A 2005 analysis by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis confirmed what seems apparent, from presidential races to executive boardrooms: Good-looking people and tall people get a “beauty premium” — an extra 5 percent an hour — while there is a “plainness penalty” of 9 percent in wages.

A study that looked at men’s height as teenagers and their salaries later found they made $789 more a year for every extra inch of height. Meanwhile, obese women tend to get substantially lower wages than women of average weight.

Although people laugh at the idea of a babe in the office being as maddening as Tantalus’s out-of-reach fruit, women do get penalized this way sometimes.

A male friend once told me he was looking for an unattractive personal assistant so he wouldn’t be tempted. And when I was hiring a Grace Kelly blonde as a researcher a few years ago, a male colleague asked me not to because it would be “too distracting” to him; two girlfriends cautioned me not to because it would be depressing — and therefore, distracting — for me to work with someone so good looking. (It wasn’t.)