Tag Archive for ‘sexual harassment’ at save the assistants

Tag Archive for 'sexual harassment'

one third of women report work harassment

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on December 8, 2009

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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.

boss allegedly tries to have employee killed

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on November 11, 2009

in Horror Stories

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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.

brits attempt to ban nude photos at office

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on October 1, 2009

in Uncategorized

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In yet another installment of Naked Picture Week here on STA, word comes from the UK that Labo(u)r party deputy leader Harriet Harman wants to push legislation that would ban people tacking up nude or seminude photos at work. I have to admit - maybe that’s common in the UK, but I have never seen anyone do that in the US. I mean, even stupid people know that having pictures of naked people up in your office is pretty much asking for a talking-to from somebody in HR. Maybe this is just another example of Americans being more prudish than Brits - who knows? Anyhow, Ms. Harman deems the act of putting up naked pictures (including calendars or pinups) to be tantamount to harrassment. What do you think? I went for a cheap shot with this photo, obviously.

cleavage at the office

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on June 11, 2009

in Junk Drawer

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As I’ve said before, women have it way harder than men when it comes to appropriate office dressing, especially in the summer. In addition to figuring out hemline length and strap thickness, there’s one more element to summertime business casual: cleavage.

If you’re on the flatter side, like me, it’s a lot easier to get away with wearing lower cut tops at work, since it’s incredibly unlikely you’ll have anything to expose. But if you’ve been blessed with a fuller figure, you have to be extra careful about what you wear. It’s sad but true - even though you didn’t ask for your boobs or ask everyone to base their opinions of you on said boobs, they will. People will talk to your breasts instead of your face and, at work, when you’re doing everything you can to be taken seriously, a button coming loose at an inopportune moment could be the kiss of death. Depending what industry you’re in, cleavage can go either way - I’ve known women who work at restaurants and get better tips if they show more skin, as well as women in fashion who hide their breasts when the gamine look is back in style.

Based on my own entirely unscientific survey, cleavage was fine if you had a male boss and totally verboten if you had a female one. Do any of you have such stories to report about your own boobs or someone else’s in the office?

assistant accuses CEO of rape

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on June 9, 2009

in Assistants in the News

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An employee of Margarete Steiff GmbH, a German-based toymaker (whose best-known product are cute, cuddly teddy bears like the one at right) is suing her former boss, CEO Martin Frechen, of rape. Jane Collins, who used to be Frechen’s personal assistant and has since been promoted to assistant US marketing manager, is suing Frechen and the company for $80 million. She alleges that while she was Frechen’s assistant, he repeatedly sexually assaulted her over a five year period.

While this story is horrible and I commend Ms. Collins for coming out about what happened to her, my first question was why does she still work for the company? Sadly, she, like many others, felt trapped in her job and desperately needed the money.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Ms. Collins, a 32-year-old mother of two, said she didn’t go to the police about the alleged rape “because I was afraid I would lose my job if I did.” She said she has continued to work at Steiff because she needs the job, and because it pays better than similar positions elsewhere.

In the interview, Ms. Collins claimed that she wasn’t able to escape. “He’s six four and very strong, and I’m five seven,” she said. The complaint alleges that during the assault, Ms. Collins repeatedly told Mr. Frechen to stop and he responded by saying that this would be their “last time together,” and that “it is OK.”

This story absolutely disgusts me, and I am willing to bet that for every Jane Collins who has the courage to speak out there are many more who still say nothing because they’re afraid for their jobs. Another defendant named in the suit is another executive who Collins says she went to about the harrassment and who did nothing. Perhaps that’s the scariest part of all - when she finally did go to someone in a position of authority at the company, that person did nothing.

I wish Jane Collins all the best of luck with her suit and hope that justice will be served.

retro assistant: ‘just shoot me’

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on May 7, 2009

in Fictional Assistants and Video

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A retro assistant I totally loved was Finch (David Spade) on Just Shoot Me. He was a brownnoser, a tattletale, and a pretty good assistant - he knew what kept his persnickety boss happy, and he did it, even if he annoyed the hell out of his coworkers in the meantime. Plus, the rest of the staff at Blush magazine was pretty entertaining, especially Wendie Malick as Nina. Here’s a great moment from the show, where Editor in Chief Jack (Finch’s boss) has to teach a sexual harassment seminar.

horror story: face time

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on May 6, 2009

in Horror Stories

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A friend recently turned me on to the website Madison Avenue War Stories, which details some appalling stuff from assistants and non-assistants alike who work at New York’s big advertising firms. Here’s a great one:

When I worked at BBDO there was this major Creative Director, Charlie. He was legendary for his cruelty. He’d have everyone in his half of the agency come into the hall and say Pizza Hut was in trouble. He’d then say ‘if we don’t save this account, everybody look to the left of you and to the right of you and that’s who will be fired. So I’m gonna look at work on Sunday night at 7 p.m. And if you want to keep your jobs you better be there. This was like on a Friday afternoon. So everybody would work all weekend and low and behold Charlie wouldn’t show up on Sunday at 7:00 p.m. or at 8, 9 , 10 or 11. He wouldn’t come in at all. He’d be off fucking some new girlfriend of his. He was on like his 4th marriage. Then Monday we’d get in a line outside his office. Then he’d call in his favorite 5 guys who he played basketball with at lunch and they’d all come up with some dogshit spot. Then Charlie would come out into the hall and say ‘thanks everybody we’ve got it covered’. But it get’s worse. Rumor has it that during an important client meeting, a very attractive account woman came rushing into the meeting late. All the seats were filled. She said “I’ve got no where to sit”. Charlie responded, in front of the client, ‘honey, as long as I’ve got a face, you’ve got a place to sit’. The woman rushed out of the room. She sued him but settled for like 100 grand. this was before the real sexual harrasment suits started.

madoff’s secretary tells all

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on May 6, 2009

in Assistants in the News

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Hell hath no fury like an assistant scorned, and Bernie Madoff’s ex-secretary Eleanor Squillari is pissed. She coauthored a 20,000-word piece (!) in this month’s Vanity Fair about what it was like working for the man who ran the biggest Ponzi scheme in U.S. history. Among the highlights:

The way Madoff handled stress was “by saying something nasty: You look terrible. You’re gaining weight. You’re stupid. I never took anything he said to me personally, because I knew it wasn’t about me, it was about him.”
Madoff was flirtatious and had a habit of making sexually suggestive remarks: “‘Oh, you know you’re crazy about me,’ he would say to me. Sometimes when he came out of his bathroom, which was diagonal to my desk, he would still be zipping up his pants. If he saw me shaking my head disapprovingly, he would say, ‘Oh, you know it excites you.’ If a pretty young woman came in, he’d say, ‘Do you remember when you used to look like that?’ I’d tell him, ‘Knock it off, Bernie,’ and he’d go, ‘Ah, you still look good.’ Then he’d try to pat me on the ass.”
Squillari once caught him perusing the escort ads in the back of a magazine, and he frequently visited massage parlors. “Once, I looked in his address book and found, under M, about a dozen phone numbers for his masseuses. ‘If you ever lose your address book and somebody finds it, they’re going to think you’re a pervert,’ I said.”
In the days after her husband’s arrest, Ruth Madoff called Squillari multiple times and encouraged the secretary to provide her with certain information without notifying the bankruptcy trustees, which Squillari said she couldn’t do. “Instead, I told the F.B.I. what had just happened. I was working for them now, not for Ruth and Bernie Madoff.”

It continues to get awesomer and more fucked up. Squillari has a video on Vanity Fair’s website where she tells more stories. It’s absolutely worth checking out.

tip of the week: get rid of your annoying coworker

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on December 2, 2008

in Tip of the Week and Video

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This is, er, one way to get rid of a coworker you don’t like. It could also get you canned or in trouble for sexual harassment, though. Clip slightly NSFW:

faux batman explains sexual harassment

Published

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on September 17, 2008

in Video

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You know those corny instructional videos you have to watch at work about sexual harrassment and ethnic discrimination? Well, somebody decided to use actors portraying Batman and the Joker to do their very own office PSA. Sexism is bad, kids!

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