Meg Whitman's $200,000 Shove

On Tuesday I tripped across a little blurb on Google News. Seems that e-Bay CEO and Republican candidate for Governor of California, Meg Whitman shoved an employee around. In a mediated settlement Ms. Whitman ended up paying $200,000 to the employee.

Physically assaulting an employee might not be an epidemic sized problem but it is not as infrequent as one might think. In my 25 odd year career as a shop steward and union organizer/rep two cases (not the only cases mind you) immediately come to mind. The first is a boss who threw things at employees; things like pens and staplers and whatever was on his desk. The second involves a supervisor who man-handled an employee while having a work-related temper tantrum.

My daughter has recently got me hooked into watching the Shotime series, The Tudors. There was a particularly hard episode the other night where Henry VIII absolutely thrashes a messenger who brings unwanted news. Henry apologized for the thrashing, and maybe Meg Whitman apologized too, I don't know? There is however something naturally abhorrent about somebody who thrashes somebody else when that somebody else can't lift a finger to defend themselves.

An employee of the boss who threw things at employees told me that this boss defined her job and other employees' jobs in this way: "Your job is to make me look good." I still think about what this guy said. Not to stretch the Henry VIII stuff too far, but I find it odd, almost feudal to describe an employee's work in such a personal way. No talk about function and job duties, no reference to a position within a wider process. Instead, this boss described the job in terms of a personal master to servant relationship.

Oddly, even though many employees are not beaten, there still seems to be this common mentality where employees see their function in terms of servitude to a more exalted personality... Called the boss. This is unfortunately the mentality which allows bosses to demean, bully and even beat an employee. In this sense many workplaces function as a royal court for the boss. Which de facto makes every employee a servant, and all too often a willing servant.

In the above sense, maybe John Lennon was right when he sang:

Keep you doped on religion, sex and TV
Think you're so clever and classless and free
But you're still f-ing peasants as far as I can see