Re: The George Mena Affair (with suitable accompanying music) and a long Rant.

["McMARTIN, Robert" <rmcmarti -at- BAEA -dot- COM -dot- AU>]

One of the joys (demons) of living in another time zone, is that we
either get to say either the first word, or the last word.

I will state right now, there were aspects of George's posting that were
generalist, but I feel that he deserves defending. I have over the years
worked for a variety of people, male and female managers and yes there
were good and bad in both sexes.

I had one male manager who seemed to spend his entire time with another
manager figuring out ways to get me to quit, the reason I had been in
the company longer than him and people came from all over the office to
ask me questions.  His problem was that he didn't know enough about the
company, or what was going on with the hardware to sound authoritative.
So his solution, bring me down in everyones eyes and make him look like
the font of knowledge.  Did it bother me, nope jobs are easy to find.  I
just quit that job and started another one.

In another job, I really did have the Harpy from Hell.  In much the same
situation as the Anon poster, myself and a female person (so as not to
offend the PC police) were employed in the same positions.  Based on
experience with the software I was given the senior position.  About 12
months later the Lady was promoted to a new position above me.  I had no
problem with this as I was a contractor anyway, and she worked as a wage
slave and had been a Tech Writer longer than me.  During the 12 months,
I worked well with her and never had an argument, I listened carefuly to
everything she said and only ever overruled her, twice on issues of the
software
and always took here advice on writing, layout, ot formatting.

Once this Lady was appointed to the new position, everything changed, it
was like overnight there was a personality transplant.  She did
literally become the Harpy from Hell, not only to me, but to everyone
else we worked with.

It seemed that this Lady had to prove to everyone that she was better
than everyone else, not just me.  After a few months of this, I
submitted letters to management twice that unless something was done by
a due date I would be leaving my contract.  Another two months went
passed nothing was done, in fact it got worse (at this point I can
sympathise with ANON when they talk about the manager and the IT
department going through their hard drive).  On the date mentioned in
the letter I walked out on the contract.

I have a few other along the same lines.  It has been my finding that
some (please note the use of some) female bosses are definitely harder
on male employees than on females.  (I could go along with this thread
for a while)  I will also say that in my experience there have been a
few male bosses that I have happily decked on behalf of the female
employees, due to their behavior.

So should George have been shutdown for his statements.  NO.  I took
what he was writing as his personal opinion.  If he upset a few people
on the list, live with it.  Sometimes the truth hurts.  Do I agree with
what George said, won't say, but I will defend to the death his right to
say it.


Please remember this list is made up of thousands of individuals, we do
not know what motivates others, so we should not attempt to dictate what
others can and can't say.

Eric, has the right to do as he sees fit with his list.  If Eric feels
that someone over steps the mark, thats up to him, but please don't
shutdown people because they
are only stating an opinion as they see it.  If that persons remarks
offend someone, take it up with the individual.

The whole thing smack of the old grafitti "Silence those who oppose
freedom of speech".

See you when you get back George.


Rob.

 From ??? -at- ??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000=