Climbing the corporate lad, from February 9, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

Now that I’m over my ex (although there are still a few of his belongings in my garage; I think I’ll create some metal art), I’m ready to move on. There is a fellow at my workplace whom I’ve recently met; he works in another department in another building, is friendly and has a photograph of he and his daughter on his desk (no wife). I would like to get to know more about him. Well, in this world of appropriate workplace behaviour, how do I get the two of us together outside of the office in order to find out more about him? In my position at work I am confident and can tackle the unknown, but in my personal life I can’t seem to initiate that first step. What’s a professional woman to do?

— Tired of Following the Rules

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The United Nations, home of the United Nations Inter-Agency Network on Gender and Equality, the United Nations Division for the Advancement of Women, the United Nations Development Fund for Women, and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, apparently needs to take a good look inside its own ranks. As today’s Wall Street Journal reports:

The United Nations, which aspires to protect human rights around the world, is struggling to deal with an embarrassing string of sexual-harassment complaints within its own ranks.

Many U.N. workers who have made or faced accusations of sexual harassment say the current system for handling complaints is arbitrary, unfair and mired in bureaucracy. One employee’s complaint that she was sexually harassed for years by her supervisor in Gaza, for example, was investigated by one of her boss’s colleagues, who cleared him.

Cases can take years to adjudicate. Accusers have no access to investigative reports. Several women who complained of harassment say their employment contracts weren’t renewed, and the men they accused retired or resigned, putting them out of reach of the U.N. justice system.

“No matter which way the cases go, they mishandle it,” says George G. Irving, a former U.N. attorney who now represents clients on both sides of such cases.

The U.N. has announced plans to implement changes to its internal justice system on July 1, but some in the know say they’re still not enough. For one thing: “Many U.N. managers have diplomatic immunity from criminal prosecution or civil litigation.” Well, then.

The WSJ has done an in-depth investigation; click here for the rest of the gories. And here, and here, for BG’s take on sexual harassment.

It’s definitely not working, on February 2, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

Eight months ago, my best friend/boss started sleeping with my husband of six months. After a minor nervous breakdown (in which I bought a convertible and dyed my hair blonde), I went back to work. My question is: Am I justified in referring to her to customers as a “badly-dressed Petri dish”? And what underhanded and nasty things do you suggest to continue in my quest to be a constant and bitter thorn in her side?

— Beth

 
Dear Beth,

One of the problems with the “Petri dish” metaphor is that your customers, like Breakup Girl, will not really be sure what you mean. But there are much more important issues here. Calling her mean names is — here it comes again — legal (in a First Amendment sense), but tacky. Breakup Girl has always discouraged “underhanded and nasty acts” as a means of revenge. Why? Because they make you look bad — to the people in front of whom you most want to look good: (1) the evildoer(s), and (2) yourself. When you look back, you feel worse.

The best way to get back at those who have done you wrong is to immediately be successful all areas of your life. You were on the right track with the car and the hair.

Love,
Breakup Girl

You finish each other’s sentences. You each know how the other likes their coffee. You share inside jokes about your boss’s 70s wardrobe.

3 of 7 tell-tale signs that you have a work spouse.

Do you? (And if so/applicable, how does your home spouse feel about it?)

Courtney E. Martin had an interesting piece at The American Prospect the other day about the ways in which the legalization — here and there (but not there) — of gay marriage and has prompted her to reevaluate her own aversion to the tying of the knot. As a feminist wary of wedlock myself, I can’t help but nod along with her argument that historically, marriage is both heterosexist and just plain sexist. At the same time, it’s hard for a straight gal to condemn an institution that once considered women property at the same time that her gay friends are happily flocking to California to make their love public, official, and legit in the eyes of the very law that heretofore shut them out.

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