When I looked through my (virtual) clippings file to see what I might be interested in blogging about this week, I had three – count ‘em, three – possibilities that involved work-related law suits.
What’s a blogger to do?
I suppose if I were the mono-focus, monetizing, let’s really get a book out of this type, I could spend all of my blogging time on work-related law suits.
But that wouldn’t be all that interesting.
And it would probably be pretty darned repetitive, too.
Easy to imagine having to alternate between “this is the worst place in the world to work” screeds and “can you believe that someone’s suing over this?” posts.
So I thought I’d eliminate two of the possibilities, and focus on just one of the sue-the-bastards du jour.
The first one I got rid of involved the family of a 42-year old deckhand on The Bounty who was swept overboard and died when the ship was caught up in Hurricane Sandy. (The Bounty was used for the early 1960’s movie of Mutiny on the Bounty, and has since been a tourist attraction.) Yes, it was the captain’s decision to head out in the middle of a hurricane. But all the crew members were given the option of abandoning ship before it left port. Idiotic as that captain was – and he, too, died – surely, a 42 year-old is capable of heeding the warnings about the danger of one of the fiercest hurricanes on record, which were well known before The Bounty lifted anchor…
The second potential topic that got the heave-ho was one about a fellow in Upstate NY who’s suing McDonald’s for screwing with his hours to deprive him of overtime pay. Certainly, this practice is behavior most foul. But then I got all weirded out by the guy’s claim that he was making $13/hour at McDonald’s, which got me off the tort track and on to just what is an unskilled, minimum wage job worth.
So, with two tort candidates eliminated, I settled on the New Mexico worker who’s suing Intel because some fellow employees planted (and acted on) a “Kick Me” sign on his back.
The Intel employee, Harvey Palacio, said in the complaint recently filed in Albuquerque that once he suspected something was taped on his back during the August prank, he went to senior staffer Randy Lehman to ask if something was there.
"Lehman said turn around and as Palacio did he saw and heard (another employee) yell out `Don't read it, just do it'," the lawsuit said.
Lehman then kicked Palacio three times in his buttocks, according court documents. (Source: Huffington Post.)
Another colleague gave him another two kicks for good measure.
"Palacio decided that this could not continue and walked back in front of the group to ask someone else to remove it," the lawsuit said. "Palacio felt demoralized and assaulted and he began to cry during the drive home. He could not tell his wife because he was so embarrassed and ashamed."
Lehman and the other kicker were convicted of petty misdemeanor assault, sentenced to some community service, and fired by Intel (Lehman after 19 years).
But apparently the criminal charges, and getting the work-jerks fired, wasn’t enough for Palacio. So now he’s suing Intel.
There are a couple of ways that this saga can be interpreted.
1. Worker preyed upon by vicious a-hole workplace bullies. Certainly a possibility. There are some real thugs out there, and maybe the Intel Two are a couple of them. Palacio also claims that there were a couple of other incidents: his uniform hidden, his work bag filled with trash. Palacio, a Filipino, also believes that racism was involved. So maybe these brutes maliciously hid Palacio’s uniform so he actually couldn’t get his work done. Maybe they put really awful offal in his work bag. Maybe these guys were complete bigots trying to drive the “foreigner” out.
On the other hand, this could be a case of:
2. Thin-skinned guy with no sense of humor meets clumsy goof-ball pranksters with no common sense. No one’s going to argue that it’s a good idea to put a kick-me sign on someone’s back. (Ho, ho!) Let alone to actually kick him. But what if this was just how the gang of ‘merry pranksters’ at Intel rolled? Stupid “hijinks”: kicks the equivalent of love pats, trash in the bag that’s nothing more than an empty coffee cup and a Twinkie wrapper. Maybe that’s how all the newbies at Intel in Albuquerque were treated. Maybe they just wanted to get a reaction. Maybe they all had mild Asperger’s and couldn’t interpret Palacio’s discomfort as such.
Maybe because Intel’s a tech company, it’s a lot easier for me to imagine the second scenario than the first.
Palacio is seeking “unspecified damages” plus legal fees (naturally).
But before taking criminal and civil action, wouldn’t you think that Palacio would have complained to HR?
Maybe he did, but they didn’t do anything. Which doesn’t sound like something that would happen at any large company, given that, in today’s see-you-in-court climate, they need to tread very carefully.
And I do feel bad that this guy was so humiliated that he cried on his way home. (As someone who cried on the way home from work on occasion – though never due to a kick-me sign on my back – I know that feeling.)
Still, if – as I suspect – scenario two is closer to the truth, all this lawyering-up seems like overkill.
I could, of course, be dead wrong, and it was all scenario one, only worse.
And I do hope I remember to follow up on this one and see what happens.
For now, all I have to say is that, if Harvey Palacio wasn’t quick enough on the uptake to get the crude, indeed unpleasant frat-boy humor that still exists in the American workplace, he sure was quick enough to pick up on American suit happiness.
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