Althouse Defends Cain, in Recent Bloggingheads Vid.

No. No no no no no no!

It might be a good seven years since I was practicing employment law, but I remember well the general rules of workplace behaviour. Never mind a lot of the law. Now silly person Ann Althouse chose to defend Cain's possible over-the-top, and possibly too familiar work place behaviour. She basically argued that it was a valid defense to being such (as opponent in the vid, Glenn Loury suggested,) a cad that that just his personality. Ya. She went there.

Then she made the to my mind totally 100% wrong statement that his personality was running afoul of something that was merely a subjective standard held by some people in that work place. Now I have heard more offensive and blatantly wrong defenses of Cain's alleged, and similar alleged behaviour. but this is likely the worst offending bullshit I have heard from a lawyer (leastwise, one who's day job is not being a wing nut pundit, radio/TV host.)

Now before I get to the fun part, where I gratuitously use a lot of cuss words (cause I enjoy it, and more so, it's the cheap and lazy way to add emotional emphasis here,) I will recount a story of a fight I had with some fucking idiot on a message board, regarding proper work place behaviour.

Now that week there was this conservate faux outrage story about the unfairness of the treatment of some stage hand/grip booked to work some democratic political event. Now he got his nose all bent out of joint because one of the people higher up the food chain told him to cover up his T shirt, on account it advertised the naval ship named after Ronald Reagan. His excuse to showing up on the job site wearing that shirt, was he was "honoring" his son who served on that ship. Some people, particular the stupid fucker I was arguing with, thought that made it ok. I went bat shit on her. No. That was not ok. And I explained why.

I explained that I had recently been and employment lawyer. But before that I used to be a stage hand myself. And I explained that (often, not always the case) stage hands have dress codes. If I was working backstage at a certain kind of performance, I would be told to wear all black. At another kind of show, classical music performances, where I had to step on stage to move a piano or set up or remove music stands or chairs? I had to be dressed almost as formally as the musicians. Not a tux, but black or dark suit, or suit jacket and pants, proper shirt with professional tie, proper dress shoes. I explained all that to the stupid person to make the point plain, if you are a stage hand, you should be used to being told what you can and can not wear. It's part of the job. It's part of being a professional.

More's the point though, I argued, after switching into lawyer mode, no fucking one was paying him to honor his son. He was there to do his job. To do what he was told, not engage in advertising his opinions or feelings about anything.

And that gets me back to Althouse's silly defense of Cain. Even if he was a lobbyist, and even if doing his job did involve to a greater extent than many people "selling" his personality, while in the office, he had to follow the same rules as the rest of the office. He might be paid, mostly, for his real or imagined or hit or miss allegedly charming way with people. But in the office he was in the regulated zone. There is nothing new about work place standards. There is nothing new about knowing that if there is an objective standard (and that is pretty fucking clear stuff -- has been for decades,) and if one's personality goes past those standards, one not only is fucked. One should be good and well fucked. And that seems to be what was wrong with Cain. Cain must have had several workplace sexual harassment trainings or at least had to read policies and usually one signs the thing, saying they read, understand, and agree to be bound by that. So Althouse's defense is no defense at all.

Even if the rules in the workplace are more restrictive than in the social zone, there are similarities. Try to be charming at your own risk. Try being flirty at your own risk. Try to pick up or hook up at your own risk. And that is why I think Althouse's defense is silly. Not only does it go against the known law, and what most of us at least know is the law of the workplace. But it goes against commonly understood social rules. Be "Yourself," at your own risk. Some people might dig you being you. Others will take offense at your presumptuousness, your over familiarity, your excuseless, rude fucking nerve. And in the work place, more so, if you do any thing past the work place rules about sexual harassment that you likely agreed to on paper (and there is no doubt in my mind there's a signed policy form with his siggy in his archived HR file,) you do so at your own risk. And there's no excuse for it. Never mind, defending it.