THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

"They ordered her to stop wearing turtlenecks.”

There are tops more conservative than turtlenecks? Did they want her to show up for work in a trashbag?

Skip, that was my thought, too.

A burqa, perhaps?

This is a travesty. Where I work, she’d be in management.

This is almost as good as something that happened at my wife’s work.  An employee was heavy and her chest is extremely large.  She really has problems finding business suit/dress type clothes (company’s dress code) that don’t show some cleavage. The employee’s boss asked all the male employees if her outfits bothered them.  All the guys later admitted that it was the most uncomfortable conversation they ever had.

The best part about it all, the boss that went around asking the male employees was female.

Somehow, after this article, I doubt she’ll have trouble finding a new job.

I did not read the whole article, but…

1) I am not sure what the basis of her lawsuit is, but of course if her employment is at-will (essentially no contract), then CitiBank can fire her for any or no reason, as long as they don’t run afoul of some federal or state anti-discrimination law or something like that.

2) If Citibank thinks that she is distracting to their male employees, then they have every right and obligation to fire her.  Why would I intentionally let someone negatively affect the performance of my company even if that person did nothing wrong?  I wouldn’t.  Businesses are not in business to be nice to their employees. They are in business to make money. If they are nice to their employees it is because they think it will make them more money.  (Which is of course why BP should not be “in charge” of the cleanup, even if they have the most expertise - because they are not interested in saving the environment other than how that might help their bottom line.  For example, they will NOT go bankrupt cleaning up the damage and fixing the leak, if that were possible.  They will do the most they can while spending the least amount of money.)

3) Most importantly, if all the readers of this blog got to split a nickel for every time an employee was genuinely fired for poor work performance and they complained that it was something else (and that their performance was just fine), well...we’d all have lots of nickels.

Not saying that that is true of her situation of course, but without knowing all of the facts, we have no idea.  That is what courts and arbitrators are for…

I checked out the slideshow.

Yes, she is definitely very hot. I thought the turtleneck, even though it shows no skin, was more revealing of her figure than a blouse and jacket business suit.

I would think that if the woman dresses appropriately but is still attractive to men, there’s not much more that she can do short of wearing a burqa - she was born that way. At that point it should be the men’s responsibility to keep their minds on their work, as hard as that might be.

Citibank, being a recipient of Federal bail out money, will face political pressure (more woman voters than men) to settle.

Unless they fire guys for being a distraction to female employees, this is sex discrimination, and she should have no problem winning a suit if it goes to court. 

I like her chances for a nice settlement out of court.  The political pressure would force Citibank to settle quickly and not draw it out as they tend to do in such suits.

MGL, do you ever wonder why no women visit this site. This sounds like pretty blatant sex discrimination to me.

Common, mgl, commenting without reading the whole article? Really?

If the allegations in the article are not too far from the truth, then she has every right to be upset. The reason given for the dismissal that she looks too hot is one thing but there are several other items in the article that do sound like poor treatment by her superiors at Citibank.

The reason the turtleneck is out of bounds:

ANYTHING where a woman’s breasts is involved is cause for major concern.  It doesn’t matter if it’s breast feeding, hidden completely, exposed, or whatnot.  As long as they are out there and not covered by at least two layers going in different directions, those breasts are the work of the devil.

I didn’t realize Citibank operated in the year 1131.

It’s ironic I am distracted from work right now.

Seriously, though, in a civilized world we have to expect men in a work environment to look past their female colleagues’ appealingness. If we men cannot do that, then we need to move to countries where women are forced to wear burqas. One of the outfits shown in the slideshow was too revealing for the workplace (photo 2, although it is not stated in the article whether she ever wore that to work. Looks more like a dress for a party), everything else was fine.

If you read the full article, you will read about a variety of instances where her superior acted like a sexist pig. E.g. taking away business from her, asking her to wear high heels instead of flip flops when carrying heavy items. I blame that guy for this debacle. And Citibank’s HR dept for not finding a good resolution.

The banking sector is likely the most sexist environment of all.

My sister used to work as a teller at one of the five major banks in Canada in her early 20s.  She already had a bachelor’s.  (She’s since gone on to get one or two other bachelor’s plus a law degree.) Anyway, she knew everything about everything, but she (the operative word being she) was charged with training her male colleagues who would then become her superiors.  They didn’t even try to hide the overtness of it.

And of course, once she started fighting the system, she was deemed a malcontent and made her life worse.  Eventually, she tired of fighting, and moved on.

The banks have a time-tested formula here, and they’re going to keep doing it.

***

I have another buddy at a major brokerage (major).  And, every year, what the higher ups would do is throw a party, and bring in what can only be described as highly paid escorts, who were specifically brought in (flown in) to accompany their best brokers (married or not).  It was understood that specific girls were for specific guys.

My buddy didn’t bat an eye when he told me this story.  It sounds like it’s commonplace.

On the west coast, you can forget how obsessed people are with clothing in New York.  The only people who wear ties in San Francisco are used car salesmen...They’d have to fire a ton of people with facial piercings at my bank before they got to the woman with tight clothes. 

Interestingly, in the comments in the Village Voice, a couple of people say that the woman in question used to be an escort.  This is a strange story in all directions.

#13 - i have some friends and an aunt that work in banks in NY, NJ and PA and its pretty much the opposite of a sexist work environment. sterile is how ive often heard it described.  even the i-banks.  maybe its different in canada, tho. 

but brokerages? definitely i can see that.  i interned for a summer during college at a small suburban brokerage in nj and it was filled with scumbags.  plenty of decent folk too but its the scum that give it the reputation.

Even if she has worked as an escort: so what?

Sure she is an attractive woman, but not (just based on the pictures) someone who would make me lose my faculties once I knew her. That at least is my experience when working or otherwise interacting with very attractive members of the oposite sex, you still appriciate their attractivness, but the “dumbstruck” factor goes away once you get to know them.

That beeing said it is hard to judge any story like this based on only one side of the story.

This is a travesty.

BTW, #6, she looked pretty hard working to me.

This story has now reached the media in Germany. Contains a statement by Citibank that they consider the suit to be without merit and that they will defend against it vigorously.
http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/0,1518,698837,00.html

http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/watching_my_story_go_viral_in.php?page=all

All kidding aside, the intuitive position is that dress is a matter of personal taste as long as it conforms to an office standard and it is not distracting.

Now go and try to define that standard n court.

Click on my name for a very short article with a 10 min video of Ms. Debrahlee Lorenzana that adds some light to the situation.

In the original Village Voice article Lorenzana is quoted as follows: “Are you saying that just because I look this way genetically, that this should be a curse for me?”

Truly it is a shame that this “genetically” beautiful woman can’t get exactly the attention she wants but no more.  Oh how the beautiful suffer so.  What has become of this once great nation of ours?

I haven’t read any of the information and looked at a couple of pictures, but haven’t I seen this movie before?

Let me see if I can try and recant how it plays out.

She’s fired. She sues. She wins some money, and parlays it into something lcassy like a Playboy centerfold, or some role in a B-movie.

After 2 months, no one will remember a thing.

Let me promise you one thing, If a male employee showed up in pants so tight that you could see his “drum hammer” down his leg (or “tell his religion” as some say), Mr. Tightpants would be sent home immediately, or worse. Ms. Skintightturtleneck is free to finish the day and wear something similar tomorrow.

Women show their cleavage all the time in the workplace, as if it were where you needed to swipe your credit card. What would these same folks think of a male employee that had his top 3 buttons unbuttoned, and you could see both of his collarbones? Now, throw hair all over his chest and it gets even worse.

Unprofessional is unprofessional.

I watched the first part of the promotional video for the plastic surgeons.

To my eyes, she is very attractive regardless of her chest size, but she explains that she is getting her breasts enlarged in order to attract her soul mate, who should be 35+, over 6 feet tall and rich.

Does she understand what ‘soul’ means? To me, it has nothing to do with breast size or income - it’s what’s on the inside of each of us. She seems certain that true love only comes from shopping in a catalog. It’s sad.

I would imagine that some soul mates were originally drawn to each other by physical attractiveness and later came to know the true beauty inside.

---"To my eyes, she is very attractive regardless of her chest size, but she explains that she is getting her breasts enlarged in order to attract her soul mate, who should be 35+, over 6 feet tall and rich.
_________

Why would a 40 yr old guy, who is tall and rich, want to marry a woman who is so superficial that she needs to have big fake tits? I mean, have you guys ever seen how ridiculous these women look on the internet? IMO, unless the woman had abnormally small breasts and had implants just to be average, I am a priori not interested. The mentality is just not compatible. Not to mention how much of a turnoff it would likely be to touch one of those fake balloons, and realize you are simply going all gaga over a bag of silicone.