A woman has revealed why she quit her job just three weeks after starting, having been ‘dress-coded’ by her manager in what she believes was an act of ‘fat-shaming’ and ‘discrimination’.
Abigayle Canterbury (@abigaylecanterbury) shared a video on TikTok explaining that she had quit her role at an unnamed ‘smoke shop’, including hashtags like #fatshaming, #fatphobia and #discrimination.
“I got dress-coded at this job that does not have a dress code,” she said.
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“Make that make sense... You can’t.”
Abigayle continued: “I am also the only plus-sized female that they had working – I have never been into one of their locations and seen a bigger girl working. It’s always been very, very small, petite girls, and they’ve always worn whatever they wanted.”
The casual dress code was part of the reason Abigayle felt ‘excited’ to start working at the shop, knowing that, while she could dress ‘however’ she wanted, she was aware she didn’t want to start ‘pushing the boundaries’.
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“I was under the impression that I could wear a crop top with some jeans, and that that’s not a big deal,” she said.
However, not long after starting, she ended up being ‘dress-coded’ by her manager, who sent her a text message that read: “The business owner talked to me yesterday about your clothes. He said please dress something nicer and cover the stomach. Thank you.”
Abigayle replied to her boss for further clarification, agreeing to ‘no crop tops’ before asking what they meant by ‘nicer’ attire.
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“Just cover all your body that’s what he means,” they said.
While Abigayle initially apologised and agreed to the request, she later found out that her colleagues had never been subjected to the same boundaries, leaving her feeling ‘singled out’.
“Literally, the very next day when I came in, my co-worker was wearing a very cute outfit – I loved it and I even told her,” she said.
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Abigayle then asked her colleague – who had been at the shop ‘significantly longer’ than her – if she’d ever been ‘dress-coded’, and she replied: “Not really.”
“Next time I work with another female, same scenario,” she continued.
“She was wearing stuff that, according to them, was just inappropriate.”
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Her manager then asked to speak to her, having heard that she’d been ‘complaining’ to her colleagues, with Abigayle saying in a follow-up video that the treatment had been ‘blatantly discriminatory’.
“I just wanted that same treatment, I wanted to be able to wear what I was comfortable in, just like everyone else,” she said, revealing that she then sent her manager a text to announce that she was quitting.
Her first video has racked up 820,000 views and more than 108,000 likes, with hundreds of comments from fellow TikTok users weighing in on the debate.
As a message of support, one wrote: “I’m glad you decided to quit for the simple fact of principle. What they did to you is not okay. You’re beautiful.”
Someone else said: “Yea as a woman that's been thin and plus size. I can definitely tell the difference of how I was treated. they were so nice to me when I was thin.”
A third commented: “That's called discrimination...lawyer up girl.”
A fourth added: “People say it's discrimination, and it is, but fatphobia general isn't taken seriously by courts.”
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Jess Hardiman