I've been meaning to respond. Briefly. It's been my experience and observation that men often have difficulty recognizing what constitutes a hostile work environment. (Perhaps because they are less likely than women to experience one?)
An illustration: There may have been other interns equally deserving of the opportunity to be on the air, and maybe they would have done a better job than Stephanie. But they didn't get the opportunity, perhaps, because they weren't sleeping with the boss. Now, do you get it? Men have never seemed to understand the nature of a hostile work environment. In particular, they don't realize that it almost always has ramifications for those who are not the parties engaging in consensual sexual activities. Now, of course no one here knows the facts and circumstances of what went on, but I'll just repeat what I said before: It's never a good idea for a boss to be sleeping with a subordinate, whether it's consensual or not. Now, we don't know if -- or to what extent -- Dave took advantage of his position of power, but it is a possibility. After all, even Dave himself described his behavior as doing "terrible things." On another aspect, I do believe that Stephanie was victimized by her ex-boyfriend, too. She's probably seeing her career ruined -- by him. -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of PGage Sent: Friday, October 02, 2009 8:45 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [TV orNotTV] Re: Letterman extortion attempt On Fri, Oct 2, 2009 at 8:19 AM, Pollak, Melissa F. <[email protected]> wrote: > > Sorry, don't have time for a long response -- which is really to Mr. Gage. > Dave put Stephanie on the air when she really didn't belong on the air. > There's probably a problem with that. That said, I'm still a fan. I can deal > with such an ethical lapse. After a day at work I have now worked my way through all of the posts in this long thread. I am replying to Melissa here, though I have read her other posts that expand on this. I have no interest in trying to persuade Melissa or anyone else to approve or condone Dave's behavior. I just don't see any ground for judging Dave as being sleazy, or as having committed some major crime, based on what he revealed last night. Melissa may not have liked Stephanie's on air segments - I remember finding some of them a bit awkward and uncomfortable at the time, but I also found her likable and funny much of the time. I can't find the post in the archive, so it may be from when the list was on a different host, but I vaguely recall participating in a thread with Melissa about the awkwardness of some of Stephanie's segments. Be that as it may, there is nothing illegal or unethical about this. It seems incredible that you would really argue that, of all the "regular people" Dave has put on the air over the years, Stephanie stands out as the most awkward, or most obviously undeserving. Also incredible would be the suspicion that Dave would only have sex with her if she agreed to go on the air, or that she would only agree to have sex with him if he put her on the air. I guess other staff members could have been jealous that they were not on the air, but I doubt any of them could really make the case that Dave only put stuff members on the air that granted him sexual favors. If they can, then they can file a civil suit and try to prove the case. But isn't this obviously quite a stretch - from Dave revealing that someone tried to extort him to reaching the take-home message that he is a sleaze bag because he put Stephanie Birkett on the air 10 times too many back in the spring of 2000 (or whenever it was)? The only "ethical lapse" that we have any evidence for is Dave having a sexual affair with one woman when he was living with another woman. If that is the bar we are going to use for deciding who to call a sleaze-bag, then we are going to up late tonight, because there is a long line. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
