Harassment
I had been looking forward to this day for some time. In a time when a great dearth of interesting workplace happenings has plagued my existence, I saw today as sure-fire material. I mean, is there anything more likely to produce an interesting topic than a mandatory firm-wide sexual harassment (and discrimination!) training?
Our company, as a small and quickly growing firm, has been making baby steps towards full-fledged corporatism. First there was the new office with fancy perks like functioning heat and multiple elevators. Then came the new logo and associated paraphernalia, followed by a new website. But with growth comes responsibility. Or rather, liability. Hence, the firm-wide sexual harassment (and discrimination!) training.
Unfortunately (fortunately?), the training wasn’t quite the comedic gold mine I expected.
I think I was imagining something akin to 8th-grade health class, where we learned that “no means no” and snickered through role-plays about appropriate ways to handle inappropriate situations. In retrospect, it was probably silly to expect that a firm full of overwhelmingly reasonable people would have anything but an overwhelmingly reasonable sexual harassment training.
We learned the history of the federal and state harassment (and discrimination!) case law, and discussed areas where case law is still emerging. We learned that it it is not illegal to age discriminate against someone if they are under age 40. We learned that it IS illegal to ask a disabled person to drive you around in order to receive a better parking spot.
I even found a reason to care about the training. I mean, I’m pretty confident that I’m not going to harass anyone, but I realized this training is important anyways: if the firm gets sued for thousands of dollars, guess who doesn’t get bonuses that year? Everyone.
In conclusion, sexual harassment (and discrimination!) training was not as absurd as I had hoped, and I think that is a good thing.
January 24th, 2007 at 10:46 pm
if only you could have seen the video we had to watch at my work. complete with dramatic reenactments and cheesy story lines. i think it would have been more to your expectations.
January 25th, 2007 at 12:43 pm
Yeah, ditto with me. My fav was the fine line between inter-office dating and sexual harassment.
January 25th, 2007 at 12:59 pm
The lawyer said that inter-office dating is the most common source of harassment and discrimination claims; i.e. you are dating a supervisor, then you break up, then you don’t get a promotion.
What I wonder is what happens if your coworker is dating a supervisor, and he or she gets promoted before you for no other good reason. Do you have a discrimination claim? The lawyer said this case law is still emerging and right now it is not clear that you do, but that in a few years this might be a common type of discrimination claim.
January 29th, 2007 at 1:34 pm
Hell, wouldn’t it be horrible to lose that bonus… I wish you all realized what it’s like to be harassed by your employer. Not something I’d wish on anyone else.
January 31st, 2007 at 10:47 pm
I think the problem is that our firm is so young and “startup” feeling that the idea of a superior harassing someone is distant enough to seem ironic. Of course, being a man in an industry full of men it may be easy for me to say this. point taken.
February 1st, 2007 at 4:15 pm
True. But also, you still have to admit, when it’s pronounced “hair-essment” on a training video full of polyster suits and clip ties, it is maybe perhaps the slightest tiniest bit of funny.