My problem with the whole “losing his job” thing is I can’t see it as an appropriate punishment. It’s not of the same scale to the crime. There might be some context that I am unaware of, but if this is a knee jerk reaction by an HR department, it stinks. I am not excusing his behaviour, I just think the crime committed (obnoxious, sexist, and rude behaviour in a public place/on TV) is not grounds for a $100,000 fine. Does anyone think this is actual justice?
I hate it when asshole drivers use dangerous driving techniques to get to work four minutes faster than if they followed the law (and in doing so make hundreds of other drivers 2 minutes later). I think those drivers should have to pay a fine, and take a course on proper conduct.
I don’t think they should lose their license for a first offense.
I swore at my mum once, when I was a kid. It was the only time my dad ever hit me in the face. I never swore at my mum again. It was also heavy handed and swift.
But it is something I hav never forgiven my father for, either.
Justice needs to be seen as just, and there also must be some effort at rehabilitating the criminal. Do you see any of that here?
(I have to go teach a grade 8 leadership class where we will be discussing this video. It should be an interesting discussion, as this has been)
I’ve worked with guys like this before. They are all about the unforgivingness unfairness of reality, and how you have to be on your toes constantly and it’s your own fault if you screw up…but know damn well they’ll be covered when they act like asshats. Well, reality just got unfair. Yes, the punishment is unfair, but they contributed to the culture that says you can do anything as long as it doesn’t hurt the company’s bottom line. And this was a pure damage control firing.Welcome to the underside of the bus you used to party on.
It is highly unlikely that this is the first time the guy in the video exhibited rude, obnoxious and misogynist behavior. They company didn’t just fire him because he said something offensive to one woman, they fired him because they realized that if he was really the kind of person who was really worth the $100K/year they were paying him then he wouldn’t engage in that kind of behavior at all.
If this employer saw video footage of a white employee calling a black person the N-word they’d likely fire them for that too. Not to punish the employee for a one-time-only event, but because that incident would reveal that they’d hired a bigot.
Most laypeople don’t realize that “assault and battery” are actually two different crimes. Here’s the legal definition of assault:
At Common Law, an intentional act by one person that creates an apprehension in another of an imminent harmful or offensive contact. An assault is carried out by a threat of bodily harm coupled with an apparent, present ability to cause the harm. It is both a crime and a tort and, therefore, may result in either criminal or civil liability. Generally, the common law definition is the same in criminal and Tort Law. There is, however, an additional Criminal Law category of assault consisting of an attempted but unsuccessful Battery. Statutory definitions of assault in the various jurisdictions throughout the United States are not substantially different from the common-law definition.
This adult male threatened physical violence against the reporter, while acknowledging that he was being filmed, no less, and as part of a group of similarly-threatening tough guys who outnumbered the reporter and her cameraman. He therefore committed a crime that could be tried in both criminal and civil court.
Ordinary guys commit crimes. This is what a crime by an ordinary guy looks like.
We also don’t know it’s his first offense at the company. He could have been on double secret probation already, and for the company’s sake, I hope they have a paper trail of his behavior to point to.
What if his desk was decorated with pin ups and he oogles every female that walks by? What if he’s already been to mandatory training for his behavior and they realized that none of it has sunk in after a year?
This is documentation of him being a total jackass, but given how comfortable he is doing it when he knows he is being filmed in a public space I doubt it’s his first offense. This is a guy who’s been blowing past the cops at 20 miles over the limit for a long time.
The exposure is great, it’s the firing I object to.
They’re still things that different people find objectionable.
They might be complete assholes 24/7, at work and on their own, or they’ve never done something like that before and were just trying to be cool and funny to impress their friends.
And how do you know any of the non-misogynists you worked with haven’t done things like that before?
I’d be absolutely shocked if a judge even considered it.
The “threatened physical violence” was obviously not meant to be taken literally. If one of them did that to her continuously over multiple incidents one could make a case for harassment. But otherwise there’s no obnoxious asshole exception to free speech.
I wholeheartedly agree. If this is part of a pattern of abuse and misogyny than losing his job is warranted. But none of us know that, and I feel that it is somewhat perverse to assume that this is the case.
Quite apart from anything else, this incident could lead to an incredibly hostile working environment for any women who are forced to work with this embarrassment of a human.
How do you know that any of the non-racists you worked with haven’t screamed the N-word at black reporters, then followed it up with some lynching jokes and the repeated insistence that it was hilarious?
Simple: because it wouldn’t even occur to a non-racist to do such a thing. If you found out that one of your co-workers did that, the reasonable conclusion wouldn’t be “oh my, that non-racist coworker of mine sure exhibited bad judgement in what was probably an isolated incident.” The reasonable conclusion would be “oh my, I didn’t realize my coworker was such a racist asshole.”
I was challenging her assertion that all misogynists were misogynist all the time. I meant to imply that some of the people she had classified as ‘non-misogynists’ might actually be very misogynist outside of work when she’s not around, but in the context of the office they could be completely different people.
I agree with everything you wrote except the bit above. If I’m a functional alcoholic who doesn’t drive drunk, doesn’t provide alcohol to minors, doesn’t scream misogynistic bullshit or otherwise act inappropriately, I don’t think that I should be fired if my boss happened to catch me in an overly inebriated state. I think we can both maintain a distance between our work and private lives while also calling out the thundering dickherd for their innapropriate or abusive ways.
They deserved everything they got, the smart arse creep with the laughing mother doubly so.
You can see the contempt in his face, hear it in his voice, read it in the language he used.
He’s an absolute twat!
Also he did all that with a camera pointed at him, not a phone mind! A fucking great big TV camera with a camera dude and everything… Darwinism live on TV, report at ten!!
