Four days later and Jim Turner still has a job

[Pappy13]

Not sure if serious, but the proper analogy would be me being scared to report harassment at my own workplace for fear of retaliation.

If you think that's crazy and unbelievable, I don't know to tell you.

No, I wasn't serious. Lighten up Francis.

[Sunstroke]

No, I wasn't serious. Lighten up Francis.

Bonus points for the Stripes quote on the day that Harold Ramis takes his final curtain call...

[CF DolFan]

The bottom line in the whole story is Martin is the only one who saw it as bullying even though others endured the same thing. Is the behavior outside of the normal workplace? Sure it is but so is hitting the guy across from you and trying to knock his head off before he can get to the water cooler.

If 99.9% of the people involved didn't see an issue was there really an issue? Different than joe office boy yes but not a "work place" issue. The mental health aspect of this is really the only issue. Plenty of Stanford, Harvard etc guys endured it and came out fine.

[Spider-Dan]

Since this keeps coming up, I guess we have to address it directly:

Within the game of football, there are rules that define what is allowed.  Every single hit or tackle is explicitly permitted within these rules; if not, you are penalized, fined, suspended, or worse.  Are any of you claiming that what happened in this situation is written down as acceptable behavior in a rulebook or conduct manual somewhere?  If not, then it has nothing to do with anything.

Many of our soldiers in the military are explicitly directed (and required) to kill as part of their job.  Does this mean that we should shrug and throw up our hands if there's a tiny bit of rape or assault going on in the barracks?  I mean, they are killing other humans as part of their normal workplace, right?

[CF DolFan]

There isn't a handbook on building chemistry and comrade that I'm aware of. It's called life experience and each of us goes through it differently. Up til this year every football player but one has survived it without going into a public meltdown. That's a pretty high percentage  no matter how you try to tear it down.

[Sunstroke]

There isn't a handbook on building chemistry and comrade that I'm aware of. It's called life experience and each of us goes through it differently. Up til this year every football player but one has survived it without going into a public meltdown. That's a pretty high percentage  no matter how you try to tear it down. 

Agree with all of this.

Just a vocab FYI...the word you were looking for there (in bold) was camaraderie.

[Spider-Dan]

There isn't a handbook on building chemistry and comrade that I'm aware of. It's called life experience and each of us goes through it differently. Up til this year every football player but one has survived it without going into a public meltdown.

Hey, if the argument is that we should permit an anything-goes environment in the locker room for purposes of "team building," then fine.  But let's say that explicitly instead of dancing around with this don't-ask-don't-tell stuff.

See, the problem is that while a certain group of people are completely willing to look the other way so hard they get whiplash, these same people seem to be unwilling to follow through and say that the NFL (and all professional sports?) should legally be exempt from the same standards of conduct that are the law in pretty much every other workplace in America.

I am unable to grasp why police officers and prison guards (i.e. people for whom potentially lethal force is a part of their profession) can and should be terminated for this kind of harassment, but football players get a pass because their game is violent.