George was awesome for calling them out on that BS. What? You give a seminar titled Sex at Work, and then wig out when someone actually talks about the sexy attributes of a co-worker? or about sexual orientation? or suggestive/ inappropriate acts by the boss?
Yes, but I disagreed with George. The problem was...their presentation had no point! Adam thought it shouldn't just be titilating and he's right because...yea, if it's a class it's supposed to be teaching something.
Their problem was that they never figured out what they were going to be teaching about "sex in the workplace", what the point of presenting the topic was, the goal....nothing.
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I absolutely agree. It seemed very clear to me they had no plan, and while I can't imagine signing up for a class called "Sex at Work," I'd be really annoyed to pay for any class and find a bunch of yahoos playing talk show. While the topic of Excel's class didn't sound thrilling, they obviously had outlined what they were going to cover, prepared appropriate materials, and had a sense of how to break up the class time. Having given similar presentations (in style, not theme), I believe it's always best to have more structured material than you think you'll use.
It also seems to me that while it's one thing to have a "provocative" title to get people to come to your class, you don't want to "provoke" them into giving you bad reviews because you offended them--by which I don't only or even necessarily mean the "gay" or "Jewish" comments. Based on how shoddy the whole thing is, I can imagine tons of potentially embarrassing landmines that could have come up without a plan. (It's interesting that Alla(?) mentioned they would cover what to do if you "didn't agree" with office sex, for example, but it certainly seemed that the prevailing atmosphere was celebatory of casual sex. Which wouldn't offend me (not my thing, but safe/sane/consenual? knock yourselves out)--but especially if someone came to this thing expecting to get information on sexual harrassment, say?).
The concept that Clay's references to being gay were offensive is 10 times worse to me than what Clay said to Adam. But somehow, it is still ok to be "uncomfortable" around a gay person, but god forbid anyone make a comment about another minority. Call to arms! I don't particularly like Clay, but I will be the sole voice here to say that bringing up his sexuality as a reason for their loss was classless, and easily dragged the rest of the team down to, and below, his level due to his comment. Clay spoke to his experience in the presentation (being gay) just as Jewish boy, Jewish boy, Jewish boy did (he kept on a' saying it...) And we'll never know if Clay would have been offended if the tables were turned in the presentation, because if Adam ever had to talk about gays, his head would explode from how naughty it all was.[/quote]
My take on that was that the team's reaction to Clay's comments only showed how poorly planned this whole event was. And maybe I'm too much of a cynic (being the girl trotted out to explain that yes, I am Christian, and NO, I don't think homosexuality is a sin has made me weary), but I think it is an unfortunate reality that there are people who are still uncomfortable with homosexuality, and in a setting such as this class, it would have been sensible business strategy to have some awareness of it. Which doesn't mean not discussing it. And I certainly didn't find Clay's comments "offensive," but I did think they might play into the dumb-ass belief some straight men have that gay guys are just desperate to check them out and seduce them and whatever--which, I reiterate, is a stupid belief, and one which I try to shut down whenever anyone tries to defend it in my presence. Since we didn't see what happened next, I have no idea if there was any other context--but having met enough people who held that belief, I would certainly wonder how they might react to that. Maybe I'm too cynical, but this was one of their business tasks--they could either take care to avoid potential offenses (no matter how stupid they might be--but that's something businesses do, cater to the stupidity of the public) OR to approach those areas head-on. But while it would be wonderful if homophobia wasn't so widely tolerated, I don't have a lot of confidence that ignoring that is going to work, either in a business setting or, frankly, an educational one. (Then again, maybe I'm worn out from trying to detangle the "acceptable" levels of homophobia and sexism that pop up even in our liberal denomination church youth group, without having the parents come after my husband with torches). Again, having ANY sort of plan/organization structure/theme would have served them all well--if only to know what each other was doing.
I do think Adam and Alla were maybe hoping to play to some homophobia on Trumpy's part (or at least that he would tolerate homophobia if it came to money--cause money matters, did you know?) by implying without saying that Clay offended people, but Trump got. . .distracted by the thoughts of food and boobies, and I think George and Carolyn were too smart to fall for that, which is why they stayed focused on the judgment demonstrated by Clay's "tight Jewish boy," comment. I'll try to watch the boardroom again, but I got the feeling that the Viceroys tried pretty hard to stay away from whether or not Clay's comments about being gay were appropriate in the context of their class. And that is shitty on their part--and again, if they'd had a PLAN for the class, they might have a better leg to stand on whether his comments could have been better handled within the context of what they were trying to accomplish.
And frankly, I think the jump from "Adam is uncomfortable talking about sex at the workplace" to "Adam is obviously homophobic" is even sillier than jumping to Adam must be OMG!a virgin! Clay was the one who immediately began (in interviews) mocking Adam's (presumed) lack of sexual experience, and cutting him off in the presentation was disrespectful regardless--and made them look unpolished.