Actually, it’s time for our annual “Prevention of Sexual Harassment” training. As you may know, I work for the Dept of the Navy. Every years, we are required to spend an hour learning what sexual harassment is and why it’s bad. I’ve endured these things since 1980.
This year’s is particularly awful as it was produced locally by our own EEO people. I swear, it stops just short of having the “evil” supervisor twirling his mustache. There is nothing subtle or remotely redeeming about the presentation. It’s pretty much “Sexual Harassment for Dummies”…
Your tax dollars at work… and mine too, for that matter.
So, don’t leave me all alone here. I know I drew you in under sorta false pretenses, tho we do call it sex training. Does anyone else endure this kind of crap???
As an RA and a counselor at a camp for highschool students, I’ve had to endure numerous sessions on diversity, human rights, and sexual harassment – most of them very much the same, and equally excruciating. (Don’t get me wrong, I think they’re all important issues – they’re just much less interesting/stimulating/engrossing the second, third, and fourth times.)
I chimed in to say “Me too”, and to share my own views. In a week filled, with “Communication and Listening Skills”, “Diversity Awareness”, “Team Building”, “Emergency Response”, and other such “How to…”-type sessions, doesn’t it seem odd to have a “Sexual Harassment” session? Are they encouraging us to learn this?
As part of my “New Associate Orientation” three years ago I was made to watch a video defining sexual harassment. The video even had a few scenarios as to what may be considered sexual harassment. One of them was a boss basically telling his secretary that if she didn’t accompany him on his business trip to Florida that she would be fired! And a supervisor telling one of the ladies in the office what a nice sweater she was wearing… “It really fits you well.” :rolleyes: Gimme a break. I’m sure that sexual harassment happens all the time but is it really as obvious as that?!? The scenarios in this video were so stupid and laughable. I’m glad our sexual harassment training is a one time thing and we don’t have to repeat it every year!
Yes, does happen. My mother used to work for a company that (apparantly) sold industrial chemicals. The managers would call her into the office, then tell her they had just called her in so they could watch her walk across the room. (She was too insecure to say anything, and too broke to quit.) Didn’t go beyond that. Her current boss is a widely known philanderer, and I don’t ask what sort of propositions he’s put to her. One of the managers in my company talks to women’s breasts. Regularly. Icky. even mine, and they’re naught to write home about.
Most of the guys here will ‘compliment’ if they’re on a level with you, but not anyone below them in the chain of command.
Words cannot express how utterly dissappointed I am that this thread is not what I had hoped it was FairyChatMom.putting massage oils (and other [sub]ahem[/sub] items), back in their boxes
I believe I sat through the same film Rachelle did. Fortunately there was only two of us there, we worked together, and the instructor was also a friend, so we got to MST3K the film to relieve the tedium. Don’t get me wrong, I believe harassment is a very real problem, it’s just that the films are, shall we say, aimed at the lowest common denominator.
Luckily it’s only a requirement for new hires here and I won’t have to do it again.
Yeah, I sat through the Disney version of those videos.
The dopiest moment came when the supervisor stopped in his tracks, looked at his secretary’s ass bent over the file cabinet and said “Ooooh… Alright!”.
I’m sorry…should I not be doing that? I swear I didn’t know!
Every new duty station I went to as a boot-Marine gave us the run-down of all the horrible sexually transmitted deseases we could, and surely would catch from the women in town. They had all these gruesome pictures of oozing and festering…parts…and they always assured us that these were some of the local women that had come in for check-ups.
I got suspicious when I saw the same shot in 29 Palms (Cali) as I had a month earlier in Camp Gieger (NC.) Not that it mattered, the townsfolk wanted nothing to do with our military selves.
OK, I admit my title was misleading, deliberately so. I promise the next time I have the word “sex” in a thread title, it will be smutty and erogenous and you’ll send the kiddies out of the room when you read it - how’s that?
Oh, and Bumbazine, about those putting massage oils (and other [sub]ahem[/sub] items)…
I particulary like it when someone comes in from H.R. to explain to the proles why the seminar is so damn important… “Cause the company has legal liability”.
That wasn’t Sexual Harassment, that was more Sexual Assault, but a female Aviation Marine I know knew one of the chief complaintants very well. I won’t post second-hand info on that, though. Nuff said. Bad behavior in ANY case. Held up my promotion to Captain for months while I swore I was not there.
This all reminds me of an old National Lampoon issue back in the early days of '70s feminism. Always politically incorrect, they published a pamphlet “Sexual Harassment: How To Do It.” Complete with arguments to give women about why sexual harassment was good for them and good for women in the system.
We had one of these classes a few years ago. It was led by a woman who probably carried more testosterone in her system than most of the men in her audience. I truly think she was daring, even hoping for someone to make a flip comment. I don’t think she would have reported it, because she would have handled it personally… completely… and finally.
And IMHO, it totally ruined the intended effect of the training. If the message has to be delivered with a 12 lb. sledge, you’re doing it wrong.
Oh - and mods? I’ve learned that I have to have the word “Sex” in my thread title to get lots of traffic. Can you change the title in my Treasure Hunt thread here? Just stick some sex in there somewhere… Thanks!!!
[sub]Yes, I’m kidding about changing my thread title. Don’t bother with it, guys…[/sub]
Wow, all you lucky folkses who only had to sit thru this once - I’m jealous!! At least it isn’t as bad as the one year we had some hokey touchy-feely-we-love-each-other-like-fellow-humans-and-we-are-all-worthwhile-persons fiasco that lasted all day. The worst of that was when we were supposed to stand together and recite “I deserve to be treated with respect”… anyway, that idiocy was never repeated and I like to think that someone in EEO got their finger slapped for it, but they prolly all got awards and promotions.
Although I don’t work for the Dept of the Navy like FairyChatMom my company does. So every year we sit through a sexual harassment video, a malpractice (mischarging) video, a submarine safety video, a radiation control video, and a few others. I guess that these are some sort of super subliminal videos that can affect your performance even though they have cheesy 1970’s porn quality production values (complete with the People’s Court theme playing in the background ). I swear the people narrating these things are the same ones who did those film strips from the 50’s like “Internal Combustion Is Your Friend.”
Not a harrassment class story, but an unnecessary repetitive training story:
When my mom was in high school, back during WWII, she had a summer job as a typist at the local military base. Every Wednesday at lunch they all had to go to a “Loose Lips Sink Ships” kind of discussion where they had all the perils of security issues and such explained to them in monotonous detail.
Being high school girls in the 40’s, they spent their time in class eating, doing their nails and talking about boys.
UncleBill, I only know what I got from the press, but I was under the impression that that was a case of just plain harassment; no sexual assault. Again I say, I only read this, but what I did read was that the complainant went into the gathering, was met with hostility and threats, and struggled out through a mob. I believe she said one guy was right in her face, screaming, and the others were just as loud. They didn’t touch her sexually, maybe not at all, except for blocking her path, but one seaman tried to escort her, and they piled on him.
I also think there was a totally different charge against some other personell, for bringing prostitutes to the gathering, but that was unrelated to this.
However, you were within earshot, and I sure wasn’t. Glad you did make Captain. Also glad you weren’t there.
putting massage oils (and other [sub]ahem[/sub] items), back in their boxes
). I swear the people narrating these things are the same ones who did those film strips from the 50’s like “Internal Combustion Is Your Friend.”