surgeons are doing so well.

In my case, I figure I was the victim of a double whammy. Not only was I of merely average height, but my nose had also been bent out of shape from years of hockey and my eyebrows formed a single bushy hedge across my forehead. And my teeth, while quite serviceable for rending, resembled Stonehenge.

Of course, by the time I had put all these facts together, I was well past the age of applying for jobs that paid a lot of money. Wisely, I made a living in radio, where I was utterly invisible for a number of years, and then I took up freelance writing, in which the computer screen makes us all equal.

As well, I live down a back road, deep in the country, where I blend in perfectly with the results of almost 200 years of rural inbreeding. E

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