This is not a passing thought, nor only a reaction to the car wreck. Slavery, Hitler, the urge to vomit? This is both elaborate and venomous. There’s no way somebody says something like this, in its totality, unless there’s been a roiling little pot of hatred in their heart for a while.
But if she blows herself up, she might do it in a way that causes serious harm to the company. A regional chain with six locations is easily small enough for just one publicized incident to do catastrophic PR damage, never mind the lawsuit to follow.
Because you’re not really in it for the intel, duh.
I’m sure if you got most any of those guys shitfaced, they’d piss on a Q’ran and laugh about it. That’s what alcohol does. That’s why so many Darwin Awards are alcohol-related.
[QUOTE=Skald the Rhymer]
She hates all niggers, Anne says, but especially the drunk nigger who killed Mike. Worse than that she hates the Jew lawyer who’ll probably get him off. America would be better if the blacks had stayed slaves, Anne says, just as the world would be better if Hitler had succeeded. Every time she has to be near a black or a Jew, Anne says, she has to fight the urge to vomit; she’d fire every minority working in the dealership if she could get away with it.
[/QUOTE]
Yes, before we go completely ascribing her statements to alcohol, anger, and emotional pain, let’s remember what she actually said. Because saying that you have to fight the urge to vomit every time she has to be near a Jew or a black person is hardly “I’m just upset that a black guy killed my friend”. This vitriol was present long before her friend was killed and will be present long after. She’s describing how her daily events are impeded in her mind by the presence of blacks and Jews. I can’t believe how many people are trying to write off her statements. Go read them again, they were uglier than I originally remembered too.
Yeah. I’ve had some exposure to some pretty venomous racists, but they don’t tend to say things this extreme. Casting about for the root of her feelings doesn’t actually make the feelings and intentions more acceptable. Saying it’s because she was drunk just means that she’s having to keep a tight rein on her inclinations. Saying that Katina should risk everything her family has built so that a racist can keep her job is just weird.
Is she? What evidence in her job performance is there that this is true? None. So, all you have is her drunken ramblings that she actually hates anyone.
Yes, she is, by her own account. “I have to avoid vomiting when I am around Jews and black people.” That is not “Tonight when I was drinking I saw a Jew and wanted to puke”. Why does it have to be evident in her job performance that she believes the things she is saying, just because she doesn’t actually vomit when she sees a Jew doesn’t mean her statement is any less true or offensive.
First of all, I said the type of remarks. Individually, any of those statements could have been something encountered in that enviroment. Skald may have been trying to convey the worst possible kinds of racist remarks, but each of those statements is common, and relatively tame for racist rhetoric. Those are just stock phrases that come more from fiction than reality. Real racists would have incorporated more specific themes. No need to recount them here. In fact, the specific comments attributed no negative characteristics to any group, just general hatred without specific reason. That in itself belies the depth of the feelings. Racists always have a set of excuses ready to justify their beliefs.
As I mentioned above, it is not elaborate, and could easily be parroting of comments heard from others. And in a drunken state, people may repeat things they’ve heard when expressing an emotion, even statements that do not actually convey those emotions. Alcohol might turn off the revulsion Anne would normally have for those kinds of remarks.
I didn’t assume that Anne’s drunken talk was only a reaction to a car wreck. As I mentioned, Mike’s death may have had a much greater emotional impact on Anne than the other people at the dealership. That could have greatly magnified actual feelings, or distorted related feelings.
Accusing Anne of harboring a deeply rooted hatred based on a single incident under the influence of alcohol and emotional distress is unfair. Thats why I said Katina should talk to Anne and discuss the matter directly. If Katina has the management skills necessary for running a car dealership, she should be able to evaluate that discussion and estimate how much of a concern the isolated incident was due.
Some people might liken this to the case of Mel Gibson’s rants. I know some details of Mel Gibson’s upbringing, and his father was a vitriolic, over the top racist, who’s speech and actions were offensive even to other racists. Mel may have a problem from having those feelings rooted in his mind somewhere at a young age, even if he they don’t represent his rational mindset (I don’t know whether they do or don’t, I don’t know him personally). But Mel is in his mid 50s, wealthy, has a problem with alcohol, and his rants are not isolated. He certainly is aware of his problems, and had ample opportunity to deal with them, yet appears to be unmotivated to do so. I think the scenario Skald related is very different in nature.
I’m not making excuses for racists here. I’m saying that an isolated outburst is insufficient to judge the true nature of a person. And this incident doesn’t really conform to the pattern of speech and actions of the confirmed racists I’ve encountered in life.
Yeah, my dad was an alcoholic and beat my mom when he drank. Never, ever when he was sober or even acted out of line in any way. I’m the least likely person to excuse a drunk, but in this case it is out of character with everything Katina knows about Anne.
[QUOTE=ladyfoxfyre]
Why does it have to be evident in her job performance that she believes the things she is saying, just because she doesn’t actually vomit when she sees a Jew doesn’t mean her statement is any less true or offensive.
[/QUOTE]
Why? Because people’s actions are far more important than their words. I could hate your guts, but if I never say anything to you, or do anything to indicate otherwise, and we act like best buds all the time how am I effectively any different than any other friend? Sure, whatever reason I have for acting that way may come to an end eventually, but how is that different than any other friend?
I had a discussion with a devout Christian friend of mine. She claimed that any good deeds were only good if they were done because of a belief in Christ. I said that if a person, lets say Hitler, was working the soup kitchen alongside that person, would that count? No. But to the guy getting soup at the kitchen, he doesn’t care about your motivations, he only cares about the actions. He sees two people serving soup.
A guy comes in to buy a car. He gets good service, a price he is willing to pay, and he goes on his merry way. The whole place could be run by people who despise his very existence (and there have been lots of threads on how servers hate their customers on this board), but they don’t know that. It might be hurtful if they found out. But it is separate from how they were treated.
I just got an image of Hitler working a concentration camp soup kitchen with a big shit eating grin on his face. An anonymous character would probably have been a better example.
But that’s not what happened. This was an extended rant touching on several modes and targets. As I said, it’s the totality of the thing which is just too much. Whatever else is going on, Anne is a potential loose cannon. You don’t move such people into positions where they can do more harm.
Sure, fine. I actually didn’t vote for firing her, just eliminating her from promotion consideration and keeping a closer watch on her.
Katina had not been closely supervising Anne before this, so there may have been minor on-the-job incidents. With the startling new evidence, a much closer eye should be kept, and giving this person a promotion now is simply asking for trouble of one sort or another.
You seemed to be looking for evidence in her job performance that her statements about jews and blacks making her want to vomit was accurate. I wanted to know why we had to have proof in her job performance that her feelings were what they were, why we couldn’t just take her at her own statements, and your example does not stand up to support your assertion that we should not do just that. By your example, as long as you don’t say anything to indicate that we are not every bit best friends, nobody should think your intentions are ill in any way. But you forgot to mention in the example that time when you get drunk and talk about how much you hate me and I sicken you and my very existence is enough to make you want to vomit. That changes your situation a little.
Sure, fine. I actually didn’t vote for firing her, just eliminating her from promotion consideration and keeping a closer watch on her.
Katina had not been closely supervising Anne before this, so there may have been minor on-the-job incidents. With the startling new evidence, a much closer eye should be kept, and giving this person a promotion now is simply asking for trouble of one sort or another.
[/QUOTE]
[/quote]
I think we’re on the same page here. I would expect that conversation, if Katina was being skillful, would have revealed that Anne has serious problems that would prevent a promotion. The problem with deciding on the scenario in the OP is the lack of detailed information.
Because it is a one time exceptional occurrence that is totally out of character for the person you know and up until that incident were willing to hand the keys to the safe to.
Did you just kill my friend, though? Would you be surprised at such a response if you had especially if the person was intoxicated? And if the person came back when sober and said they were sorry and they didn’t mean it? You’d say no and act all paranoid and fire the person?
No they may not have been hidden, she may not drink a lot. She got pissed and said some stuff that she would probably regret if she remembered. I would talk to her in a fairly straight forward way and see how she reacts. A lot of people rant when they are drunk, she just may not be a good drinker.
I vote talking to her about the situation, letting her know how you feel and seeing how she reacts. If the reaction is a good one then state that you will park this issue and get on with building the business, we all have to work with all kinds of people.
For those who considered Anne to be evil and beyond redemption, consider the next scenario:
Katina talks to Anne the next day about the events of the previous evening. As soon as she broaches the subject of Anne’s rant, Anne gets a look of horror on her face and asks Katina if she had made racist and bigoted remarks. Then she explains that she was raced by KKK members who indoctrinated her as a child into their hateful ideology. She explains that as a teenager she realized that was wrong and ran away so that she would no longer be exposed to that. She doesn’t drink because she found out that results in her spouting the hateful concepts that her parents tried to imbue in her. She adds that she has great anger towards her parents as a result of this, but under the influence of alcohol her anger gets projected in the wrong direction. Finally she tells Katina that she only went to drink with others because Mike was the only person at the dealership she was close to, and she was afraid she might be fired if she didn’t find a way to fit in with others now that he was gone.
You fire Anne for being a liability to your company.
It has nothing to do with Anne being “evil.” It has to do with Anne having poor judgment (especially since in your scenario she knows she can’t drink) and for being a huge potential liability.
In what way does this make Anne a liability. The poor judgement was on the part of Katina for participating in an after hours drinking event with other employees. That presented an actual liability as opposed to some imagined one in the future.