After a very hostile workplace conflict a year ago, I immediately decided to quit a job. I wasn’t forced out or anything but I was talked about immediately after the incident occured and I left within a few minutes of the conflict because the supervisor had not intervened until she saw that I was on my way out the door and she basically got scared because she knew that she was understaffed as it was and she needed me to stay there. I know that “voluntarily” quitting a job makes it harder to take legal action or anything like that, but I am suffering severe distress over this job incident, even though it happened over a year ago and I can’t move on from it because there was no real resolution and I was made to look very bad. Another thing, the coworker that I had the conflict with had been fired twice previously from that company so would that give me leverage in anyway.

Originally published 04:45 a.m., October 18, 2009, updated 12:55 p.m., October 18, 2009

Workplace Porn Wastes Time, Cash

Cheryl Wetzstein

First of two parts

On Sept. 29, my Washington Times colleague Jim McElhatton led the paper with a story about National Science Foundation (NSF) employees accessing pornography at their work computers.

The porn problem was pervasive enough to trigger a massive internal investigation. One senior NSF executive, for instance, had “spent at least 331 days looking at pornography on his government computer and chatting online with nude or partially clad women, without being detected,” Mr. McElhatton reported, based on records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.

The NSF executive retired once his pornography use was exposed, but investigators estimated that he alone wasted between $13,800 and $58,000 of taxpayer monies.

No one should imagine that the NSF scandal is isolated or rare. Workplace pornography is a major problem, according to the American Management Association (AMA).

Employers are fighting back with anti-porn filters on computers; as of 2007, about two-thirds of U.S. companies used such software, the AMA said. But there are still ways to evade the filters, and inexplicably, many employees seem determined to access porn at work, even if it costs them their jobs.

Listen to these comments, gathered by Idaho Post-Register reporter Corey Taule in an award-winning 2007 article on pornography.

Mark J. Holubar, a human resources executive, told Mr. Taule that his company is clear about its no-porn-at-work policy, but he still had an employee confess to him: “Yeah, I know I did it. I know it was wrong. I don’t know why, I was just doing it.”

And Gordon Boyle, a pastor at Calvary Chapel Church in Idaho Falls, Idaho, who counsels men for sex addiction, said it was “so bizarre” that employees would look at porn even when they knew they were being monitored. “I don’t think we understand the grip or the pull [of pornography],” Mr. Boyle told Mr. Taule.

That, I think, is the big question: What makes presumably well-educated, well-paid professionals risk everything they worked for just for another look?

The answer is simple — sex addiction, says Michael Leahy, author of the new book “Porn @ Work: Exposing The Office’s #1 Addiction.”

Mr. Leahy, a recovering sex addict, believes he was one of the first people to get involved with workplace porn. As an IBM computer specialist in the early 1980s, he and colleagues used porn at work years before online pornography and personal computers entered American homes. Later, as an executive with a private office and top-of-the-line computers, Mr. Leahy found even more ways to spend hours engrossed in porn.

“I was that person who is every line manager’s and HR professional’s worst nightmare — the sex addict at work who flew under the radar for years and never got caught,” Mr. Leahy wrote.

How does porn interfere with work? Initially, it just consumes countless hours (viewing images, concealing images, plus regular trips to private places to masturbate).

As the compulsive behaviors grow, porn-related rituals detract from work performance, Mr. Leahy wrote. A person preoccupied with porn, for instance, will miss meetings, fail to make calls or leave projects unfinished. They may seem to undergo a personality change, becoming easily irritated, unreasonably defensive or socially withdrawn.

It’s not uncommon for sex addicts to lose their spouses or their jobs, Mr. Leahy wrote. They also are prone to acting out sexually, exposing themselves to sexually transmitted disease and pregnancy, or legal problems “ranging from nuisance offenses to rape,” Mr. Leahy wrote. Business managers, he added, are particularly alarmed by sexual harassment or hostile workplace lawsuits filed over employees’ bad behavior.

Mr. Leahy has some solutions to offer, but first he wants to sound the alarm about college students.

Their college experiences are in a pornography-friendly subculture, he told me. “But the key is, when they have to stop — when they are made to stop — what will they do?”

Next week: Collision course.

• Send e-mail to cwetzstein@washingtontimes.com.

http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/oct/18/wetzstein-workplace-porn-wastes-time-cash/?feat=home_columns&

You have all seen some otherwise well adjusted women act in a clearly needlessly hostile, back biting, fashion to other women for no apparent reason, but not towards men as a rule. Some women claim real difficulty maintaining woman on woman friendships due to the depth and prevalence of these all too common intra gender rivalry’s. Why?

I currently work in a microbiology lab and find the workplace pretty hostile. Co-workers constantly complaining, gossiping. Throwing things around. Ganging up to make someone cry – twice. Cursing is part of the language. Co-worker asking inappropriate questions. Co-worker not co-operating with the manager/director. Loud hip hop radio music. Pay check with wrong calculation. Benefits not as stated. No disciplinary action taken ever. Rudeness and disrepectful attitudes.

I’ve heard that difficult people are everywhere, but I far should I really tolerate? I am thinking about looking for another job in a lab – would it helps?
Sorry about the typos:
It’s “co-workers” and “would it help?”
Sorry about the typos:
It’s “co-workers” and “would it help?”

Feminists fought for affirmative action and a lot of security for women in the workplace. Medium companies and up have to keep women even if they do not perform. Could that be the reason that although women get top grades in college (something affirmative action wont get them) and access to the working world they quit performing due to lack of pressure and end up getting edged by the male competition on the career ladder, because men can be subjected to pressure to push them while it would be considered creating “a hostile work enviroment” if the same is done to women ?
Croa and you think the reason women are immune to the lack of pressure and resulting drop in performance the way we saw it in communist countries (yes even glorious german engineers built $hitty cars in the red half of Germany)
is ?

I work for a supervisor that tries to run our workplace like a plantation. He talks down to people and harass employees wherever he interacts with them. He has truly created a hostile working environment. Please Help! Is there a legal remedy for this behavior?

This “union employee” seems to have all the right “connections” because their underperformance is NEVER questioned but every accusation that person makes against me is FULLY INVESTIGATED & RESEARCHED. All I want to do is come to work and do my job as part of the team, but this person does NOT take her work seriously and resents the fact that I do “above & beyond” on every task I am given, no matter how great or small. Should I seek legal counsel? I do not have the same resources as a Union has, and being there one year, I don’t have the “political allies & connections” the 10-year union employee has.

I am the department head. I have two workers that do not get along with each other, but everyone else here, including me, likes both of them. They do not need to interact with each other, and do not. There are no problems that way.

My question is, one of the two workers has decided to collect money from everyone here at work, except from the one worker this person does not get along with, for our state lottery drawing. The worker who collects the money does this during the work day, and has a sign posted where everyone can read it to participate.

My answer to the worker who is not included is that “this is not work related, and I can’t make the other worker include you in this.”

I have a feeling that I am wrong, and I do not want any legal ramifications from this. I cannot ask anyone higher than me, as I am it. Are there any web sites you can direct me to that may offer me some guidance, or do you have any knowledge legally concerning these circumstances?

Serious responses only please, as I consider this matter to be a serious one. 10 points awarded to the best answer.

I am working for a wholesale club in the food court, I have a co worker who I have really tried to work with and I just cannot do it. She is very hyper, so much so that a customer asked her to calm down because she was making him nervous. We each have tasks for closing the department at the end of the night, she is always jumping in and doing my job then talks to me like I asked her to do it for me?! She has told lies to the manager about me and he is on her side because, as he put it, shes a go getter (he doesn’t seem to see the sloppy jobs she does) and she is a friend of his mother(that’s how she got the job) He told me he is not anyone’s friend but she is the only one who has his home phone number. He also told her that he was going to have to fire another employee and I don’t know the laws in every company, but are managers supposed to talk to one employee about another? This company guarantees 24 hours a week to part time people, which is what I am, and each week I see she always has 26 to 30 hours and I have no more than 25, and also you have to take a lunch at the 5 hour mark, which is mandatory, so he gives me 5 1/2 hour days to make it look like I am getting 24 hours and in reality I am only getting around 22-23 at the most. I have closed with all of the other employees and we always get the job done with plenty of time to spare but every time I close with her we always go over, I can’t really explain why, she gets in my way and is verbally abusive, and lets you know without saying a word if she doesn’t like the job your doing. She was hired at the same time I was, but she has proceeded to tell me from day one what to do, like she knew everything. I have talked to management, and they say I just have to get along with her and that I must just have a bad attitude because she is so nice to them, well they don’t have to work with her either, shes a different animal when they are not around. I am trying to find another job (I actually have an AS in computer engineering) but right now there are few jobs to be had so I don’t want to quit until i have another, but I don’t want to dread going to work. I am getting physically sick thinking about it.

My employer has recently hired a new employee that has displayed violent outbursts.The employee gets angry and throws things and pounds their fists on the desk. It is a work place where 2 operators are alone in a small enclosed room, I have stated to my employer that I feel unsafe working with the other employee and other operators have also expressed concern. The employer has now said that they will not terminate employment based on my not liking the employee witch has nothing to do with any of my concerns. I have not asked for termination only that I not be scheduled alone with the employee exhibiting these violent outbursts. I want to know my legal rights. thank you