The Path Whisperer

Hmmm.  The recent sex abuse scandals/allegations call to mind my old stomping grounds, the heavily psychopathic UBS.  It is my opinion and my belief that the rumors were correct and that UBS’s Municipal Securities Group was run by a male sex club.

I have no interest in what consenting adults do in private, but a sex club in a workplace involving very high management and playing a role in hiring, firing and other decisions is both bad business practice and criminal.   I recall a managing director, about whom junior bankers often wondered, out loud, regarding his continued presence, as he hadn’t made any money for the firm in years.  I wasn’t surprised however, he was a frequent member of the male coterie, whose slacks all sported carefully tailored derrieres, that always accompanied a very high level psychopathic officer.  I don’t think the rules applied to him.

There is a fair amount of sexual abuse/harassment in offices.  At UBS, I ran the second shift Presentations Center (egads!  don’t call it a word processing center) in my division.  Unions need to help protect their members.

Guards are actually a big problem.  We had a male co-worker who told of a guard (who seemed to me to be psychopathic) trying to blackmail him into sexual favors after a camera caught him and a friend in a stairwell.  He just laughed and told the guard to ‘eff off’.

Later I saw the same guard talking to our cleaning woman in an obscure corner of the trading floor (i.e., out of reach of any cameras).  Subsequent to this, I would see, almost nightly for a bit, 4 to 5 guards seemingly hanging around and doing nothing.  However, our cleaning friend would be nowhere to be seen and the guards would seem to disappear and reappear one by one.  When I did see the cleaning lady she seemed unhappy and agitated.  So I went up the ladder and suggested that the situation be investigated for sexual harassment.  A few days later that contingent of guards disappeared and I never saw them again.  The cleaning woman went back to being much happier.

She had been in a real bind as she was married.  Perhaps the guards had seen her entertain a friend in a stairwell or elsewhere, as happened to our co-worker, and then blackmailed her.

At Salomon Brothers, where I was a Wang Computer Admin on the third shift, I was friends with another cleaning woman.  She was a single mother and often talked about how important health insurance through her job was, for her son.  Several times a week when her supervisor made his rounds, they would both disappear for twenty or so minutes.  Usually she would reappear chewing gum.  This was all late at night.  I once asked her how her boss was, she replied that he was great and very friendly.  OK.

In this case the union, 32BJ SEIU, could have been of help.  They should have, should still, put together a sexual harassment kit and/or procedure.  Back then, it was before cell phones, but there were still small tape recorders available.  Proof of sexual harassment should have been/should be like winning the lottery.  A close to automatic lawsuit win.

Obviously it is easy for the corrupt to take advantage of relative power positions.  Basically I think human nature is corrupt, I find most people are as self serving as they can get away with, and, on top of that, psychopaths are infinitely corrupt.