LITIGATION VALUE: STILL 300,000+ (for the time being. . . )
I don’t think that the “newpeats” introduced any new story lines that would significantly increase the litigation value for these episodes – for the time being. It would, after all, be harder to make things much worse. Having a regional manager tell a Hispanic employee that his Mexican heritage “defines” who he is and then suggesting that he ride a donkey to the Mexican-themed office party in his honor is going to remain a troublesome little piece of evidence. But we already knew that, didn’t we?
Let’s talk for a minute about Andy’s little outburst. I can’t seem to figure out why Dunder Mifflin didn’t just fire him. He punched a hole in the wall. At work. Sure, we all want to do the same thing some time, but we don’t. It’s called impulse control. Andy doesn’t have it. Why would Dunder Mifflin want to keep someone like that? While anger management training would be a step in the right direction for an employee worth salvaging, Andy is not one of those employees. He performed terribly at his sales call, created morale issues and conflict in the workplace, and he is, quite simply, a bit of a weasel. And what happens if the next time that Andy loses his temper he injures someone? We lawyers like to call that “negligent retention.” And, unlike Oscar’s claim, it has no damage caps.
not to mention, not only did they not fire him, they apparently paid for him to go on a 10 WEEK anger management course (i.e. rehab) – that can’t be cheap!
I mean, people have become sober (or not-gay) in half that time. 😉
But he went to Cornell and sang in an a capella group. He’s untouchable.
Actually, I think the manager emphasized that what was important was not the fact that Oscar was gay, but that he was Mexican–his “Mexicanity” was his most important characteristic.
Lawyers recall these things.
What a great blog–got here from Larry Bodine’s listserv.
Back to my Office,
Wendy Leibowitz, whose Polishanity/Russkiness is important to some