amatonormativity in workplace policy

[aro_elise]

a manager at my workplace (cafe) recently clarified that employees could extend their discount to "immediate family members and partner (bf/gf).  not friends."  so my best friend of 16 years doesn't get a discount but someone's bf/gf of 3 weeks does.  not that she even lives in the same city, and if she were to visit (which isn't the best idea), she surely wouldn't mind paying full price--that's not the point, it's the principle.  the way this is just an example of privileges extended to romantic partners.  and i'm not just complaining because i'm aro--my allo coworker's best friend (she does introduce him as such) comes in fairly often; i'm not sure how much he'll want to now.  i'd even be more understanding if they'd said "spouse," but bf/gf, really.  i suppose part of the (questionable) idea is that someone has one partner and many friends...my mom said they should just offer it only to the employee, keep it simple.  not a bad idea.  anyway, there are bigger reasons i'll be glad to leave that place in 10 weeks when i head to my cottage.  

[roboticanary]

Ouch

Good to hear you are able to get out of the place, especially as you say there is worse stuff going on there. That discount does seem rough, Not only does it disadvantage those without partners but also anyone whose close family are, say, split up or if they live far away. Your point about a bf/gf of three weeks beating a friend of 16 years is spot on as well, that sucks.

 

[MulticulturalFarmer]

Yeah, it sucks that you might have to lie to get 'couple's discounts' and all that stuff. Are there any places in your city where there aren't any discounts for couples and everyone who goes in to eat just pays full price? I wouldn't wanna support the business model you just wrote about..

[Mark]

A combination of couple and romo privilege. Most likely with associated privilege blindness.

Would the business be as keen to offer discounts to white people, straight people, Christians, rich people, (cis) men or any other privileged group?

Having any kind of "couple's discount' means that other customers are subsidising the coupled lifestyle.

 

[venomous]

I don’t think we have couple’s discount as much in my country. My best friend works at a spa and I get discounts through her. I’ve brought her to work events when I have wanted to attend and no one raised an eyebrow. My work place doesn’t really get discounts, but we do have a lot of activities when we’re not in a pandemic and we can bring whoever we’d like to those.

[mewix]

I mean those kind of things are business benefits so I suppose they don't really have obligation to do so, having it to family already is something extra to them. It does seem unfair though that what seems like it theoretically could work as a plus one thing for anyone. 

Or even if that meant having it assigned to only one or a few friends that you put down. It's not exactly health insurance after all.  I guess the logic was family and also chosen family which is only your partner. They probably didn't want too many people benefiting from it I suppose. But a better way would have been to restrict the number of times other people could get the discount ;P 

A lot of discounts are usually targeted to the norm tho many discounts are only for two people or even groups so odd groups like groups of 3 and 6 dont get the same amount of discount.