In a totally depressing article, the Daily Mail reports that one third of women in the UK claim they have experienced sexual harassment at the workplace. Some lowlights:
- 14 percent are “dreading” going to their holiday party because they’ll have to dodge a drunk and/or handsy coworker
- 20 percent say they have had to fend off a coworker’s sexual advances
- 5 percent report that they have quit a job because the office harassment was so bad
- 32 percent say that they have experienced harassment in the form of lewd “humor” or inappropriate jokes
However, that’s not the only disheartening thing about this article. The recommended reading link in the middle of the article links to something entitled “Moody, indecisive, and trying to act like a man, why ladies make truly lousy bosses.” Seriously? I have two things to say to the author of that piece: one, it’s called a colon and you should try using one, and two, shut up.
Sometimes life really does imitate art…well, not that “Entourage” is art, but you get the idea. Just as his character Lloyd is mocked on the show by being called “The Gaysian,” his portrayer Rex Lee also gets shit from crew members while on set. Lee admitted to TMZ that he’s sometimes a target of jokes about his race and sexuality at work, and that it bothers him.
After the story broke, “Entourage” creator Rob Ellin responded that he was “horrified” to hear of Lee’s on-set harassment. He said that when the show resumes filming he’ll be giving everyone a lecture (sensitivity training class, perhaps?) and insisted that “[Harassment] is not something condoned or acceptable.”
I’m glad to hear that Ellin is laying down the law (even going so far as to say he’ll fire people who make homophobic comments), but did it really have to take this long? How many years has Lee been on the show? Is this a recent problem or something he’s just speaking out about now? Either way, I’m glad that Ellin seems to want to do the right thing.
Workplace harassment is no laughing matter. A current lawsuit going on in London absolutely made my blood boil:
Jordan Wimmer, a 29-year-old financier who earned more than $1 million (Cdn) last year, is in the midst of $7 million suit against Mark Lowe. Lowe, 59, is the principal at hedge fund Nomos Capital and a legend in London investment circles. He owns a castle in France and has a reported $200-million fortune.
Testifying in front of a London employment tribunal this week, Wimmer accused Lowe of peppering her with sexual innuendo, making her watch lap dances and forcing her to share office space with prostitutes he passed off as relatives.
Let’s read that last sentence one more time, shall we? Forcing her to share office space with prostitutes he passed off as relatives. OK, there are so many weird things about that sentence. First of all, why would the prostitutes need offices? If they were, uh, working as prostitutes then they probably would have needed bedrooms, not offices. If they were doing their work in the office, then did Ms. Wimmer have to watch them have sex? That is some fucked up shit right there.
Wimmer said the poisonous atmosphere ruined her health. She told the tribunal that she was speaking slowly because of medication she was taking for depression. She claims to suffer from bulimia and anxiety as a result of working at Nomos.
I don’t know either of these people personally and had never heard of them before reading this article. That said, I almost always believe an underling over a boss, because it’s much harder for an underling to get away with lying in a corporate environment. This is one lawsuit I will definitely be following.
I have heard about a lot of crazy (and not-so-crazy) workplace-related lawsuits. But this one is a whole new level of wacky.
A man named Ryan Pacifico is suing Calyon, a European-based trading company, for discrimination. He claims that his boss, Robert Catalanello made up superficial reasons to fire him but that the real reason was that Catalanello thought that Pacifico was gay. And why did he think Pacifico was gay? Because he was a vegetarian. Pacifico claims that when he mentioned to his coworkers that he didn’t eat meat, his boss called him a “homo” and made other disparaging comments about him.
“A trading floor is certainly a manly man’s world,” Pacifico said. “I just never expected someone to think it’s gay to be a vegetarian or to constantly poke fun at me.”
Pacifico is married, and served steak at his wedding last year.
Catalanello’s alleged abuse is the meat of the nine-page complaint, which accuses the boss of saying, “Who the f— cares?” when another trader questioned what Pacifico would eat during an outing to a steakhouse.
“It’s his fault for being a vegetarian homo,” Catalanello is accused of saying.
The suit also charges that the boss crudely poked fun at Pacifico last March during a conversation about steakhouses.
“You don’t even eat steak, dude,” Catalanello is accused of saying. “At what point in time did you realize you were gay?”
Do you think the boss was listening to too much Katy Perry that week and thought saying “UR So Gay” was trendy and cool now? Or do you think he was a judgmental douche? I’ll let you guess what I think. It rhymes with “mudgmental mouche.”