Iowa court: Bosses can fire ‘irresistible’ workers
From the I Just Fucking Hate Everything Department comes this piece of legal news by Ryan J. Foley for the Associated Press:
A dentist acted legally when he fired an assistant that he found attractive simply because he and his wife viewed the woman as a threat to their marriage, the all-male Iowa Supreme Court ruled Friday.
The court ruled 7-0 that bosses can fire employees they see as an “irresistible attraction,” even if the employees have not engaged in flirtatious behavior or otherwise done anything wrong.
My favorite part of the article, by which I mean the part of the article that finally opened my eyes to the true horror of this empty universe and made me futilely scream into the maw of oblivion, was this one:
[Melissa] Nelson filed a lawsuit alleging gender discrimination, arguing she would not have been terminated if she was male. She did not allege sexual harassment because Knight’s conduct may not have risen to that level and didn’t particularly offend her, [her attorney Paige] Fiedler said.
This is not at all bad out of context, but the important part is how it relates to two previous sentences:
… in the final months of her employment, [boss James Knight] complained that her tight clothing was distracting, once telling her that if his pants were bulging that was a sign her clothes were too revealing, according to the opinion.
He also once allegedly remarked about her infrequent sex life by saying, “that’s like having a Lamborghini in the garage and never driving it.”
The chain of events set in motion by the Big Bang 13.75 billion years ago has lead to a point where this is not considered sexual harassment.
My soul weeps.