Sexual Harassment Policy Update

By Rick Spender, Interim HR Director

Dear Associates:

It’s been about four months since our last HR Director instituted our new Sexual Harassment Policy (the Policy), then got shot out of the corporate cannon for trying to play Altar Boy and Father Flanigan with a few interns. Since I’ve heard a bit of grumbling recently, I felt it best to review and slightly revise the Policy to reflect expressed employee concerns.

The previous Policy was structured with the intent of maintaining a corporation-wide strictly professional atmosphere. The administrative offices (Admin) rarely if ever engage with clientele or corporate executives with the Board so far up their asses that they’re required to care about such things, thus I am instituting a new sexual harassment policy (New Policy) for Admin.

Aside from the previously mentioned misdirected horndog whose chair I ordered burned before I took office, you have all been great about adhering to the most important aspects of the Policy. The “unwanted sexual advances” section of the Policy will stay the same, but apparently lost is the fact that sexual harassment is more than just random titty tweaks and sack rascals. Where problems still lie – thus where changes need be made – is in the “hostile or uncomfortable work environment” section of the Policy.

Gender-specific conversation, especially in the arena of health concerns, is far and away the leading cause of complaints with respect to the Policy. While I appreciate the spirit of the Policy, the fact is that I only have so much time with which to work – I can either listen to you complain about each other or I can work on getting you a more affordable health plan – thus the New Policy offers a self-policing approach to the hostile-work-environment situation. Listed below are the elements of the Policy to be revamped and their correlating New Policy standards, effective immediately:

The Policy – Topics such as personal care which may be considered unseemly or gender-specific detract from the professionalism of the workplace and will not be tolerated.

New Policy – From the reports I’m getting, there are topics women don’t find unseemly that make their male co-workers want to spew their Chipotle. Therefore, the “unseemly” guideline is no longer applicable, and a fight-fire-with-fire approach is more apropos. Thus, whenever a female associate (She) rails endlessly about complications with her menstrual cycle in nauseating chunk-and-blood detail, a male associate (He) gets one free five-minute public diatribe dedicated to the horror and anguish that is sack bunch. For each time She paints a placenta-smearing verbal portrait of a birth she recently witnessed, He is entitled to address Her department on the pulsating torment that is raging, wake-you-up-an-hour-before-the-alarm-goes-off Morning Wood.

I would call this a “tit for tat” approach, but some of you pranksters and wanksters in Legal would try to justify honking a Marketing intern’s hooters while waving this above your heads and yelling “Tat!” , thus it shall officially be titled a Common Sense Approach. More Common Sense Approach revisions to the Policy will follow as they become necessary – until then the Policy stands as written on all other topics.

Good day.

Rick Spender, Interim HR Director.