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The Profitable 10%

May 17, 2009
By .
Law, Law Practice

This week I'm giving sexual harassment prevention training to employees of a small city, then training supervisors on how to respond to and investigate complaints. Then I'm doing the same for the city's entire police force.

The police force has few women, and by some accounts treats them badly. Some officers have been heard to say that women shouldn't be police officers. I expect to field some hostile questions. I was planning to bring a quarter, so I could hand them a quarter and say "Here, call the year 1964 and tell them you're pissed that they undermined your manhood." But that strikes me as a bit hostile. I'm working on toning it down.

Most people educated in the last three decades could hear my presentation and think that they had heard it all before. Most people not raised by feral crack abusers could hear my list of suggestions about how not to act and think "well obviously I'd never act like that at work."

But it's nevertheless necessary and useful. Here's the breakdown: 80% of my audience knows this stuff already, or even if they don't, would never act in a way that could violate sexual harassment law because they were raised to act decently. 10% of my audience lacks common sense about how to act and has forgotten their prior training, and requires the training to remind them how not to act, but will do fine after the training.

The other 10% is unable to retain simple instructions and lacks the inclination or capacity to act decently even when someone explains to them what "decently" looks like. They will do bad stuff, or not, depending on opportunity, boredom level, and happenstance. They will do so whether or not I train them.

That 10% pays my mortgage.

Last 5 posts by Ken

6 Comments
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6 Comments

  1. Chris Berez  •  May 17, 2009 @7:07 pm

    But that strikes me as a bit hostile. I’m working on toning it down.

    I dunno. I don't see anything wrong with humiliating a piece of shit in front of his peers.

    But, given your experience and all, I'm sure you know far better than me. However, just the very fact that you considered doing that at all is just another reason among many for why I like you.

  2. Scott Jacobs  •  May 17, 2009 @7:38 pm

    Sure, tone it down a little, but keep that option ready, in case they really don't seem to get it.

    Or if they just annoy the crap outta you…

  3. Transplanted Lawyer  •  May 18, 2009 @6:46 am

    Yeah, I'd tone down the "1964" comment for sure. Maybe frame it in terms of realism and self-interest? "Sorry, my friend, but we just don't live in that kind of a world anymore and let's face it, the law in THIS state isn't going to let things get back to that kind of a world. Now, if you want to stay on the right side of that law, and stay out of a nasty civil court, you'll listen to what I've got to say."

  4. Ken  •  May 18, 2009 @6:50 am

    Yeah, that's the way I am playing it, particularly with the police audience (the admin audience should be less hostile). "Look, I know you all just love hanging out in small smelly rooms being questioned by guys like me instead of doing your job. But if, just maybe, you don't like hanging out with lawyers . . . ."

  5. CEJ  •  May 18, 2009 @7:37 am

    That is a great line; please use it!

  6. Charles  •  May 18, 2009 @10:32 am

    I disagree with Transplanted Lawyer's suggestion (though he might not put it this way) that you should pander to the cops in the slightest by suggesting that the law is the problem, rather than their desire to be asses to the women at work.

    Even if sex-harassment law has created a cottage industry of false claims it is still a better world for the way it punishes people who really don't know how to behave.

    That 10% pays your mortgage and your lectures give the department the ability to fire the guy because he can't honestly say that he didn't know better. Both of these are good things.