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Blame yourself?

I'm more than willing to accept that these may be "he said, she said" situations with differing perspectives, but those were undeniably legal settlements. Trying to claim otherwise just confirms you're in the tank for one side.

Millsapa? Never.
 
Like I said before, I don't care if Hermain Cain harrassed the ladies 15-20 years ago. If I made a list of 100 reasons Herman Cain is a poor choice this wouldn't even be up for consideration.

All that said, it's absolutely the wrong tack to take to claim that the payments made weren't settlements. If you want to fire someone, you fire them. You don't "negotiate for the termination of employement" and then give them a year's pay for no reason. Random staffers dont' have those kind of contractual guarantees. You also don't negotiate NDAs relevant to the issue of sexual harrassment with people that you just want to fire.

I'm more than willing to accept that these may be "he said, she said" situations with differing perspectives, but those were undeniably legal settlements. Trying to claim otherwise just confirms you're in the tank for one side.
Very logical response. Can I agree while at the same time disagreeing a bit?
There may have been smoke. Or at the very least, comments or actions that were misinterpreted. Or perhaps, just women out looking for money. In the workplace, men have to be overly careful about what is said. Not even with good female friends/colleagues will I comment on appearance, clothes, etc. Even something as innocent as "I like your new hair style" or "that's a nice outfit, is it new?" can be interpreted, twisted and used in a sexual harassment charge. Sirkicky is right; these were negotiated settlements. But firing these women would likely bring a nasty, unlawful termination lawsuits. Many states have "implied contract" laws even if employment is "at will." So it's a lot cleaner and cheaper to negotiate a settlement without admitting any guilt on the part of the employer and just be done with it. Naturally a NDA would be part of the settlement.

I'm not a Cain supporter, but I don't give a whole lot of credence to these claims. If his actions were horrific or blatant, the police would have been involved or a lawsuit filed. Not excusing anything, but I'll bet 99% of us (at least us men and probably the female posters too) have at some point done or said something that could be defined as sexual harassment by today's standards. Personally, I welcome any comments about the way I look or dress or someone noticing that I've been working out and lost weight. Could that be harassment? Yes, especially if turned around and a male makes a comment about a female. That's just the way it is in today's society. So be careful out there folks, especially when dealing with members of the other sex in the workplace.
 
Very logical response. Can I agree while at the same time disagreeing a bit?
There may have been smoke. Or at the very least, comments or actions that were misinterpreted. Or perhaps, just women out looking for money. In the workplace, men have to be overly careful about what is said. Not even with good female friends/colleagues will I comment on appearance, clothes, etc. Even something as innocent as "I like your new hair style" or "that's a nice outfit, is it new?" can be interpreted, twisted and used in a sexual harassment charge. Sirkicky is right; these were negotiated settlements. But firing these women would likely bring a nasty, unlawful termination lawsuits. Many states have "implied contract" laws even if employment is "at will." So it's a lot cleaner and cheaper to negotiate a settlement without admitting any guilt on the part of the employer and just be done with it. Naturally a NDA would be part of the settlement.

I'm not a Cain supporter, but I don't give a whole lot of credence to these claims. If his actions were horrific or blatant, the police would have been involved or a lawsuit filed. Not excusing anything, but I'll bet 99% of us (at least us men and probably the female posters too) have at some point done or said something that could be defined as sexual harassment by today's standards. Personally, I welcome any comments about the way I look or dress or someone noticing that I've been working out and lost weight. Could that be harassment? Yes, especially if turned around and a male makes a comment about a female. That's just the way it is in today's society. So be careful out there folks, especially when dealing with members of the other sex in the workplace.

Nice abs. Wanna screw?
 
Very logical response. Can I agree while at the same time disagreeing a bit?
There may have been smoke. Or at the very least, comments or actions that were misinterpreted. Or perhaps, just women out looking for money. ... That's just the way it is in today's society. So be careful out there folks, especially when dealing with members of the other sex in the workplace.

Yet another guy who doesn't seem to understand the difference between "That's a nice way of wearing your hair" and "That's a nice ***".

Women who publically report harrassment get stigmatized more than the men do. I don't believe Cain on this for a moment.
 
Yet another guy who doesn't seem to understand the difference between "That's a nice way of wearing your hair" and "That's a nice ***".

Women who publically report harrassment get stigmatized more than the men do. I don't believe Cain on this for a moment.

Funny thing is, I have seen careers ruined over claims of harassment more along the lines of the former example than the latter. Damn near ANYTHING can be construed to be harassment. The crux of it is perception, not intention, not even what is actually said. A colleague of mine went through some serious allegations by 2 women at one place I worked. He had made comments a lot like "that's a nice way of wearing your hair" to pretty much everyone, men and women. We hired several hundred temps for holiday work, and these 2 women were on thin ice in terms of productivity and quality issues and were likely going to lose their jobs. They targeted him with harassment claims, including claims he had forced them to perform acts in his office to keep their jobs.

And a few fortunate things in place that the women did not know about helped my colleague avoid major legal issues, but he ended up leaving the job over it due to the persistent rumors. Those things that helped avoid legal issues? One was a camera in his office area (he shared a cubicle island with several other supervisors) that shows his desk fairly clearly. We could show that he had never been in his cubicle with either of these women when there were not other people around, and that nothing had happened. The next was a claim that he met them outside of work over a particular set of 4 days....4 days that he and I and about 5 other managers were at a conference in another state.

He was exonerated in the end. We found out later that one of the women had a history of doing this and had her act down so well she had gotten 2 or 3 organizations to just pay out a settlement rather than take on the costs of sending it to court or mediation (not to mention the bad PR, because all anyone hears is the accusation, like page one of the Sunday paper, but never the exoneration, last page of the last section in the Wednesday edition). And once you are accused, it sticks. That is why my friend just left. People wouldn't drop it. Ironically, he was the one being harassed about it in the end, but he had no recourse, so he just quit.

So don't kid yourself that this stuff doesn't go down this way. It is a dog eat dog world in lots of ways and you have to make sure you are taking the right steps and doing things the right way to cover your own *** in these situations, because I can tell you that you are FAR from innocent until proven guilty in these cases. As soon as that claim of harassment is made, it is you against everyone, hoping against hope you can prove what you know, that you did nothing wrong.
 
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What Logg said. ^^

I've had to fire one person in my career, and it was over an alleged sexual harassment. The guy commented on a newly wed girls honeymoon. I was standing right there when it happened, and there was absolutely nothing sexual at all. When she came to me with the allegations, I was shocked. As a matter of company procedure, I reported it to my boss, and that was it -- we were absolutely forced to fire the guy. Don't worry, that chick quit like a month later because she was a lazy bitch. Didn't matter that I heard what he said, knew there was no intent, and that she was being a snotty pig about it, the guy went down hard.

I usually agree with OneBrow, but lately he's been on a tangent of non-thinking stupidity. It's the Hopper in him leaking out, I suppose.
 
If any woman feels Cain did anything wrong ten or twenty years ago, they should have made a stink about it then. In law, there's a "statute of limitations" concept that precludes folks from bringing up old stuff that should have been dealt with years ago. If that's all the critics have got on Cain, he's a better man than most politicians. And honestly, I care more for the stands of the issues, and just resent mudslingers who won't deal with the man on the level of his intellect and ideas and proposals for solving problems in this nation. I'd vote for him if Ron Paul wasn't just so much better.

Boo on the media for trivializing this man. And Boo even more for ignoring Ron Paul. What a dishonest pack of reporters and news organizations we have that won't give Ron Paul the media coverage he deserves.
 
Several years ago I had a co-worker who posed for Playboy Magazine. One of the guys in my department somehow found out and brought in a disk with her pictures which he downloaded off Playboy.com. That disk made its rounds though the entire company (about 1K employees). Every guy and probably half the women saw it. So I'm sure she knew and all of the senior managers knew about it.

A couple of months later, two other guys I worked with brought in a copy of the magazine and asked her to sign it. She reported them to HR claiming they were sexually harrassing her. As a result they were both fired.

Is that sexual harrasment? I guess you could reprimand the guys for the fact that they brought pornographic material to work; but fire them? That always struck me as a way too extreme.
 
The severity of sexual harassment is directly proportional to the man's, or woman's, hotness.

[video]https://www.hulu.com/watch/295600/saturday-night-live-sexual-harassment-and-you
 
lol....

Annnnddddd it keeps getting better and better...

I love the part at 47 seconds, "uhhh no that's a different line." Ooops!

Guess that's all that matters. Regurgitating one liners that your campaign has told you to say. lol Never mind actually having your own thoughts, beliefs, and policies. And then his actual answer is pathetic!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WW_nDFKAmCo
 
it did sort of crack me up this morning when I heard on the radio one of his spokespersons explaining some recent gaffe by saying that "he's been under a lot of stress lately, and only got four hours of sleep last night" - - isn't that part and parcel of the job of President?
 
Several years ago I had a co-worker who posed for Playboy Magazine. One of the guys in my department somehow found out and brought in a disk with her pictures which he downloaded off Playboy.com. That disk made its rounds though the entire company (about 1K employees). Every guy and probably half the women saw it. So I'm sure she knew and all of the senior managers knew about it.

A couple of months later, two other guys I worked with brought in a copy of the magazine and asked her to sign it. She reported them to HR claiming they were sexually harrassing her. As a result they were both fired.

Is that sexual harrasment? I guess you could reprimand the guys for the fact that they brought pornographic material to work; but fire them? That always struck me as a way too extreme.

something similar happened to a friend of mine - she'd been in Playboy years ago, and someone in her office found out and brought in the magazine. And actually it wasn't my friend who complained about it, it was another woman in the office who was uncomfortable with the way the guys were talking. Nobody lost their job over it, but there were some reprimands and official warnings issued.
 
In my experience, just bringing the playboy to work would often be grounds for discipline, up to and including termination. That in and of itself is simply inappropriate at work, especially in the paranoid climate of harassment that exists in many organizations today.

This week one of the supervisors who reports to me was accused of harassment. He was talking to his group about neew changes in the SOP for their job and one of the ladies got all bent out of shape that we are changing it because she liked the supervisor who set it up the old (and more flawed) way. So she spoke up and called him an idiot for changing it. He told her to talk to him afterward if she had an issue with it, but that they had their chance to disagree with the new process and she didn't say anything. She went straight to HR and said he called her out and talked down to her because she is a woman, she even threw in a few remarks he supposedly made about her appearance and proclivities. Not one of the 30 other people in the meeting corroborated her story, including all of the 15+ women in the group.

So I got to spend a good chunk of 3 days interviewing folks, investigating, we even looked at the camera that covers the area to see if anything looked out of whack. And she didn't even claim that any of it happened behind closed doors. All in that meeting supposedly. But in the end? Nothing came out that supports her story. She finally backpedaled and said she was mad at him. Sigh, this gets so old. Don't get your way, cry harassment, get results of some kind, rinse, repeat.

I am not by any stretch saying it does not happen, but it has become the default action if you don't like something your supervisor did or just don't like your supervisor. If nothing else, it gets attention. I deal with the same general type of issue (harassment, sexual harassment, hostile workplace, etc.) probably 2-4 times per year (I have 200+ hourly employees reporting to me, up to as many as 300 at some times). Easily 4 out of 5 cases have little or no merit. Sometimes it is a supervsior who got mad at someone in public so we have to talk to him about not calling folks out in front of others, sometimes it is an off-color remark or something similar that does need to be dealt with. Very very rarely it is a "movie-style" (or "politics-style" I suppose) harassment issue. I have seen 3 or 4 people fired for harassment with cause over my 20 year career. Most often it is someone mad they didn't get what they wanted, someone who just doesn't like their boss or job, or someone who is under-performing trying to distract from their own poor performance.

My personal opinion is that the false claims that come up so often can tend to dilute public opinion about the issue in general, and can make it harder to maintain objectivity in an investigation and ensure the real claims are handled correctly. It also makes people jaded, "oh this again". Crying wolf can and does have a real affect on perceptions of the real issues.
 
Boy, Cain is either a scumbag or the most unlucky person in this history of this planet... Isn't it getting old that this guy keeps blaming everything on political opponents bent on his destruction? Does this guy really think we're stupid enough to believe that all of this is made up and that he's been a complete saint, walked on water, and turned rocks into pizza his whole life?

https://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/story/2011-11-28/cain/51448808/1

WASHINGTON – An Atlanta businesswoman said Monday she and Republican presidential contender Herman Cain had a 13-year extramarital affair that ended right before Cain announced his campaign.

An hour before the interview was scheduled to air, Cain denied White's allegations during an interview on CNN.

The American people, Cain said in a statement released after White's interview aired, are tired of "dirty politics and smear tactics" and that the allegations were prompted by political opponents "afraid of a Cain presidency."
 
I don't think Obama would love running against a black guy, that's really the only fun to be had with Cain sticking around. Sounds like he is on the brink of quitting now though, which is pretty much a de facto admission of guilt to this latest allegation, it being the most severe of the lot thus far.
 
I see a consenual affair as far less "severe" than sexual harrassment. I wish I was surprised to see some people think the opposite is true.

I think Obama would love to run against Cain.
 
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