Stop Making My Case For Me

One of the problems that come up from time to time in a business context is that the standard of what a “reasonably prudent person” would believe is not a universal constant. In civil litigation, the standard used to judge someone’s actions is what a reasonable person would expect in those circumstances, which leaves room for things that you wouldn’t expect, could not be expected to anticipate, couldn’t imagine actually happening, and so on. What makes this a problem is that even if all but one of the 310 million people in the U.S. think something is unreasonable, the one person remaining may not; and if that person is the owner of the company you work for, he or she may do something so completely outrageous (and outstandingly stupid) that even sarcastic bloggers like me can only read the story about it in open-mouthed amazement…

Take, for example, the case of a woman from Salt Lake City who has filed suit against her former employer citing sexual harassment. According to the complaint, her former employer gave her a schedule that included "Mini-skirt Monday," "Tube-top Tuesday," "Wet T-shirt Wednesday," "No bra Thursday" and "Bikini top Friday," along with a wide variety of verbal, physical and occasionally graphic vulgarities far too disgusting to enumerate here. These culminated in a document “authorizing” her boss to sexually harass her, which the plaintiff was given the choice of signing or being terminated. As truly staggering as these behaviors are, I can’t help thinking that the most mind-blowing aspect of the story is that the employer actually put all of these demands in writing – and that the plaintiff has been able to produce them as part of the court documents…

My point in calling this to your attention isn’t that I’m worried about any of my readers (assuming I have readers) doing anything this mindlessly idiotic; the details in this story would have been exceptional even fifty years ago, and are national-news headlines today. My point is that somebody out there – someone who was able to launch and operate his own business, in fact – thought that these behaviors were completely reasonable. He may be the only person in North America who would think so (although I would hesitate to bet money on that), but for the purposes of this one business relationship, that does not matter; his treatment of this employee is so outrageously bad that even a prime-time sitcom would hesitate to portray any character that delusional. Assuming the facts of the case are as stated, this individual is truly doing things that would make you doubt his sanity in a business context. The problem is, he’s not the only one…

The fact is that most people have some irrational belief, bias or blind spot which can affect their behavior. For most of us it’s something harmless, like the belief that the Los Angeles Dodgers are the greatest baseball team ever (they are), that cats are better than dogs as family pets (they absolutely are), or that broccoli is evil (just take my word for it, all right?), but you can never assume that any given person is going to behave in a fashion that you would consider reasonable, just because state and federal law require them to do so. And if you do make that assumption, it is entirely possible that strange, unpredictable and outrageous things will happen to your business, as well – and that you won’t be ready for them…