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From: greenber@timeinc.UUCP (Ross M. Greenberg)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: Changing Roles
Message-ID: <288@timeinc.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 10-Jul-85 22:03:38 EDT
Article-I.D.: timeinc.288
Posted: Wed Jul 10 22:03:38 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 13-Jul-85 09:36:02 EDT
References: <993@ubc-vision.CDN> <202@ihlpl.UUCP> <282@timeinc.UUCP> <206@ihlpl.UUCP>
Reply-To: greenber@timeinc.UUCP (Ross M. Greenberg)
Organization: Time, Inc. - New York
Lines: 67
Summary: 

In article <206@ihlpl.UUCP> zubbie@ihlpl.UUCP (Jeanette Zobjeck) writes:

>I re-iterate:
>All that is asked by most women I know is that men overlook the purely
>physical differences, forget they exist for the purposes of conducting
>business or producing profitable work.
>     

I'll tell you an interesting story that happened to me a while ago.  You
tell me afterwards to "overlook the purely physical differences", ok?

I'm a consultant.  I had this major contract that required me to hire
a couple of people.  I ended up hiring two people: one male and one
female.  Due to a learning curve, I had to pay their salaries to get
them up to speed before the client was willing to pick up the cost.
The learning curve was about two months.

I had them each sign the kind of contract you don't dream about in your
worst nightmares.  Basically, if they walked off the job for any reason,
then they would owe me the monies that I had paid them, plus they would
have to pay for the learning curve of the next person to get hired, or
pay me for lost income if the client pulled the plug on the project
because they had walked.

They were both excellent!  And then the women walked about three months
into the contract.  She had gotten pregnant *before* she had signed
up with me.  Of course I, as an employer, am not allowed to ask such
silly questions as "Are you pregnant now?  Do you plan to get pregnant
during the term of the assignment?".  That is discriminatory and 
against the law, you see.


Anyway, she walked off and said "Go ahead! Try to sue me. You can't --
I'm pregnant!".  And you know what: she was right! I had no hold over
her: my lawyer told me to piss into the wind for better results.
It seems that to sue her for any reason *based* on her pregnancy would
be discriminatory, and therefore not valid grounds for a suit.


Now, that obviously couldn't happen to a man :-)  Before you guys start
telling me what could happen to a man, allow me to explain that each
of the contractors had been forced (by me) to take out large health
insurance and job continuation insurance policies, in the event
of illness or whatnot.  I was the benificiary of these insurance
policies for the term of their assignment.

Of course, pregnancy is not an illness. So I got royally screwed.

Now, should I make an effort next time to "overlook" the physical
differences? And get screwed again?  Or should I instead not 
overlook them, and opt to hire only those that can not get pregnant: men.

If this was any fun to read, you can imagine how much fun it was to
live through.

Total cost of the above: $18,000 ---- of MY money.



-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------
Ross M. Greenberg  @ Time Inc, New York 
              --------->{ihnp4 | vax135}!timeinc!greenber<---------

I highly doubt that Time Inc. they would make me their spokesperson.