One week seemed a little light, but it's clear it's zero tolerance for him going forward. That seems pretty reasonable to me. I think that's the way any decent employer would treat an employee who messed up this way.

The only fault I have with Hales is that he probably didn't need to call for an investigation when the offensive act was witnessed by so many. It would have been better politics (not process) for Hales to call the witnesses himself to confirm, apologize to Smith, order Artharee to apologize, send him to sensitivity training, suspend him for two weeks to a month, and tell him it's zero tolerance going forward.

Classic Portland Mercury double standard/speak. When was the last time you saw an article in this rag that didn't take the time to let you know exactly where they stand on the topic at hand? Yet here we Denis Theriault delivering a "just the facts ma'am" piece essentially giving the mayor a pass on this misogynist bullshit.

All of a sudden I'm left wondering where Cienna Madrid, Anna Minard, Mary Traverse, and Emily Nokes are with their direct action reaction to comments made by pigs of the opposite sex. http://www.portlandmercury.com/portland/st…
One week The Merc is advocating for box cutters to men's scrotal sacks for making sexist comments, but hey, I guess it's somehow different when it comes to the mayor's office.

Denis managed to get comments from Commissioners Fish and Novick, yet whoopsie, he missed getting a comment from the one and only woman on the City Council, Commissioner Fritz. Ironically, the same week you publish this you also have a piece praising her scrappy abilities to advocate for what's right in the male dominated world of city politics.

And let's not forget what this paper said when they oh so reluctantly (snark) gave their endorsement of Charlie Hales for mayor:

"We're going to be watching him like a goddamned hawk."

http://www.portlandmercury.com/portland/de…

Fucking please...it seems much more like you're just carrying water. Shame!

@zipitup, seriously? And I thought Denis (like WW) was being a wuss by implying strongly Artharee should have been fired without having the nerve to just say so (same with the letter writers demanding "corrective action"). It's official, Denis: you can't win.

While it might be great for other workers (employed and unemployed) if every entitled, middle-aged man was fired when they acted like an entitled, middle-aged man, this behavior is simply too pervasive to constitute a no-warning fireable offense.

I'm not saying that to excuse it - it's bullshit behavior - but it's unfortunately close enough to being culturally acceptable that an employee should be warned once before being fired for it.

-CC-

Yes, seriously...please demonstrate how Denis "implied strongly" that he should be fired. If by sarcastically putting the word "strict" in parenthesis, well then, I stand corrected. Maybe there is a reason Denis can't win, could it be that it's because this isn't some kind of game? Please don't pretend that you don't understand the flip-flop phenomenon I'm describing in relation to The Merc's writing. They can't practice advocacy journalism one week and then the traditional "balanced" approach the next, that is unless they really don't care about building any sense of trust with their readership. Jesus, if I wanted to watch FOX news at least I'd know there's consistency.

"While it might be great for other workers (employed and unemployed) if every entitled, middle-aged man was fired when they acted like an entitled, middle-aged man, this behavior is simply too pervasive to constitute a no-warning fireable offense.

I'm not saying that to excuse it - it's bullshit behavior - but it's unfortunately close enough to being culturally acceptable that an employee should be warned once before being fired for it."

Entitled? Culturally acceptable? Are you listening to yourself? We're not just talking about any workplace, this is a public office and it's held to a higher standard. We're also talking about someone who's worked for various other public agencies and damn well knows better. He's an "at will" employee for christ's sake. Not to mention the pattern of behavior here and don't even start with "that only one of those happened while Artharee was clearly representing the city" crap. You need to check your compass, dude, and stop trying to protect poor Denis. Or are you that hard up for some free tickets?

We at the Mercury would like to apologize for not demanding box cutters to the scrotal sac for all male offenses. His comment was out of place and though grown ups would have handled this by saying so we know that only firing him will stand and that violence towards his junk is now acceptable. Hopefully he loses everything he has and is forever banned for giving this poor frail women a bad compliment. We are only assuming that she is frail, weak and incompetent because otherwise this shit wouldn't have been an issue.

-Wanker-

You're right, maybe The Mercury and Mayor Hales should get together and tell this "frail, weak, incompetent" County Commissioner that she should just get back to work, keep her head down, and know that someday "IT GET'S BETTER."

Just get to work!! My god the inhumanity. It's like she is a human with a job or something. I think if it bothered her then she should have said so. If she can't blow off something this trivial then she isn't qualified to be employed. What a bunch of miserable victims the world wants to become.

Maybe she just had got her hair did.