Update:
Ms. Lorenzana apparently had some pictures of herself on facebook…Doesn’t sound so professional…
And Citi seems to be claiming that her allegations are false. The ostensible reason for her firing is that she was incompetent – behind on sales.
So let’s wait for more information…
Still, even without more information, I can’t help noticing that most of the “elite” bankers who lost all this money for their banks (and for the country).. but not their jobs… were almost all male, and a majority of them white males, whom no one would ever accuse of being incompetent – perish the thought.
Obviously, the majority of people in the financial industry weren’t doing their jobs, or not doing it very well, and haven’t been fired. And this is Citibank, corrupt, money-laundering, massively incompetent Citibank. Citibank, whose history includes such major league kleptocrats as Sandy Weill and Robert Rubin.
Let a woman be fired, however, and it must be because of incompetence, especially when it’s a colored woman. The hypocrisy is astounding. But then the welfare program for rich white males is the only welfare program I never hear libertarians question.
“New York, June 3 (ANI): A female employee of Citibank was apparently fired from her job because her male colleagues found her ‘too distracting’.
Debrahlee Lorenzana said that despite her turnout being professional, her male bosses and co-workers still found her too hot be around their cold cash.
“Shortly after the commencement of her employment, branch manager Craig Fisher and assistant branch manager Peter Claibourne began articulating inappropriate and sexist comments concerning plaintiff’s clothing and appearance,” The New York Post quoted her court filings as saying.
“The improper comments made to plaintiff by Fisher and Claibourne included, but were not limited to, advising her that she must refrain from wearing certain items of clothing, in particular, turtleneck tops, pencil skirts, fitted business suits, or other properly tailored clothing.
“In blatantly discriminatory fashion, plaintiff was advised that as a result of the shape of her figure, such clothes were purportedly ‘too distracting’ for her male colleagues and supervisors to bear.”
The filing also read, “In a regressive response more suitable for reality television than a white-shoe corporation in the 21st century, plaintiff was advised that these other comparator females may wear what they like, as their general unattractiveness rendered moot their sartorial choices, unlike plaintiff, whose shapeliness could not be heightened by beautifully tailored clothing.”
After rejecting a complaint and an application to be transferred, she was eventually moved to a new branch, she was reprimanded for failing to recruit new customers.
“The purported reasons for plaintiff’s termination included that she failed to meet the required new account opening quotas, in addition to the credulity-straining assertion that her clothing choices were ‘inappropriate,'” the suit said.
“Are you saying that just because I look this way genetically, that this should be a curse for me?” she told the Village Voice, which first reported her case.
In a statement, Citibank said, “We believe this lawsuit is without merit and we will defend against it vigorously.”
Citibank has not commented for reasons of employee privacy but added that the bank has “a strong commitment to diversity and we do not condone, or tolerate, discrimination within our business for any reason.” (ANI)
My Comment
Some people still think it’s “collectivist” to point out that the financial industry is testosterone-laden….
As a libertarian, I think Citigroup should be free to hire only males if it wishes. But where it’s wrong is to pretend it’s committed to diversity etc. etc., waste a woman’s time with such pretensions and then fire her on laughably sexist grounds.
(Of course, I’m assuming that the facts are as stated in this piece. Likely there’s an untold story here).
Judgment withheld pending pictorial evidence to substantiate said claims….
Oh, dear. Isn’t the verbal evidence enough?
OK, here she has a 26 picture photo shoot:
http://www.villagevoice.com/2010-06-01/news/is-this-woman-too-hot-to-work-in-a-bank/
Which leads me to suspect that someone so allegedly demure may have higher aspirations.
As a guy, I’d have thought of it as inspiration to show up to work each day. Not that being good at my work has anything to do with it.
I have to use a bit of levity, the coffee has not kicked in yet…
Seems like some haven’t read the latest, being around a woman you think is out of your league is Stress inducing.
The key is she has to be in your league, or at least you have to think that, to remove the stress factor.
She didn’t want to seem more obtainable by dressing down?
It took the whole day to forget the description, now I’m forced to look… wasn’t what I expected, I guess she’s in my league, or so I think.
Her picture says more about the guys working there, than her. IMHO.
Thanks for the distraction and the laugh.
She’s very attractive…
but no more than many women. The clothes are a bit glam, but nothing I’d call terribly unprofessional.
Of course, if she’d pulled her hair back, worn glasses and been mousy, the men would have made fun of her for that.
And if she’d been super competent and confident, they’d have run her out of the office as a “bitch.”… .
Oh and take a gander at this:
This is what these financial whizzes are upto, which we poor dumb women can’t keep up with:
A sex-crazed CEO of a Wall Street investment firm turned an aspiring stockbroker’s dream job into a “raunchy, intimidating, and sexualized” workplace that literally made her sick, according to a lawsuit filed in State Supreme Court this morning.
“I wanna make u cumm like u never had is that a bad thing I know ul love it,” Thomas Guerriero, CEO and president of Guerriero Wealth Holdings Inc., texted Karen Lo, 20, this past February 2, Lo’s sex-discrimination suit claims.
When she tried to fend off his messages by saying she had a boyfriend and wanted to keep her relationship with Guerriero professional, the suit says, Guerriero subsequently texted her: “His lil dick please don’t make me touch myself thinking bou u lol at least feel me close.”
Guerriero, the founder and principal of the firm, also sent her a video showing a man masturbating to ejaculation, the suit says, and later indicated to her that he was the man in the video.
That was just part of what Lo’s suit describes as an “assaultive barrage” of text messages and the video and of actual touching, all of this taking place in the firm’s offices at 110 Wall Street.
“Guerriero had no compunction about emailing repulsive pornography and obscene text messages to a 19-year-old who idolized him for his financial prowess,” Lo’s attorney, Jack Tuckner, tells the Voice. “Like a rich kid spoiled rotten, he’s saying, ‘I’m so powerful and entitled, I act on every sexual impulse I have, without shame, fear or empathy for my victims.’ ”
“The allegations are entirely without merit,” says Brian King, an attorney for Guerriero. “This was not sexual harassment. There was some flirtation going on between her and Mr. Guerriero, but this was not sexual harassment.”
King contends that it was Lo who instigated sexual discussions between herself and other men in the office in order to trap them into saying things. “My client intends to defend this action vigorously,” says King. “Her comments are manufactured in order to gain unwarranted financial windfall.”
Lo, a student at SUNY-Stony Brook, was hired in October 2009 as an entry-level stockbroker, working for the firm on Fridays, Saturdays, and Mondays.
She “aspired to emulate Guerriero’s professional trajectory,” her suit says. But the barrage began immediately. She fended off every advance, saying she wanted to keep things “professional.”
“I tried to keep everything he did separate from my work, because it really was my dream,” she tells the Voice. “It was really uncomfortable, but, at the end of the day, it was really my dream job . . . because I guess he would be like the shepherd leading me to wealth and success.”
With a few nightmares thrown in, according to her suit. Even after she stopped replying to his texts, the suit says, he continued to text her. He also touched her legs and left a Post-It note with a sexual message on her desk, says Tuckner. Subsequently, the suit says, she got this text message from him: “I know deep down u are curious how I could feel lol I love touching ur legs when ur near me ur sexy . . . I had a dream about u it was so real lol.”
In another example cited in the suit, when Lo sent her boss an email with a link to a news story about Wall Street bonuses, he wrote her back a note in which he said that he was thinking of her when he was drunk at a spa the previous night, and that he wanted to record and send her “another video,” but “wasn’t sure” how much she liked the last one. “I would like to try to keep things professional still,” the desperate Lo replied.
Lo, under what the suit calls “severe emotional and psychological distress,” sought counseling. In mid-February, she was fired.
Guerriero Wealth Holdings describes itself on the web as specializing in “trading and investment strategies for high net-worth individuals, professional investors, hedge funds, money managers, and institutional investors.”
Guerriero’s bio says he is a former senior vice president at First Union National Bank, now part of Wachovia. Guerriero Wealth Holdings boasts an internship program, a fellowship program, and a “Guerriero Institute of Finance.”
In the promotional material, there’s a clear emphasis on recruiting young brokers. “Mr. Guerriero’s unique ability to recruit, train, and mentor service professionals has made his training and development program one of the best in the industry,” the site says.
In a 2005 profile of Guerriero in Black Tie International, headlined “Leading the Way to Wall Street’s New Era,” he’s quoted as saying, “I believe the most successful people in this industry are the ones that refuse to be satisfied. And are willing to go that extra mile to set a new standard of excellence.”
Yeah. She’ll now have her entire sexual history mauled over in public to prove she led him on to sending that video, even though I’ll bet there are a dozen women in the office who’ll testify he did the same sort of thing to them
Main thing is she’s the one out of a job, right?
So who’s the victim?
I won’t dispute the balance tilts heavily towards the male side on the issue of behavior, but there are plenty of females who initiate or are co-conspirators….Been there to see both sides. We only read/hear about the egregious ones where females lodge complaints (and rightly so when factual).
Back to Ms. Lorenzana: Declaring herself ‘too hot’ seems somewhat narcissistic, although after reading further, her weakness in proper english language may account for the statement.
We never know all the facts, do we?
I appreciate the diversity of issues put forth here, and the allowance for freedom to think and express….
It is not a mans world.
It’s a bad mans world.
Intern – a sexual plaything or eye candy, typically dumb and often taken advantage of in other ways.
There are many examples of many issues that end with that same line and meaning, out of a job and who’s the victim?
He seemed a bit weird to me, but at least, so far, he hasn’t been crazy violent and made all the office girls cry, like some I know. The girls all cowering wanting to know who is next to have to work with this tactless uncool man so many husbands and boyfriends wish to do in kind yet feel powerless to do anything in this lawsuit driven and purposefully emasculated world?
What causes the co-workers to be silent? Fear keeps them silent? Lack of faith in any kind of system or process to merit out fairness or anything? Fear of loss of promotion, or being seen as can’t get along , not a team player – marking them as the first to go if funds run tight – and something that might follow them in their career. Student loan, mortgage, and car loan payments hang over the heads of most of them leading them to think they must obey, submit and be silent. Go along to get along.
What to do? Even plain envelope harassment in front of co-workers often draws no ire or will to stand up for ones fellow human. It’s ridiculous, but not in a funny way.
Which brings (me at least) back to that story you wrote about, the guy with the well.
Hi –
Sure, no problem with that argument… and when I read this, I don’t think the woman here is entirely innocent (all that language about being too hot to handle) – but that may not be her doing; that might be her lawyer wanting to get as much attention as possible.
And who can blame him? Citi is a big company and no doubt it’s closing ranks against her, trashing her and rewriting history.
The SEC regulators were watching porn, the BP regulators were watching porn, Rubin was having it off on the side. Fab the fabulous didn’t know what the heck he was up to.
Do you get the impression , as I do, that none of these people actually do a lick of work?
Sloth as much as greed has brought us down..
HAHAHA – get the impression,,, HAHAHA!
Oh yeah.
It’s not funny, except in a macabre way.
“Do you get the impression , as I do, that none of these people actually do a lick of work?”
It was a Dilbert cartoon moment, not that it changes anything.
Dilbert is too nice…
This needs Daumier