On Wed, Oct 28, 2009 at 3:29 PM, Pollak, Melissa F. <[email protected]> wrote: > > Sorry, I had to fund a proposal (something I never do BTW). > > . >> Perhaps she has more dirt to dish, but until she does, what she's >> presented doesn't constitute a "hostile work environment." >> > > So, I'll just agree with Joe in saying you are absolutely wrong about > that.
I commented on this story in another thread, but I will note here that Donz is correct, and Joe and Melissa are not (since we seem to be issuing pronouncements). It simply is not true that a work place is hostile just because one woman reports that she perceives it to be hostile. That is not the law. I think Joe and Melissa are coming at this from two different directions. It sounds like Joe has had experience with corporate lawyers and Human Resource Directors. These people may base company rules and practices on a defensive stance toward the law. So many corporate cultures might very well have a standard that if one employee finds something offensive, it must stop. If one woman at the company Christmas party was offended when they DJ played "Baby Got Back" - then that song gets banned, and company memos may explain the reason as wanting to avoid the creation of a a hostile work environment. But that most clearly does NOT mean that playing that song constitutes a hostile work environment, it simply means the company would rather ban the song (and probably anything else fun or spontaneous) rather than run the risk of the expense and bad PR of litigation. But there are many employment cultures that are not so conservative, either philosophically or from the standpoint of legal philosophy and strategy, and there are fields in which such a conservative approach is arguably inconsistent with the kind of work being done. Creative fields and the entertainment field (particularly comedy) are examples. Anyone expecting the corporate climate at Worldwide Pants to be similar to State Farm Insurance would be in for a bit of a shock. Nell called the Late Night culture hostile, but nothing she describes qualifies as hostile. She says she has no intent to sue, which is good for her, because if what is in her article is all she has, she would be laughed out of court. As Donz as explained, an employee needs more than the sneaky suspicion that someone, somewhere is having sex with the boss to claim a hostile work environment. Was another writer with less experience, training or skill promoted or given some kind of workplace advantage because she or he was sleeping with a boss? No claim of this is made. Was a fellow employee without proper qualification allowed to censor Nell's jokes because she was sleeping with a boss and Nell was not? No claim of this is made. Was Nell made to feel that unless she had sex with a boss she would not be promoted or advanced? Not only is no claim of this made, she specifically says nothing like this ever happened. What she says happened is that she was aware of rumors that bosses were sleeping with employees, and that some employees who may or may not have been sleeping with a boss were given positions with more authority than, in her opinion, they deserved. But, as a staff writer, she is not in a position to evaluate which personal or production assistants should be promoted, and in any case, as far as we know from the article, none of those promotions directly disadvantaged her position as a writer. She is free to decide that she does not want to work at a place where employees sleep with bosses, but she is not free to say that constitutes a hostile work environment. She can not make up the definition of legal and technical terms any way she wants to. All of this is too bad, because the issue of hiring more women in television comedy is a valid one that deserves more serious attention than the kind of tabloid hit and run piece we get from Vanity Fair. Also, there really are hostile work environments, that really do cause harm to many employees, and they should not be trivialized by this kind of narcissistic manipulation. I don't mean to give David Letterman a blanket amnesty - perhaps her really is sexually harasser, I certainly am not privy to what goes on in his workplace. Its just that we still have not heard anything in public reports that would justify this. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
