Letters to the Editor
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"Ambitious female execs would probably do better for their careers staying back at the office and getting, you know, some actual work done."
Oh Bob, where to begin?...
Socializing with your coworkers/clients is very important, so they can get to know you and so you can get to know them. It seems you're poo-pooing socializing and networking completely, or saying that the ladies should jsut pass up opportunities they find unpalatable. That's a perfect recipe for not getting clients and being the one laid off in a merger situation, for example.
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Business? Monkey Business
Never mind expensing it, LeCaster. Any Chief Compliance Officer would have major fits. Granted, I'm thinking of U.S. law. But aside from setting a company up for a "hostile work environment" suit, a strip-club as venue is likely to cost considerably more than $100 per person, which is over the limit for entertainment, especially as a regular thing.
The drinks are expensive; it's noisy; and I can't imagine talking business. The one time I was in a strip club (back in Boston in grad school), it wasn't even any fun, except telling about it later on, when everyone howls, including me.
I'd hate to think that the British financial culture is that much less mannerly than the U.S.
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Corporate strip club culture
This doesn't surprise me. When I was working in England as a marketing manager, vendors would invite their customers to events -- like a day of golf at a male only golf club. All my male employees were invited, but I couldn't go. I'm afraid I was not terribly polite about it.
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" a strip-club as venue is likely to cost considerably more than $100 per person, which is over the limit for entertainment, especially as a regular thing."
Um, that definitely not true in NYC, and especially not London. Masters of the Universe of all stripes (banking, law, etc.) spend obscene amounts of money to win clients/deals.
Here, I will tell you a story:
Last summer a certain New York Office summer associate decided it was appropriate to expense his bar tab from a post-welcome party night out with a few fellow soon-to-be-3Ls. We're sure the boys had a blast, given that the bar bill included a magnum of Cristal. The tab came to $3,000. No permanent associates or recruiting personnel were at the event ("an after-after party"). It was just law student summer associates. The firm paid the three-grand bill.
http://www.abovethelaw.com/2007/06/skadden_cristal_boy_an_alterna.php
Or how about the summer associate who ordered a $100 lobster for lunch at the Palm?
http://www.abovethelaw.com/2007/08/xsummers_the_claw.php
It was okay, he got an offer for permanent employment.
Mind you, this is what law firms spend on their summer associates -- for winning clients, there is no limit.
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Wow
Don't see how anyone who has ever been to a strip club can defend doing business in them.
1. It's extremely unprofessional. What do gyrating naked people have to do with ANY business BUT the sex industry?
2. Women posing so men can drool over them... precisely what gets called 'cockteasing' + 'sexual harassment' at work. It's illogical to pay your workers to do something outside the office that they can get sued for inside the office.
3. The music is BAD, and often loud enough to cause hearing damage...even if a company escapes the sexual harassment lawsuit, they could be slapped with worker's comp for hearing loss.
4. Sexual stimulus gives people a rush similar to drugs or alcohol. Should workers all meet at the local milkbar to get high and write that off, too?
5. A lot of people object to strip clubs (men AND women). A worker who would risk such ill will to indulge their penchant for strip clubs is not putting the company's interests first.
Doing business at a strip club taints everyone with a patina of unprofessionalism.
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@LeCastor
Not true in actual fact, probably. I've been at some of those parties. "Occasional entertainment" is one thing; afterwork jollies is another.
What's written down, however, is something else, and I am in a very conservative firm.
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@ Greeneyedkzin
I don't want to get into any cock-rock competition about who's been to the baddest NYC law-banking-axis parties, but I think your $100/per person limit is pretty low. Evening work-sponsored events routinely exceed that limit, and while it's not the same as afterwork jollies, it's a regular occurrence.
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Wonder what the researchers would think of Japanese corporate culture?
It's awash in even sleazier behaviors, and even more drunkenness than Britain (I know, it's hard to believe that anyone anywhere can drink harder than the residents of the British Isles, but aye it's true.) Perhaps the multicultural doctrine that pervades the left would dictate that they cut the Japanese salarymen some slack, due to cultural differences?
Anyway, what do these British firms do to woo gay clients? Take them to male strip clubs, or purchase them day passes to bathhouses? And female clients? Do they all go off for a night at Chippendale's?
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Maybe women ought to be dismissed
from the business world ALTOGETHER.
Instead, women come in and begin making demands that all the men become prissy little sex-hating, penisless femboys.
There is a culture by a group called MALES. We are half the planet. Women do not respect our rights and freedoms to generate and grow this culture.
Maybe this lack of respect for men and their interests is why men respected women and their culture so little in the past and why disrespect is again on the ascendancy. Women want to control and limit men, making them into penis-less pretty girly-boys, So men are glad to hand the disrespect back to women.
nice.
Seriously, where is the FEMALE FREE space in men's lives these days, or do women have to shove their maws into every one of our nooks and crannies and manipulate the fuck out of everything?!?
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Feeding the Troll (Briefly)
@ Brighstar:
Your second comment makes no sense. As far as I can tell, neither the article or the comments are saying that no man can go to a strip club without a woman.
What the article and some of us are saying is that it is entirely inappropriate to entertain clients and coworkers at a strip club, when doing so either excludes or makes uncomfortable one's female coworkers. In many fields, social networking is extremely important, so the exclusion of female employees means that they aren't getting the same face time with the client, the boss, other coworkers, etc. And that this hurts them professionally. Hence, entertaining one's professional contacts at a strip club is a no-no (and should get the offender slapped with a sexual discrimination lawsuit.)
Unless, of course, what you meant was that all us uppity women should get pregnant and head back into the kitchen to make poor little you a sandwich. In which case, I highly suggest that you relocate to Saudi Arabia. I hear they don't take kindly there to women working, driving, or having opinions.