RE: Hiring Discrimination

Subject: RE: Hiring Discrimination
From: "sloughmiller" <sloughmiller -at- sbcglobal -dot- net>
To: <admin -at- techwr-l -dot- com>, <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2006 15:11:57 -0500

Dear Anonymous,

I'm flabbergasted by what you heard; I think I would have had my mouth open
after hearing that. Depending on my relationship with the person would I
have commented, "Are you out of your mind; do you know what you just said;
are you trying to get fired or just behaving as though you're untouchable?
Do I have your permission to voice your open opinion to management or file a
report against you?"

On the other hand, I may have remarked that "all young men are not without
children and not all older women have children or are without
grandchildren." Still yet, "Is telecommuting or part-time work a
possibility if training the individual is such an issue; is this individual
a valuable contributor?"

I just read yesterday that by 2006, 47% of the workforce will be women.
Today, some companies are installing private nursing rooms at their
locations, while others day-care facilities.

A tech writer of mine was nursing her child; and scheduling was as difficult
as paying her full time to work only half the day. Working with this
individual required a tremendous amount of compassion; often times, I found
it very challenging to accept the situation.

The irony was that she was the only writer capable of completing a major
complex task that I had assigned to two others which inability to accomplish
ultimately led to their discharge.

A lead writer of mine was always off on a long weekend with her rich husband
about every three months or so, and a couple times a year for a week or two
on holiday, and it drove me crazy as there were times when I missed her
badly, but she was a workhorse who never missed a deliverable and did more
than her fair share in spite of her absence.

Finally, I may have commented in a compassionate tone, "You know everyone
deserves a life, even you. Have you ever thought about heading an
alternative competency development initiative, such as "succession planning"
to achieve your strategic objectives?"

:) SL

-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+sloughmiller=sbcglobal -dot- net -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+sloughmiller=sbcglobal -dot- net -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On
Behalf Of Administrator at TECHWR-L
Sent: Tuesday, September 26, 2006 3:47 AM
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: FWD: Hiring Discrimination

Forwarded anonymously on request:

As backup to the fact that it is impossible to prove age/sex
discrimination during the hiring process, I offer the following
example,

The company I work for is a small, privately owned software company. I
think we just hit the 100 employee mark, and that's a 100% increase
over 2 years ago.

In a recent discussion about hiring a technical writing intern, the
hiring manager made a comment that she was more interested in resumes
from male applicants and/or older women. Why? Because they don't get
pregnant and end up on mat leave for a year. I was aghast!! That's
discrimination. I understand their position, they've hired a lot of
people and many are on mat leave now or currently pregnant. Only about
50% of them return after mat leave. Small companies can have a hard
time financially - it takes months to train someone and then you have
to hire and train someone while they're on mat leave. If they return
after mat leave, you can potentially end up with more employees than
you really need. Contract doesn't work because of the time it takes to
train people on our software / systems / development environment, etc.
In my mind though, that's the cost of doing business. It shocked me
though to hear someone say it out loud.

Out of curiosity, how would you react to hearing that? Should I have
done anything with that information?

Anonymous

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References:
FWD: Hiring Discrimination: From: Administrator at TECHWR-L

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