talkmagic.co.uk

My colleague Bob and I recently conducted a computer class at work. We used numerous magic effects to spice things up. At one point, Bob announced that he did not have a magician's silk handkerchief, but that fortunately he had found something else to use: a pair of women's panties.

Bob went on to comment that he had found them in his cubicle at work and guessed that the previous occupant of the cubicle also must have been a magician, since magicians sometimes work with rabbits, and the panties kind of smelled like a rabbit had been in them. This comment met with a roar of laughs and grunts.

Bob then proceeded to borrow a dime from a student and have the student mark it. Bob placed the dime in a little sealed plastic enclosure under the panties and wadded the panties up. After doing a separate coin trick, Bob revealed (no surprise here) that the dime had disappeared from the little enclosure. Then he produced a sealed canister containing a sealed canister containing a bag that held the dime. Bob used a couple of simple gimmicks that can be purchased here in the U.S. at magic stores.

A couple of weeks later, Bob was called to speak with the H.R. department as part of their investigation of the "incident." One of the women in the class supposedly had been offended and called the company's ethics hotline. As an outcome of the investigation, Bob was given a FINAL written warning (even though he is a top performer and has never to my knowledge had any warnings) and one year of probation. He supposedly violated the part of the company's code of ethics that prohibits humor of a sexual nature.

Although the company's rule about humor of a sexual nature is very ambiguous and ridiculous in my opinion, the fact is that the usage of a pair of panties in a magic trick was not sexual. The panties were used in place of a magician's handkerchief purely for humorous effect, and yes, they did have that effect.

I am trying to help defend Bob. I want to help our management see what he did in a different light. It was funny. It was not harassment in any way.

I call on you, my fellow magicians, to provide me with any thoughts or insights you might have that would help me to defend Bob. For example, if you could find a photo of the Pope doing a magic trick involving panties for a bunch of girl scouts, that certainly would be helpful! An article such as "President of World Morality Committee Says Panty Tricks Not Bad" also would be great.

Anything you know of or can find would be appreciated.

Thank you very much.

A Fellow Magician in the U.S.

The best advice I can give is that your friend contact an employment lawyer. This is primarily a UK site and we're not likely to be able to come up with much that's relevant to US law.

Incidentally, he implied he'd smelled them. There's your sexual reference.

However, any action on his part is going to cause problems. Even challenging the procedure could leave him at odds with the HR people and labelled a trouble-maker even more than now. If he's willing to take action, he needs to be prepared for all the possible consequences.

As Part-Timer says, the legal issues will be different in the US compared to the UK but we're moving along similar lines over here. Basically, if the matter even vaguely concerns sexual harassment then your colleague is dead in the water already. The sympathies will automatically go to the supposed injured party and, wrong though it may be, your colleague will find himself defending what he did. I have to say that it perhaps wasn't the wisest choice of prop to use in a mixed audience and would probably have been better saved for an all male 'stag' booking. Sadly, we can't turn back time to undo those sort of mistakes but we can all learn from them.

If the employer has treated him harshly then he may have some form of legal redress but he'll be making himself very unpopular and life will not be joyous for him in future. It may go against the grain but the simplest and lowest cost option here might be for your colleague to offer a grovelling apology to all concerned, stressing that it was an unfortunate error of judgement which certainly won’t be repeated etc. He doesn't have to actually mean a word of what he's saying but it seems like the 'injured party' is out for blood so such an act of contrition (fake or otherwise!) might serve to undermine the basis of their argument and it's less likely to escalate. Not a happy situation for anyone.

Unfortunately it's a sad sad world we are living in

We live in a litigious age which prides itself on its politically and gender correct workings.

Anything that contains anything of a sexual nature will, especially in a U.S. setting but increasing so in the U.K., be construed as falling within the area of potentially exhibiting 'sexual harassment' and will therefore be not only inappropriate but in the HRM (human Resource Management) manuals actually be considered gross misconduct for which the penalty is death!

Well O.K., not death, but instant dismissal with a rather nasty lack of reference (which you wouldn't want as it groups wyou with abusers, paedophiles and the like in polite, risk-averse, PC, society).

In short, lucky to get away with probation and bollocking - in reality (as long as sexual innuendo and rabbit smells excluded) could be fun. Was what I would have done before working in U.S. and Swiss financial institutions and definitely wouldn't nowdays in commercial settings.

Know your enemy (audience) is a good precept - if one person is offended and reports it - dead! Too risky and too fatal I'm afraid.

Regards,

Vic VDB (Vicar and sometime member Institute of Personnel Management)

Another example of political correctness going mad and how the few can have such a hold over the many in a nanny state.

It's actually more to do with the feminisation of the workplace rather than mere political correctness that things like this have come to the fore and become such issues.

The taking of such action as described here shows how the dominance of the males in the workplace is being subjugated (or should I say emasculated?).

What would have been appropriate and even encouraged in a predominantly male environment such as work is now anathema to those who rule (again, perhaps should be an enema rather than anathema ),

Oh well, didn't want to use that magical bra trick even if I could find a text where it could fit it into the service

Vic(ar)

Even if you do not have any comments about the panty trick, please vote in my poll. The results could help us, in which case we might use them. (If they are not favorable, then we won't use them.)

Did the company provide him with a written explanation of the so-called "charges" against him, the reason for the written final warning and the probation. If not, he should definitely have a lawyer write them a letter and request that he be given a copy of everything related to his case, including a written explanation of the company's position. It is inexpensive to get a lawyer to write such a letter and it is perfectly proper that he be given copies of everything that led up to his "punishment." But as Part-Timer states, he needs to be ready to face the consequences if this escalates, and he needs to be ready to take further legal action if his right to information is violated. Now he becomes the victim instead of the perpetrator of the nasty panties trick.

Incidentally, in my younger days, I used to do a dove from panties trick, but never got in trouble for it. Those were simpler, more care-free times!

You'll most likely find that the letter from the company does outline the areas where he was considered to have breached company policy (which should be found in staff handbook or similar).

The problem is that for many companies these days this is a serious offence which brings with it dismissal and so sometimes keeping one's head down is not always the wrong option.

Problem 2 is that anything that can be construed as 'sexist' or has been claimed to bring distress to another colleague (assume in this case female which carries the almost certainly biased burden of proof in favour of) begins with a goal in the net for the magical person involved.

I've dealt with a few of these and where the courage to investigate was present in the management (I confess, I was the manager) it was found that other reasons were found for the complaint and the complaint itself was the means by which the person was 'getting back' at the accused. For this reason the 'perp' was strongly admonished, the complainant was given a verbal as well for mischievously orchestrating the complaint and neither really talked to me again as a friend (I wasn't on their side apparently - aaargh - both keep their jobs, both keep working in same areas and neither had it on their reports - people!!!)

Hope this helps,

Vic

Having been managed people for 2 large Blue Chip organisations in the UK (I won't name them) I have been sent on numerous HR and employment law courses.

It seems that harrassment is considered to be present (and therefore merit investigation/action) if the person who makes the claim feels harrassed in any way i.e. sexual, racial etc.

It is therfore very subjective, you can have a roomful of people who all agree that something was not harrasment but if one individual feels it was then it has to be taken seriously. Thats not to say you have to agree with it and take sacntions.

I recall a case at my previous employer where someone posted a for sale notice on the public notice board offering 2 tickects to a Bernard Manning show and as a result, a claim of racial harrasment was made by someone upset that a colleague was 'promoting' this kind humour. In this case a sensible outcome was reached but it still took a lot of time to sort out.

Some people need to lighten up a little!

If doing tricks with Pants/Panties is wrong then this book should be taken from the market:

Clicky

Thanks everyone for your comments. Bob thought about getting a lawyer, but I advised him that he probably will lose his job if he does so.

Actually, I just noticed something interesting: The warning states that the company prohibits all forms of unlawful harassment. The suggestion is that Bob did something UNLAWFUL. Maybe getting a lawyer wouldn't be a bad idea, after all.

Spellbinder, perhaps Bob should have said the panties smelled like a dove had been in them, rather than a rabbit. By the way, your PVC-pipe magic is interesting.

Here is the text of the reprimand they issued (edited to remove the company name and people's names):

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(TEXT has been removed.)

DaveOrdref wrote:If doing tricks with Pants/Panties is wrong then this book should be taken from the market:

Clicky

That is exactly the kind of information I need. Dave, I just now ordered that Magic of Pants book on Amazon.com. After all, if a children's book shows you how to do magic tricks using underwear, how could doing that in front of adults be considered UNLAWFUL SEXUAL HARASSMENT? Funny, yes. Juvenile, maybe. Harassment, no.

Personally, I think that you're fighting a losing battle that will only end up adding fuel to the fire. I've read the book and there is a review on this site but I do not for one minute think that it will help you if the content of the disciplinary letter is factual.

As previously stated by another, I would say that the offence was caused by the reference to having 'sniffed' the underwear and making refering to the smell, whether present or not. I don't think that the actual trick with the pants is what may have generated the complaint.

What you have also now added in your latest post is that there appears to now be a history of sexual related comments etc. including another reference to pants, confirming that the magic trick was not an isolated incident. With what appears to be your friend having admitted to having written a comment about not wearing any underwear during a team meeting and then handing out list of gender related jokes demonstrates history and perhaps a fixation. I'm not surprised that someone complained and it was inevitable at some stage. If it hadn't have been this occasion then it would have been the next time.

What surprises me is that you're getting this involved given the apparent circumstances. I'd suggest that your mate needs to either grow up, be far more selective in what he says and does, and use the workplace for work and his own time for his work with pants!