In an ironic twist to the straight-politician-covering-up-the-fact-that-he’s-gay trend, San Francisco fifth district councilman Ted Sand was arrested earlier this month and charged with drunk driving. Sadly, a drunk politician driving himself home no longer classifies as news.

What does? When the drunk and openly gay politician is arrested along with his exotic female dancer passenger and both are accused of engaging in a “dangerous high-speed sex act.” Sands claims he had no improper relations with the 31 year old and was just “giving her a ride. Home.”  I added that extra period for emphasis.

The plot thickened when Gloria Allred (the Al Sharpton of women’s rights, i.e. shows up at the opening of an envelope) issued a statement claiming she represents a “very biological” woman who also claims to be in a sexual relationship with Sand.

A gay politician hiding heterosexual tendencies? A straight politician pretending to be gay? Who knows and who would have thunk it…

Read more on Ted Sands and the arrest here.

You don’t say…

Career Builder’s newest survey tells us what we’ve known all along – most bosses say they’d never gotten management training before becoming managers. The survey also spoke to 4,000 workers and in 25% of them accused their supervisor of playing favorites and a whopping 40% said their company’s leadership team didn’t listen to employees or try to raise morale.

The survey also found  that 26% of managers were skeptical about their ability to manage when first hired. They were particularly concerned about being able to deal with issues between co-workers.

Read more about the survey here.

No matter how bad your boss is do not, I repeat, DO NOT poison her tea.

Unfortunately my advice is too late for two North Carolina cafeteria workers who were charged with poisoning their bosses tea last month. The workers, 64 year old Eileen Hallamore and 38 year old Angela Johnson, attempted to poison their boss, the cafeteria manager, by putting a foreign substance in her tea.

This isn’t the first case of angry employees opting to go the “poison” route. In London a 33 year old nanny is serving a year in prison after poisoning her boss, and in India, a scientist who had a longstanding beef with a senior scientist is accused of mixing mercuric chloride in glass of water.

If by good you mean bad and by person you mean flesh-eating bacteria, then yes Bernie Madoff you are a good person. Great even. Our favorite Ponzi-scheming, imprisoned badvisor says he’s actually…wait for it…”a victim.”

In the interview, that spanned more than a dozen phone calls with New York Magazine reporter Steve Fishman, Madoff never said who talked him into starting his scheme, but said that though his scam cost many their life savings, he was the long-suffering victim.

“Look, imagine going home every night, not being able to tell your wife, living with this ax over your head, not telling your sons, my brother, seeing them every day in the business and not being able to confide in them,” he said.

Fishman told ABC News it was that self-pity that made it seem as if Madoff “was in denial at some level.”

“Bernie doesn’t understand that he’s ruined people’s lives,” he said.

Ya think? Read more about Madoff’s denial here.

I’ve worked in at least two places where a colleague announces her pregnancy only to have a cold silence fall over management. They’d never be brazen enough to admit it, but some managers find pregnancy an annoyance and resent the employee for “disrupting” the workflow by getting pregnant. The U.S. already has one of the shortest maternity leave policies in the western world. Add to it the disdain of management, and pregnant women in the workforce may start to feel a little less than appreciated.

The Pregnancy Discrimination Act amended Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and made discrimination on the basis of pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions illegal. Title VII, covers employers with 15 or more employees and includes state and local governments. Here’

Title VII’s pregnancy-related protections include:

• Hiring

  An employer cannot refuse to hire a pregnant woman because of her pregnancy, because of a pregnancy-related condition, or because of the prejudices of co-workers, clients, or customers.

• Pregnancy & Maternity Leave

  An employer may not single out pregnancy-related conditions for special procedures to determine an employee’s ability to work.

  If an employee is temporarily unable to perform her job because of her pregnancy, the employer must treat her the same as any other temporarily disabled employee.

• Pregnant employees must be permitted to work as long as they are able to perform their jobs. If an employee has been absent from work as a result of a pregnancy-related condition and recovers, her employer may not require her to remain on leave until the baby’s birth.
• Health Insurance

  Any health insurance provided by an employer must cover expenses for pregnancy-related conditions on the same basis as costs for other medical conditions. An employer need not provide health insurance for expenses arising from abortion, except where the life of the mother is endangered.

  Pregnancy-related expenses should be reimbursed exactly as those incurred for other medical conditions, whether payment is on a fixed basis or a percentage of reasonable-and-customary-charge basis.

  The amounts payable by the insurance provider can be limited only to the same extent as amounts payable for other conditions. No additional, increased, or larger deductible can be imposed.

  Employers must provide the same level of health benefits for spouses of male employees as they do for spouses of female employees.

• Fringe Benefits

  Pregnancy-related benefits cannot be limited to married employees. In an all-female workforce or job classification, benefits must be provided for pregnancy-related conditions if benefits are provided for other medical conditions.

  If an employer provides any benefits to workers on leave, the employer must provide the same benefits for those on leave for pregnancy-related conditions.

  Employees on leave because of pregnancy-related conditions must be treated the same as other temporarily disabled employees for accrual and crediting of seniority, vacation calculation, pay increases, and temporary disability benefits.

It is also unlawful to retaliate against an individual for opposing employment practices that discriminate based on pregnancy or for filing a discrimination charge, testifying, or participating in any way in an investigation, proceeding, or litigation under Title VII.

The bottom line – Women who are pregnant or affected by pregnancy-related conditions must be treated in the same manner as other applicants or employees with similar abilities or limitations.  For more information on EEOC polices, visit the EEOC’s website.

on Facebook anyway… sort of. Remember the employee who got fired for dissing her supervisor on Facebook? Well the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) sued American Medical Response of Connecticut, claiming that the company’s blogging and internet policy barring workers from disparaging the company or its supervisors was unconstitutional.

Well American Medical settled with the labor board and has agreed to change its blogging and internet policy. The company also agreed to revise another policy that prohibited employees from depicting the company over the Internet without permission.

Jonathan Kreisber, NLRB’s regional director says “The fact that they agreed to revise their rules so that they’re not so overly restrictive of the rights of employees to discuss their terms and conditions with others and with their fellow employees is the most significant thing that comes out of this.”

Back in 2009 the employee who spawned this debate posted comments on Facebook from her home computer after her supervisor said a customer had complained about her work. The comment, which apparently included a few of our most loved four letter words, was well received by colleagues. The employee in question was later fired. American Medical claimed they fired the employee because of poor performance, but the settlement seems to suggest otherwise.

What are your thoughts on Facebook posts about employees and bosses? Protected speech or “enter at your own risk?” Share your thoughts in the comment section.

That would be Chris Lee. NY Congressman Chris Lee.  Chris “striking the Eddie Long pose” Lee. Here’s a side by side if you think I’ve gone too far…

What is it about grown a** men who should be busy doing congressy things and running mega-churches, deciding instead to take cell phone pictures in bathrooms and sending them to people who are not their wives? Side question – Isn’t there something in the bible about pastors NEVER wearing muscle shirts. Ever. In fact, I think “though shalt never wear muscle shirts. Ever.” might have been one of the original commandments.

So, because of the picture on the left, and because he used his real name and real email address, Congressman Chris Lee is now former Congressman Chris Lee.  The woman he tried to impress on Craigslist checked him out on Facebook and learned that he was not, as he’d stated in his Craigslist profile, a 39-year-old divorced, lobbyist, but instead a 46-year-old married father.

To quote the woman who was on the receiving end of Lee’s lovely picture, “People cheat every day, but only dumb people get caught.”

Read more about Chris Lee and his failed foray into Craigslist here.