Anne has expressed an intention to do illegal actions while working for Katina’s company. Katina cannot know that Anne will not do these illegal actions, and if Anne does those illegal actions, Katina will have knowingly put or kept Anne in a position to do them.
Anne cannot remove this knowledge from Katina’s brain. Had Katina remained ignorant, she could have said she had no idea of Anne’s intentions. But now, she knows what Anne said. Anne can say, later, that she didn’t mean it, but that doesn’t make the statement go away. Katina’s knowledge can be used against her later, in lawsuits, in the public eye, or by agencies like the EEOC.
Our actions have consequences. Bad judgment can cost you your job. Nothing you can say will change this.
Uhhh…wut? It’s Katina’s fault for being around so when Anne spewed racist vile crap, Katina was around to hear the things she said, which now makes Anne a lawsuit waiting to happen? That’s a bit contrived.
At no time did Anne state an intent to act. Katina cannot know whether or not Anne or any one else will not engage in illegal actions either. If Anne ever showed any such tendencies in the workplace, Katina would be justified in terminating her. But if you extend a drinking party into the workplace, then Katina has shown demonstrated bad judgement by giving tacit approval to that activity. If someone else attending the party had been involved an accident on the way home while drunk, the business could be liable based on actual actions, not just imagined ones.
On this we are in complete agreement. Katina could choose to fire Anne out of caution. I don’t know if the isolated incident would be considered ‘cause’, but I assume it’s an ‘at will’ employment, so she can be terminated at any time for any reason.
It;s Katina’s fault for sanctioning a drinking party that could be interpreted as a work activity. Liability can be found in all sorts of ways. I’m just pointing out that the phrase ‘potential liability’ can be used for almost anything.
It wasn’t in the workplace. It was “Saturday night after the funeral,” presumably ina public establishment. The only connection to work is that the group was composed of people that worked at the same company. I don’t see how the business could be held liable for accidents or even crimes that ensued later that night.
I dont buy ‘projected anger going in the wrong direction’ as a credible explanation for saying you plan to fire people in your current workplace if you can get away with it. So either a/she’s lying or b/ this simply isnt a credible hypothetical twist given the previous story.
Which is the problem with hypotheticals, it ends up being more and more unrealistic as people try to add more and more in.
Well, at this point I’m just being argumentative. My original point was that there are ways to further determine the nature of the isolated incident, and how it should be considered in Katina’s decision. As I’ve stated previously, in most cases, Anne would turn out to be a closet hater, and Katina would be wise to remove her from the company. It’s not liablity that is the problem, but the chance that Anne would cause the company to lose sales, or good employees as a result of her behavior. It is also a family owned business, and it’s never wise to offend your employer, but that applies even more so in a family business when you are not a member of the family.
Sheesh. The poll sort of explains why we have a race problem in America. This wasn’t an example of your garden-variety prejudice that many, if not all, of us harbor, but hopefully camouflage or try to work on.
I mean, if someone said that they wanted to see little kids naked, or sexually assault someone when they were drunk, how many would just chalk it up to being drunk? I’ve been (and have been around others) buzzed, drunk, and completely shitfaced, to the point that I don’t remember all that I did or said. Funnily enough, when people repeated to me the things I said, they’re pretty much things I think and believe. I’ve somehow avoided spouting racist, ableist, sexist stuff because that’s not who I am. I am opinionated, tend to think that my favorite sports teams/artists/foods are far superior to others. But I don’t think I would drop “nigger,” “kike,” or “honky” bombs in drunken conversation.
It seems like people are saying that it’s okay to be a racist as long as you mostly keep it to yourself. I can see that to some extent, but I don’t think it’s possible to be racist AND not have that influence your behavior, even in subtle ways. Let me make an example. Pedophilia has caused countless amounts of harm to people, including severe injury and death. We’ve pretty much come to the conclusion in the U.S., and I imagine most places in the world, that being a pedophile is socially unacceptable - and we find someone expressing a desire to engage in sexual acts with a minor to be extremely distasteful, even if they’re drunk, right?
Until we hold racism in the same disdain as pedophilia, it’s never going away.
Of course it is okay to think anything you want. Most of the people I have to work with are blithering idiots. Now I’m not saying I’m much better, but I can at least see the consequences of stupid actions. But rather than just saying this is the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard of and they should be neutered before they can pass along the stupid gene to their children, or repeatedly slamming their heads onto the counter until there is just bloody pulp left, I calmly try to explain in a calm and hopefully non-condescending manner why their idea is so idiotic. We are all actors to one level or another.
Yes she did. She expressed an intent to fire any and all minorities from the business, if she could “get away with it”. And as a general manager, she could do it, one employee at a time, in fairly subtle ways where it would be difficult to prove racial bias.
What do you mean by “okay”? If I learned a friend had the kind of attitude to minorities that Anna does, that person wouldn’t be my friend any more.
I can think of lots of things it’s not okay to think, IMO. There shouldn’t be a law against thinking them, but that’s a far cry from them being “okay”.
Well, if you believe alcohol=truth serum, then you’re right. She said it, so she must have intended it.
I don’t take an isolated incident under unusual circumstances as a measure of a person. And when someone says something while drunk, once, I’ll wait to find out more before condemning them. They’re usually rotten people. But I won’t make a hasty judgement, their true character will tell out in time. But when there is no time to wait, I’d err on the side of caution and assume the worst.
“Well, if you believe alcohol=truth serum, then you’re right. She said it, so she must have intended it.”
I think its highly likely that at the time she meant it under the story as outlined. Its too focussed and present based to be credible as a throwaway line in my view. That might be a weakness of the hypothetical.
The only issue in my view is if thats the only time she meant it, and so far Ive found the arguments claiming scenarios where thats possible to be fairly unconvincing. Most of them seem to involve the unconscious or highly improbable stories about repressed childhood experience or the like.
I’d argue back, if you truly feel this way, people can probably tell. I used to work in a bookstore when I was a teacher, during the summer. Hourly wage job, not too much responsibility, and I guess I looked kind of young. I was new to the job so I had a lot of questions - and it became clear to me that one of my co-workers thought she was much smarter than me (and basically all of the staff). She never said or even did anything overtly condescending, but it was the little looks, sighs, and so on that made it clear she thought she was on another level. I remember once in the break room she was bragging about being a few hours short of her degree - somehow the conversation drifted my way and I mentioned that I was a Distinguished Graduate of my university… well, her face dropped, because she realized that she wasn’t the most educated person on staff.
Similarly, to lay out that kind of vitriol, I’d imagine if you asked a sample of Black and/or Jewish co-workers their opinion of her, it would be likely that they would detect some discomfort around her. I think this is kind of an open-and-shut situation given the details Skald gave. But if she had made more veiled remarks, or stated that she was scared of Black people or something on that level, it’s much more complex - and interesting.
I take it many of you have never worked in a management position in a company, judging from some of the responses.
The reality is, what the manager will do largely will depend on that person’s relationship with Anne and Anne’s relationship with the company.
For example, at one firm where I worked, the company fired a kid who for some reason thought it would be appropriate to blaze up a joint in a bar during a corporate happy hour (technically outside the bar…can’t smoke inside in NYC).
But many of these managing directors frequent prostitutes, do coke and other activities that are illegal or downright shady. The difference is these guys do it on the DL with their “inner circle of trust”.
Double standard? Sure. But that’s how things work.
For someone being purely argumentative, you’ve forayed into the realm of patently ridiculous. Drinking party? Sanctioned by management? How about a group of people who went to have a couple drinks together as independent adults after the funeral of a mutual friend. When I described the event earlier as being debatably a work event, I meant in the sense that you should be on good behavior when socializing with coworkers. That is exercising good judgment. Getting blackout drunk and hurling racial epithets is poor judgment. Presumably, Anne would be fired (or prevented from being promoted) due to her poor judgment and potential liability due to her stated intent to fire all minorities if she could get away with it.
You’ve taken it to a whole different level, as though the company had purchased a beer pong table and vodka for the event. That clearly isn’t the case. And further, you’re trying to make it seem like Katina is the one who created the liability (Anne) in the first place, merely by being around to overhear her racist rhetoric. Sorry, but if Anne gets fired for exercising poor judgment and being a liability to the company, the fault and responsibility lies fully with Anne, who got out of control drunk around coworkers and let her true feelings be known. This is in no way Katina’s fault that the situation happened, but now she has an obligation to her employees and to her company to take the information that cannot be unheard and responsibly address the issue in such a way that she protects both her employees and her company.
No, I’m right because Anne did in fact state an intent to commit illegal acts. Whether she was drunk or not is IMHO not relevant. And in fact I do believe that alcohol is far more likely to reveal true feelings than generate false ones.
But Anne normally doesn’t get drunk around her co-workers. She has shown good judgment up until this point. And in this one instance she went out drinking with co-workers because of special circumstances. Circumstances that directly have a bearing on the words she said even if not the degree. Who knows how much she drinks? I don’t drink and if I did I’d have no idea how many drinks it would take to get me drunk.
Yeah, there are some things that would result in an immediate firing. This could be one of them, but I think there needs to be more followup.
A question that no one is asking is why she doesn’t go drinking with her co-workers? Are they black or jewish? That might have more bearing on what she thinks of them and show a pattern of behaviour rather than a one time drunken rant.
And doesn’t the dealership do follow ups with customers? Satisfaction surveys? A complaints box? Another way of finding out patterns of activity.
This. There are plenty of perfectly nice, well-meaning white people who have simply not had the exposure to whatever Other there is in their world to not fear it. I would not despise a person who expressed mild fear or discomfort with any group with whom she had never or rarely interacted, just try to educate her.
I’m white (very), and I used to attend classes at Temple in center city Philadelphia. I was often sort of afraid of black students. I didn’t think they’d hurt me, but I was afraid they hated or despised me, and I am acutely uncomfortable with being disliked. And I was probably right about a few of them; Skald mentioned that several of his own black friends/acquaintances were virulently anti-white, and given American history, that’s not exactly a surprise. A lot of white people, I think, project what they believe would be their own feelings if they were black onto black people, and they’re probably not entirely wrong. If you’re convinced that a group of people is going to hate or despise you for the color of your skin, you’re not going to be immediately comfortable with them whether you or they are white, black, or purple.
But Anne didn’t stop there. She didn’t express mild trepidation or discomfort. She made statements that were the verbal equivalent of getting a swastika tattoo. Yes, she was drunk, but I don’t buy that those sentiments came entirely out of a wine bottle. I don’t excuse her any more than I would if she’d gotten a swastika tattoo while she was drunk.
I’d let her go because I’d fear for my company’s liability. But I’d come as close as I’m able to enjoy firing someone (which isn’t very close) because of my detestation of her attitude.