Could you imagine Geoff having to explain to Donna why she’s the new punch line for the shock jocks
and why all those videos are up on youtube showing her picture accompanied by elephant triumphanting sounds and vomit noises? Trust me there are plenty of people who have been victimized by bad bosses who would do just that if this story made the news.
Sure, ultimately you have to do what’s good for the business and your own career. Another thing we haven’t really considered is that maybe their workplace is simply one of those toxic environments where everyone is a complete asshole anyway. If you fired everyone who made an obnoxious comment, you’d need to get rid of the entire staff.
I’m reminded of a scene from Showtime’s House of Lies. There’s a scene where Marty Kahn (Don Cheadle) invites his boss, the head of their consulting firm over to his apartment to talk about keeping his job. The firms is being acquired by someone with a personal axe to grind against Marty and Marty has just lost a big account giving them a great excuse to have him “counseled out” (fired). Marty is asking his boss to help him due to their long-standing relationship and argues that he had made him a lot of money in the past.
Marty’s boss responds that until now, Marty never cared about developing “relationships” and basically acted like a giant asshole using the excuse that “it’s just business”. But only now that “it’s just business” doesn’t work out so great for Marty, he’s changed his tune.
Basically, the moral of that scene is that yes, you can probably be very successful if you keep your numbers high. But don’t expect anyone to do you any favors if you’ve been acting like an asshole to them all this time. Because everyone has an off month.
Why put yourself in a position where your boss is now waiting or even actively positioning you to take a fall, just because you have a big mouth?
This is very true, particularly in car sales. As I may have mentioned upthread, when I gave notice at one such job, my manager (a great guy and good friend, don’t get me wrong) laughed and told me I was being an idiot–not for quitting, but for giving notice, as such was not the custom in the industry; I’d put him in a position where he was supposed to fire me immediately, so since I wasn’t starting the new job for a couple of weeks, he told me to tear up my letter so he could lay me off and I could get n unemployment.
Even the best salespeople are going to have bad months–partly because of the law of averages, partly because a few bad weeks in a row often result in getting the yips, and the yips are self-reinforcing. LeMoyne’s put himself in a position in which he’s going to get no mercy for a bad month, and given the amount of turn-over typical of car dealerships, Geoff will easily be able to justify canning him when that inevitably happens.
Well, they might be lucky to walk away in some cultures… In 1850s London, Geoff would only have to mention it at the Suicide Club to a couple of elderly retired colonels with handlebar moustaches and they’d look after the twain.
"Demme, chep insulted a Ledy*, you say ? You hear thet, Charles ?"
“Indeed, bed busyness, bed business, Jasper.”***
Then one of them would crowd LeMoyne, trip him up, and the lead weighted canes would rise and fall in a metronomic fashion until he stopped moving. Then they would stroll off whistling.
Thus it was in the old days.
I think it’s bizarre that you think that this incident would be worthy of a legal battle, let alone fodder for shock jocks and tabloids. The OP isn’t talking about some celebrities or people in a particularly lucrative or high profile job. This is not a First Amendment or Free Speech issue. This isn’t a particularly salacious incident. It’s not even that interesting. This is a couple of guys in some nothing auto sales job acting like jerks and (maybe) getting themselves fired in an at-will state.
It’s not clear what case you think these guys would have. And any leverage you think these “victims” have is mere over the top fantasy.
When people lose their jobs, it often has a very negative impact on their lives. People can be very vindicative. There’s any number of nasty things that fired employees can do. Quite frankly, if I had been fired for such petty reason, I would be looking for revenge.
I’d rather have a person who feels that way mad at me from afar than working for me.
Your boss can’t control what you do off the job, but it doesn’t mean that your actions are free of consequences. If you do something that reflects badly on the dealership or tears down workplace morale you shouldn’t expect no response.
There are laws that protect employees from discrimination on the basis of gender, religion, race, country of origin, etc. Some states include sexual preference but it’s not universal. It’s not clear what you mean by culture or social class, but as I understand it those are not currently protected classes. You can be fired for being a fan of the wrong sports team. It’s not wise for a boss to do so, but it is legal.
I’d keep them on, but let them know in subtle ways that they are being watched.
If you fire them they might be upset enough to bitch about it in social media, and that would, eventually, get back to Donna and then she would be hurt.
Risks like what you described? I’m willing to bet we can find more former lawyers who have lost their law licenses for suborning perjury.
Yes people can do very stupid things when they are angry, such as believing they can win a case against their former employer in in at will state when they were fired at will.
Given they situation I’m doubtful that the former employees have the resources and time to pursue a case against the dealership, that is by no means a sure thing. They’d be much better off licking their wounds and finding a new job. When a company does a background check for new hires and finds the person sued their former employer they are a lot less likely to be calling you in for an interview.
In my experience employees who think they have some sort of power over what their employers can and can not do, and often talk about what they’d do if their employer wronged them in some way are ignorant as to the laws involved and talk a good game, but when they actually get fired they disappear without a fight.
So, fine with employing racists too, OK…:dubious:
I think I should listen to Skald…
Exactly, if Geoff actually cared about his wife being hurt, he would bury this incident in the past and not refer to it again. But I don’t think that’s what’s happening in this situation. Geoff considered himself the alpha male and got upset that some of his underlings aren’t so impressed, so he feels like he has to remove those people from his environment because they challenge his feelings of superiority. A lot of bosses have similiar inflated superiority complexes and employees have to walk on egg shells around them.
If someone insulted my wife like that, whether they were at a higher, equal, or lower position than me, I don’t think I could work productively with them. In some companies, that might be fine – they would put us in different departments. But in an organization in which we’d have to work together, the work would probably seriously suffer unless one of us left or was fired.
You left off a third option, which often (but not necessarily) needs a dark alley and a heavy blunt weapon.
I wonder which option these guys would take if given the choice. My bet is the beating; at least for the top sales guy. If he would take the beating, I can kind of respect that.
My gut says that is what Geoff should do here. My gut is clearly wrong.
This is all nice fantasy talk. But in the real world you get sent to jail for beating up an employee who insults your wife.
Well, it’s exacly as hypothetical as the OP’s scenario is.
Of course he should fire them. Beyond the reasons everyone else is given, if you are in a position to provide consequences for a grossly immoral action, you should do so. If you don’t provide consequences for misogyny, then it won’t go away.
The idea that you have the freedom to say whatever you want is ridiculous. It’s a just a rationalization for people who don’t want to get involved, or for people who would say those sorts of things themselves. Turn around and say things about things they care about (often only the person themselves), and these people change their tune immediately.
No one actually believes that it’s okay for people to be colossal jerks without any consequences. No one.
His wife being hurt is not the problem. The problem is that these people would dare to say something like this in the first place. Their whole speech was about how bad their boss was for marrying someone like her.
I know your morals are completely different from everyone else’s, but how can you not have realized that your fringe opinions inherently mean that most people aren’t thinking the way you think they are?
You’ve made your fringe opinion known, and we all know that you will not change your mind. I do not understand why people are even bothering to argue with you. Argue with people who might actually have an opinion that someone else might have.
When your opinion is really fringe, there’s no reason to argue against it, and you give it legitimacy by even addressing it.
In the real world people talk trash (especially about their bosses) about one another on a rather common basis. The real fringe idea here is a that an adult is somehow justified in reacting violently to overhearing a private conversation. Geoff sounds like an overgrown child in a man’s body. His boss should tell him, “You heard something you didn’t like about your wife, so what? If it doesn’t effect how they do their jobs, it’s none of your damn business. Grow up.”