Lowe’s Exec In Trouble for “Small Hands” Gaffe

Joe McFarland, a Lowe’s executive paid $4 million per year, is in trouble over his description of a power drill:

McFarland, wearing a camouflage vest and seated in front of a sign that said “Lowe’s LoweDown,” went on to tout the features of this week’s spotlight item: “The thing is compact. It fits anywhere.” And a customer profile: “Some of our Hispanic pros with smaller hands, this is perfect for them.”

Well, that was stupid, and McFarland heard about it instantly. Still, I know you’re wondering: do “Hispanic pros” really have small hands? Naturally I’m here to help:

According to the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, the formula for hand size in men is:

Hand Breadth = (Height – 86.783) + (.195 * age) / 5.122.

For a 35-year old, this suggests that the average Hispanic male has a hand breadth of 17.4 centimeters compared to 18.9 for white males. That’s a difference of a little more than half an inch. So McFarland may have been impolitic, but he wasn’t wrong. Perhaps we should send a $99 DeWalt 12 volt cordless drill to Donald Trump?

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It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

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Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

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