You know... not only have I never met anyone that's seen the light as the result Sensitivity Training, I've found that these sessions actually worsen the problems they're generally called to address.

It was annouced recently at my company that the entire staff would be undergoing Sexual Harassment Training. Before I could even finish reading the announcement, guys down the hall had already figured out the irony of title and were looking forward to being trained how to harass. Oh yeah, and announcing said irony to the entirity of the 12th floor.

After the session - which was led by a guy that looked creepily like every whack-job pervert I've ever seen on America's Most Unbelievably Extreme Dramatized Unsolved Mysteries - it took about a month for the uncouth jokes made ABOUT the training to die down. Now guys PRETEND to stare at girls chests and then laugh - "uh oh, I guess that's harassment. Whoops!"

I'm still waiting on Four Hour Lunch Break Training.

I don't know, Steve. An hour with me in the bar in Vancouver made you far more sensitive to my sensibilities... right?

About 10-15 years ago, the critic and essayist Robert Hughes wrote Culture of Complaint, a look at cultural friction in America. I cannot put my hand on the book right now, but he makes the point you are making: pressure to be "more" sensitive may cause some bigots to mind their tongues, but doesn't change the inclination to slight groups and minorities he or she doesn't like.

So, if Hughes is right, these training programs do little more than teach the bigot to mind his tongue, while protecting whomever the bigot dislikes from slurs on the job.

Allan

I believe that sensitivity training was invented for the protection of the COMPANY (in this case, MLB) -- not to change the thinking of the offender. Organizations who do it can say, "Look, we're doing something about it," and not be sued for promoting a hostile work environment.

Poor Bud Selig. First Barry, now this.

Now, Ozzie's antisocial (OK, psychotic) behavior aside, you sure this excellent rant wasn't partially motivated by your well-documented hated of the Sox?

Now that said, my company did have PREVENTING Sexual Harassment Training some years ago. People in HR were VERY careful to pronounce it "HARRIS-ment", as is they were Little Lord Fauntleroy himself - I think because the regular old pronounciation sounded too much like "Her-Ass-ment."

I agree with everything everybody is saying here:

1. Most companies or organizations do this to cover their own asses. In fact, John Rocker, who also was sent to "sensitivity training" by Major League Baseball, is quoted in yesterday's Tribune as saying it was a crock. He walked in, then walked out. And the only reason he had to do that was so Bud Selig could cover himself.

2. They do far more harm than good--insulting those of us who don't need it, and infuriating those who do need it.

And yes, Alan . . . after spending just an hour in the bar with you, my whole attitude about not just you, but life itself, was altered forever. Thank you for that.

Steve C.

I can go one better on diversity training. A company I worked for before (not the one I work for now, you understand) trained the Managers to train their staffs about diversity/sensitivity processes.

Now, as stupid and impotent as the actual diversity training itself is, in my opinion it is the absolute HEIGHT of idiocy to try and make Managers (who we already know have challenges in communicating effectively - and I'm being kind here because its after 8:00 and I've had my several glasses of wine to decompress) responsible for making their employees care about and/or change their behaviour related to diversity.

The stuff that happens in a corporate environment can boggle the mind. At least on a construction site, you can haul off and whack the mouthy guy next to you with a wrench, and then everybody just gets back to work! In corporate we all spend so much time bowing to the gods of "political correctness" it's a bloody wonder we ever get anything done.

How about we all do what our sainted grandmas told us, and just shut up and play nice?? Oh ya, and eat your carrots, they'll give you curly hair.

I loved my diversity training at my former company. 16 long painful hours of awkward silence. Until some of decided to start instigating the religious types and the sexual orientation types. Then it got a lot more fun.

If you don't like someone because of their ethnicity, their creed, or their orientation, just work on a project with them. That will give you a legitimate reason to hate somebody.

"Diversity is like a potato."

This was the opening salvo for the clockwork orange style diversity indoctrination I received at my former employer.

Despite the fact we were hemorrhaging funds like a hemophiliac on Coumadin, we were all forced to sit through endless hours of this rhetoric.

I digress: Essentially the potato in Ireland serves as a metaphor for Corporate America. If the Irish had only studied genetic engineering before horticulture they would have had multiple types of potatoes. Now assuming in this Bizzaro universe of reverse agrarian culture evolution the Irish had in fact cultivated multiple types of potatoes, the potato famine never would have occurred.

Despite the fact we were still shitting in bed pans and some folks were still ascribing to the heliocentric model of the universe, apparently top minds were hard at work determining the silent potato killer and research did indicate it would only kill one type of potato. Think of it as the Tay Sachs of Spudom.

So like the Irish we can’t have one type of potato in corporate America because if we do the company will die of famine and all the employees will migrate to a new land and every March drink green beer and pick fights with Police horses.

Here’s my take on diversity. A lot of people want to compare it to affirmative action. This is total bullshit. Affirmative action judges you not the quality of your work, but rather the color of your skin. Diversity like affirmative action judges you not on the quality of your work, but unlike affirmative action it judges you on a 12 point scale of different physical and personality attributes of which race is only one line item.

I will gladly talk more about this nonsense if I haven’t put my head through the monitor: patey@verizon.net

Well - I for one can vouch for Ozzie being at the Madonna concert - because we saw him. We actually had better seats than he did...hee!

My mom went and got his autograph for my youngest son who (sorry Steve) is a Sox fan. The next day or maybe the day after was when Owen and I were watching the news and Ozzie was all over and Owen said "Well, I guess I'm reeeeeally glad I have his autograph" looking at me like I did a bad thing giving it to him.

Anyway, when his defense of himself was "I went to a Madonna concert" I almost hurled diet coke all over my TV. You're kidding me right? Is that like the white guys who hang out in the "hood" dropping the "n" bomb thinking it's okay?

I've never been exposed to any sort of sensitivity or diversity training ... so I don't know what a crock of crap it actually is. But I do know that a lecture doesn't change people unless they have an openness to believe the subject matter of the lecture. People don't change unless a) they want to and b) they instigate it.

We had the training at my company recently. The most obvious behavior change was that everyone who saw the mandatory desktop video started called each other "my little Peking duckling" -- an insider joke to the training's overobvious scenarios.

Does it have a real impact? Along the continuum, maybe it raises awareness in some of those non-intentionally borderline offensive people, and, as stated, it buys the company protection against future actions.

As a member of the human race, I hate being told what to do. In fact, the more I'm told/encouraged/"charged" with something, the less I want to comply. It's just human nature.

So when we're given these "sensitivity trainings" it only becomes fodder for satire, in my opinion. (One good example is NBC's The Office.)

Just let us be mature, educated, and treat one another well. Will all employees comply? No. Will they all comply after the sensitivity training? No. I know it sounds cynical, but I just don't see the payoff.

Yes it still gets delivered. No it doesn't work. The people who don't need it pay attention, and those who do need it think they are there because some other jerk said something stupid. It's as ineffective as posting a note because something didn't go your way.

I went to that training once.

I'm still trying to figure out what Sexual Harris meant.

Very nice, Robert. You should be ashamed of yourself.

Well, it seems that we are all in agreement. This sort of "training" is a complete waste of money, done for all the wrong reasons, and in the end probably does more harm than good.

Okay . . . what do we do about it. Maybe we should start a petition.

Steve C.

This may be of interest. It's an ESPN.com article on a diversity panel for NFL rookies: http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=2501916

Steve - how about we just force all the diversity and/or sensitivity offenders sit in a room and look at C.R.A.P award winners for hours on end on a great big screen??

Then if they still don't start behaving, we could flash endless versions of grip-n-grins, service awards photos with the guys protecting their privates, and the "person in a pretend meeting" photos on the screen.

I bet they'd do almost anything to get out, and you have to know they'd be humble afterwards. The bonus is that HR and Legal can't even complain that this is "inappropriate or possibly litigation inducing" because they endorse and use these tools routinely. See it's really a "win-win"

As a contractor for another company I was able to see the effects of this sort of training x2.

First, in my company we had an HR guy show up for a town hall meeting and he began to talk about how appearance is important to our customer. Quote; “You know when you guys get your check on Friday and you go to the bank to cash it, you don’t want to be greeting by some big fat ugly girl. No, you want nicely dressed good looking girl to take care of you”. The head of HR is saying this and he was serious! Now I complained to three big bosses at this meeting to see if they heard the same thing I did to which they replied “yeah that guy is an idiot, I don’t know why he needs to be here”.

Now in our harassment training we learned that it’s up to the individual to decide whether or not they have been offended or harassed. So basically people stopped looking at each other and talking to one another. It was mandatory training and you had to sign a document stating that you have successfully completed the course and will comply. Covering their asses…

Now my very beautiful ex-boss (a curse for her because everyone thought of excuses to go bother her and harass her on a daily basis) told me that our customer local manager (BellSouth) had just finished his training and walked right into her office to tell her about it. He said “well Heather I learned today that some complements are not appropriate to say. I can’t say good morning Heather your breasts look very lovely today”. She told me that she has never been so offended in her life. She felt her face turn red and was really embarrassed. So the training didn’t do BellSouth much good either.

Now any diversity training we had revolved around race and nothing else. There are only two black people in this building, one with BellSouth and one with my Company. When you talk about racial issues people never want to make it a black and white thing so they always say “it doesn’t matter if you black, white yellow green or purple”. What they mean is black and white most of the time and especially when you are in a room of twenty-two white guys one white girl and one black guy. Ty (the black guy) was one of the coolest people I ever met and we all got along just fine and race was not an issue with any of us. Well, that day I think everyone felt uncomfortable and embarrassed when the stranger came into our work place and basically told us how to treat that black man sitting over there. Covering their asses again…

It’s not only a waist of time and money but I think it’s also a form of harassment in itself!

What can we do about it? Be assertive and communicate our feelings to corporate and each other. Yes, sign petitions and if not let corporate know how we feel, it will at least let our co-workers know how we feel.

My goodness, so much anger and righteous indignation. Having been asked to train our staff on the law of sexual harassment, I've been reading arguments for and against this training. It seems to me that, done intelligently, the goal of the training is to let the reasonable, mature people know that management will not tolerate disrespectful behavior and that anyone who feels aggrieved has some recourse. I do not expect the immature and the emotionally disturbed to change. But I do want the mature and emotionally stable people to know that the company will stand up for them.

Okay,

I understand your point, but it does get one thing very right. Sensitivity and Diversity training do NOT change people's thoughts (unless they show up with an open mind). In this case, it really is about a corporate entity covering it's ass.

Which is a good thing.

You see, if Ozzie pulls the same show on the public after his sensitivity training, the team can point to the fact that the guy got a chance to clean up his act, was taught how to clean up his act, and he failed.

You see, Ozzie is probably a moron. But Sensitivity and Diversity Training are not about helping morons. They are about making sure that the moron or other miscreant knows ahead of time what's acceptable. Right now, Ozzie, having grown up in another culture, has a legitimate excuse for claiming that "faggot" is acceptable. He didn't know.

Sensitivity training and Diversity training takes such excuses away -- at least in terms of making sure that the team can't give him a leg up with the excuse. And 20 years down the road, when Ozzie is no longer in baseball or still trying to manage, when he uses the word, "nigger," "spic," "wop," "cracker," or whatever is his epithet for the moment in public, someone in his company will say, "This is willful. We put this guy through sensitivity training 20 years ago, it's in his file right here. We should fire him this time. He knew better."

And in the end, the Sensitivity or Diversity Training is about covering corporate azz. And that's fine, given that some of Ozzie's classmates might not be first class azzholes, but may, in fact, not really know that their public behavior is offensive to the point of being utterly illegitimate.