The EEOC is reporting an increase in the number of males reporting sexual harassment on the job at the hands of other males. Between 1992 and 2008 the percentage of charges filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) by men doubled from 8% to 16% and more of the cases being reported were male-on-male sexual harassment. Stats can be difficult to track since the EEOC does not keep statistics on the gender of the harasser.

Regardless of the gender involved, sexual harassment is about control, abuse of power and the desire to humiliate the victim.  The current economic climate might be a factor in the rise of these types of cases. “In tough times, you have more layoffs and more terminations,” says Joshua Zuckerberg, a partner in the labor and employment department of Pryor Cashman. “People are trying to find a theory to challenge their termination.” Add to the mix the stresses of being overworked and dissatisfied and you have an environment in which people are unwilling to tolerate behavior they might have put up with a few short years ago.

Male-on-male harassment is particularly difficult to prove in court however. Men have to prove they’re being harassed based on gender, and that can be difficult to prove. The EEOC wants workers to understand that regardless of the gender of the harasser and his or her victim, sexual harassment in the workplace is illegal.

To learn more about male-on-male sexual harassment in the workplace, click here.

In this week’s Managing the Meanies, Buck introduces us to the concept of cronyism – the practice of favoring one’s close friends for positions of power. It’s as rampant in business as it is in politics and often just as destructive…

Cronyism is the management style of keeping the boss surrounded with favorites despite the glaringly obvious fact that these people are incompetent, if not outright harmful to the business. At its extreme this corporate-tribes phenomenon has the favorites fashioning themselves after the boss – all wearing sweater vests, for example – or embracing the beliefs of the boss, his faith or hobbies. Everyone sees through what’s going on except the bully boss because he’s too preoccupied with having his ego stroked. One of my colleagues referred to this bully manager’s favored inner circle as the boss’s “sucklings”, in confidence to me of course; this bully-boss played favorites and if you were in his inner circle then you could do no wrong. The rest of us were never consulted. The problem of course was that the inner circle was stocked with incompetents and the company ultimately, after thrashing around and struggling in the death-grip throes of mismanagement, faced bankruptcy.

The Court Jester

Back in the 1990’s a paper company I worked for had a marketing manager named Jack. He was a dangerous corporate buffoon who was so snuggled up with the senior bosses that he was untouchable. Not only was he incompetent, I can also say that much of his professional behavior was unethical. Like the king’s jester, he was a dangerous member of the Read the rest of this entry »

Last week we posted a reader submitted true really bad boss story originally submitted as a comment on our Worst Bosses of All Time post. Inspired, or disgusted, by the story, another reader added her own really bad boss tale to the post. In her case the boss in question stormed around the office like a mad woman, denied her staff time off and actually hit another employee in the face with a book! This story sounds like an EEOC suit waiting to happen. Here’s the full story as it was submitted…

Last year, my company slashed our salaries by a great deal without warning. Since I wasn’t making much to begin with, this was a devastating blow to me financially. I began to interview and when I received an offer for substantially more than I was making at the time, plus overtime, I jumped at it. There were red flags from the beginning, I didn’t meet with the President or the Director until I started. At first, it was the Director who was making my life miserable. Giving me huge projects I wasn’t familiar with and didn’t have the tools to complete. I literally did not have the software on my computer to finish these projects but was told to improvise. At the time, I had no idea how good I had it because once the President got a hold of me, my life was pure hell.

The President was a large woman, both in size and height, with a voice that sounded like nails on a chalkboard. During my first week there, I saw here slap her assistant in the face, twice, with a checkbook for some perceived mistake. As I began to work more closely with her, I realized everything you did was wrong to her. You had to write a formal memo explaining everything and she wouldn’t talk about things via email. You literally had to write a memo saying, attached Read the rest of this entry »

We’d like to take a moment to remember the victims of Haiti and their loved ones and family members all over the world. We’d also like to express our gratitude to those members of the world community who selflessly have made their way to Haiti to help with the relief efforts. For our part, we’ve shown our support by donating to Doctors Without Borders. We’ve added a Doctors Without Borders donation button to our sidebar. Clicking the button will take you directly to their donation site. Lets keep the prayers and support going.

This week at Really Bad Boss…

A reader submits a story about her new boss from hell. This is one for the books folks…

Ganging Up is the new – old management style. This week’s Managing the Meanies installment discusses the phenomenon.

The big bad bosses over at NBC really stepped in it this time. We’re predicting though, that for them anyway, there’ll be little financial fall-out over the Leno/O’Brien fiasco. In fact, we bet their bonuses are still in tact.

A CFO steals $675,000 from a New Orleans charter school because those kids haven’t been through enough. There’s a special place in really bad boss hell for people like that.

The CFO and former business manager of the Langston Hughes Academy in New Orleans allegedly stole $675,000 worth of school funds over a 15 month period. An forensic audit of the school’s accounts revealed that Kelly Thompson, who was arrested back in November, made over 150 cash withdrawals ranging from $100 up to nearly $9,000 each.

As a result of the theft, the charter school was left in “shambles” said school board chair Mickey Allweiss. Langston Hughes Academy was the first new public school building to open in New Orleans post-Katrina and houses both elementary and middle school programs.

There’s a special place in really bad boss hell for people who steal from children – particularly those who steal from children who’ve been through the sort of tragedy that followed Katrina. Read the full story about the academy and the thieving CFO here.

Photo: First graders at Langston Hughes Academy Charter School – Photograph by Amanda Wiles.

If you or I had mucked up the way the head honchos have at NBC, we’d be out of a job faster than you could hum the NBC chimes. Let’s recap…

Leno (who I personally think is the least funniest of the late night hosts) has the number one late night talk show on the air. Things are going so well, the folks at NBC say, “let’s fix it” – because we all know, no one can break anything that’s working, faster than a bad boss. They say, “Let’s skew for a younger audience and let’s save a gang of cash while we’re at it. We’ll cancel promising shows like Southland, move venerable favorites like the Law & Order franchise to the 9:00pm timeslot and ‘change the face of prime time.’”  Ok, so maybe those weren’t their exact words.

If by ‘change the face of prime time’ they meant put dozens of people out of work to ensure the continued employment of wealthy comedians and NBC execs, fail miserably at their new venture, and have to eat crow only months later, then NBC and it’s current team of decision makers are the most successful group of individuals ever to “grace” network television.

In all the shuffle, O’Brien’s lost his big dream of hosting The Tonight Show, Leno, although presumably returning to his 11:35pm slot, completely flopped and might want to start thinking about hanging it up, and Fallon, well Fallon has just become a footnote in all the brouhaha. When it’s all said and done, it is hard to feel sorry for these guys with their million dollar contracts and buy-out deals. Who I do wonder about is O’Brien’s staff and crew who picked up and moved to the other side of the country for this gig. What will they do now? I doubt if their contracts include million dollar clauses. And what about the slew of 10:00pm shows, stars, crew and crafts people who were all left without gigs months ago?

Who I’m not wondering about are the head honchos at NBC. If history is any indicator, even after a gi-normous mistake like this, their jobs will still be intact, as will their salaries and bonuses. It seems that even in late-night, the more things change, the more they stay the same.