More Asshattery at Work

Will it never end?

Today we had the obligatory Sexual Harassment / Dress Code meeting. Since it actually had something to do with my job, I had no problem attending it. Of course, they had to make it silly and tell us there would be a quiz afterwards. Let me count the ways of silliness:

1. Although most of my co-workers are related to each other (mother-son, husband-wife, etc), which wouldn't be tolerated at most other companies, we are not to "touch or hug" each other, even when doing so would not offend the other person involved. So my supervisor cannot hug her son when he comes in to visit her. That's sexual harassment, according to them. OK, that's reasonably understandable, although a bit strident in the mother-son case. "We're not a mom-and-pop shop anymore, we're corporate and we have to act like it". Well, then the prayers before every meeting probably won't work anymore. The EEOC tends to frown on that sort of thing.
2. The women's dress code excludes "showing cleavage to any extent, spaghetti straps or too-tight clothes since it inspires LUSTFUL THOUGHTS in male co-workers". Uhh.....is this 2008 or 1955? Should we wear burqas?
They actually made the men go to another office for their meeting. A co-worker of mine who grew up in Indonesia (a Muslim country) said that her first reaction to the email saying that the sexes would be separated for the meeting was "are we a Muslim company now? I thought this was supposed to be a Christian company?" Never mind that we could actually wear burqas and men would STILL have lustful thoughts about us; that's how men are programmed. That's why the human race didn't die out years ago. It's a little thing called testosterone, folks, look it up. Women have that too, by the way......oh no wait! Women don't LIKE sex. At least, they're not supposed to.
3. If our nipples show through our clothes for any reason, we should wear a padded bra or for more stubborn cases, there are "band-aids" in the medicine cabinet to put over them. People, I'm not putting anything like that on my nipples. When it's cold outside, I can cut glass with them. Apparently, neither men nor women are supposed to have any sort of physiological reaction during working hours. Period. And no hard-ons, either!
4. We are not to use "sarcasm or cynicism" when speaking to co-workers about company policies or each other. What's next, verbs? Litotes? Sarcasm is my raison d'etre and I'm a practicing Cynic. I smell a little bit of fear here on the CEO's part and that kinda turns me on. Trying to legislate how people speak is the first step in megalomania and I've blogged before about his Messiah complex. This bit underlines that in my mind.
5. If we witness or hear anything offensive, we are to run straight to HR, do not pass GO, do not collect $200. Be a whiny bitch and don't take care of the situation yourself at all, because you're a weak little woman and you'd probably just turn him on anyway with your spaghetti straps and your rigid nipples, you whore.

After the meeting was over, our comments were solicited and yeppers, you can bet your by golly wow I had some. First I sent a joke email to the head of HR about the general content of the meeting (the aforementioned quiz): "oh the usual stuff: sexual harassment, dress codes, bra straps, nipples and llamas". Then I drew out the big guns and used my powers of persuasion, telling her that I found it rather offensive and ignorant that they felt that women invited male "lustful thoughts" by their workplace dress, rather than men initiating those thoughts themselves. Also, I sent her proper definitions of sarcasm and cynicism, and that these were necessary and helpful parts of speech. I told her that I was 42 years old and as long as I wasn't gossiping or swearing like a longshoreman, I would determine how I should speak and what words I would use to do it.
The reply I received back from HR was thus: "Thank you for your comments. We stand by the content of the meeting".