You can't fix stupid.
Posted on 06/03/2008 9:50:31 AM PDT by Morgana
Shannon Grossman admitted she may be naïve about how others don’t share her progressive way of seeing the world. But she said she was stunned when she was let go from a job over bumper stickers espousing her politically and socially progressive bent.
Grossman, 39, was born near Evansville and grew up in Muhlenberg County, Ky. She moved here last fall to care for her sister, Erin Vu, who has CIDP, the chronic form of Guillain-Barre Syndrome.
Grossman has 12- and 17-year-old sons and said she spent most of her adult life as a stay-at-home mother. She has limited job skills, and said attention deficit disorder makes it hard to handle stressful tasks. Since moving here, she has been fired from a dry cleaner for working too slowly and from a charitable telemarketer for low numbers.
So she was thrilled when she got on at a Lyndon daycare, she said, because it’s something she thinks she is good at.
Grossman drives a 1994 Geo Prizm. She calls it her “hoopdee” and has it decorated how you might any car showing its age: It’s peppered with stickers.
Some are silly or idealistic. Others are more pointed.
One shows Cheney, Bush and Rumsfeld with the caption “Asses of Evil,” a play on Bush’s infamous description of Iraq, Iran and North Korea as the “Axis of Evil.” Another says, “May the embryo you saved grow up to be gay and proud.”
bumper stickers: Shannon Grossman has decorated her 1994 Geo with bumper stickers that espouse her social and political sentiments. Grossman said she was fired from a daycare job after the director told her she didn’t like the stickers. bumper stickers: Shannon Grossman has decorated her 1994 Geo with bumper stickers that espouse her social and political sentiments. Grossman said she was fired from a daycare job after the director told her she didn’t like the stickers. Another, on her trunk near the rear window, spells G-O-P, and elaborates in smaller type: Gay Old Pedophiles, a reference to disgraced former Florida congressman Mark Foley, who got caught scheming on teenage male congressional pages, and more broadly, to shining lights like Idaho Sen. Larry Craig, the anti-gay hypocrite who pled guilty to disorderly conduct after allegedly soliciting sex in a men’s room at the Minneapolis Airport.
Grossman said the GOP sticker covers a rust spot. And she said that sticker and the one referencing the embryo cost her a job she really wanted.
Jane Davis has owned and operated Tiny Tots Nursery and Preschool, a private business, since 1977. In an interview there Tuesday morning, she said she asked Grossman to come in for a two-day trial period, to see how things worked out. Davis said that’s customary for prospective new hires; if she decides to retain the employee, she proceeds with an involved packet of paperwork that includes a background check.
Davis said she asked the staffer training Grossman how things were going, and the staffer expressed non-specific discomfort. The staffer, who also has a child enrolled at Tiny Tots, later took out the garbage and, after seeing the stickers on Grossman’s car, became quite upset over the word “pedophile.”
(Grossman said she interviewed on Thursday, May 8, and reported to work on Monday, May 12. Davis said Grossman worked a full day on Monday and that the incident occurred last Tuesday.)
Davis said she concluded then that Grossman didn’t fit in and that she cut her loose midday, with the promise to pay her for time worked. Davis said the staffer could corroborate the story, but she is off on Tuesdays and could not be reached before presstime.
Federal employment law forbids discriminating against anyone based on that oft-heard list of eight attributes: race, color, sex, age (40 and over), pregnancy, religion, national origin or disability. In Jefferson County, the Fairness Ordinance amplifies those statutes by adding sexual orientation and gender identity.
Grossman is straight; her sister is gay. During the job interview, Grossman told Davis she lives with her sister. In the interview with LEO Tuesday morning, Davis said she assumed the car with the stickers belonged to Grossman’s sister (it doesn’t), and said, “If they’re living with somebody that has something like that on their car, I figure that’s their car, that’s what they believe in. I don’t need anybody (at Tiny Tots) working with anybody like that, for my children’s sake. I probably could handle it.”
Edwin Hopson, a partner at Wyatt Tarrant & Combs’ Louisville office who focuses on employment law, said it’s difficult to say whether Grossman has a legal case. The Fairness Ordinance specifically protects individuals, but does not expressly take in associational factors.
David Friedman, a Louisville civil rights attorney, said that’s not as clear a question, “but I think there’s plenty of room for argument. If you can’t discriminate based on one person’s status, you can’t discriminate based on their associates’ status.”
Grossman, reached this week, said she’s found another job, working the snack bar at a Louisville country club near her home. The manager told her he doesn’t care about her stickers, she said, but Grossman plans to drive her sister’s (non-stickered) car to work for the time being.
Next bumper sticker: “REALITY BITES”
If Liberals don’t like to wear religion on their sleeve, why do they like to wear it on their bumpers?
The government in no way violated her right to free speech.
Her employer is not the government, and need not tolerate it.
This woman is "sharp" enough to demand her "freedom of speech" rights, without a clue that others also have rights.
Appealing to her "handicap" simply underscores her ability to exploit her "progressive moonbat" approach to life with no problem whatsoever.
Consequences suck.
Well I guess it protects his car from scratches!
Another, on her trunk near the rear window, spells G-O-P, and elaborates in smaller type: Gay Old Pedophiles,
I would have fired her too. Marxists are evil and the destroy all that they touch.
Bingo. You have a right to speak. You do not have a right to be heard, nor the right to force anyone to listen. I wouldn't want this person's "views" splashed around in front of my daycare business, either.
MM
You are exactly right!
Well, for one thing, if I was a parent dropping a child off at daycare and I saw a worker’s car with a “Gay Old Pedophile” bumpersticker, I’d be seriously rethinking leaving my child there....
Look I don’t like her agendas either, but what if she’d been fired for having a Bush/Chaney sticker? or even McCain’08??? You have to think of it from both angles.
Calling a number of your customers or potential customers on your vehicle parked at work Gay Old Pedophiles is not good for business. Would you hire someone to call your customers vile names or retain such an employee?
In Short, she is a complete loser who has not desire to work for a living -- that is up to the government. Most people in her situation finally center in on an "injured back" but she doesn't yet have the sophistication. She will wise up pretty soon.
Next Bumper Sticker:
“LIFE IS TOUGH, BUT IT’S TOUGHER IF YOU’RE STUPID!”
“Well, for one thing, if I was a parent dropping a child off at daycare and I saw a worker’s car with a “Gay Old Pedophile” bumpersticker, I’d be seriously rethinking leaving my child there....”
It would make me stop and look.....Until I realized what the message was about. Then I would groan and go on.
Any business has the right to fire anyone for any reason, period. The only question is, Do we have a government that will protect that right. PC be damned.
She'd already been kicked to the curb by her two former employers for poor performance.
“She moved here last fall to care for her sister, Erin Vu, who has CIDP, the chronic form of Guillain-Barre Syndrome.”
“She has limited job skills, and said attention deficit disorder makes it hard to handle stressful tasks.”
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I would not call her a looser, but I would say that some illness run in her family that make it clear to me that this family is “Non compos mentis”
If I’m an employer and this simpleton parks her car in my lot, or is ever publicly associated with my business in any way, she’s fired. That’s my “freedom of speech”.
Bad taste and immoral behavior bumper stickers at a children’s day care is unacceptable.
...she asked Grossman to come in for a two-day trial period, to see how things worked out. Davis said that’s customary for prospective new hires; if she decides to retain the employee, she proceeds with an involved packet of paperwork that includes a background check.It didn't work out, she wasn't even officially hired. There is no case.
Davis said she asked the staffer training Grossman how things were going, and the staffer expressed non-specific discomfort.
Yea I am aware of that, but even the day care is stating the reason is over the sticker, not her job performance.
I mean come on it is a daycare! All she has to do is sing “Mary had a little lamb” and other nursery rimes, like how hard is that? SHEESE!
and maybe change a few diapers too, but come one!!! The kid are two...just sing to them!
Oh I think I am right!
If she had been fired over a Bush/cheney sticker or McCain every FReeper here would have been beside themselves with anger!
Come one admit it! You all would want to lynch the democrat who did that!
I have been coming here to long not to know better.
You can’t call your customers pedophiles, or create the perception that people who need daycare should’ve had abortions.
They should have fired this woman, then sued her for harassment.
If she wants to talk nonsense on a street corner or her myspace page, I’m OK with that.
That's why I don't have those kind of stickers on my car. I have a government job and work with all kinds of people. Why give people a reason to dislike you if you don't have to? I really like a lot of people where I work who I disagree with politically.
I even work with a woman who interned for Diane Feinstein and has a picture taken with her hanging in her cube. I used to have a picture of Reagan hanging in my cube at my last job. It was mainly an in-your-face kind of joke but, growing older and wiser, realized that it was't funny to some people who I couldn't afford to antagonize. Not only that but I was a contractor and could have been easily fired just for having that picture.
The way it should be maybe but not the way it is. There are a number of reasons you can't fire someone for. The owner made the mistake of giving her a reason at all.
I consider this post to be about a conspiracy, against me, and my politics. Also, I simply cannot believe what happened to me is legal, or could happen in the USA. Yes, I was Fired from my brand new job today, because of my bumperstickers, this is not a joke.
I was hired Thursday at the daycare, and began this morning, Monday, at 8 a.m. Got there early, filled out paperwork, was given the passcode to the doors, and was told who I would be training with. "Jenny" and I worked in the toddler room, and after we got them down for nap, I went to lunch, then, Jenny went to lunch. When Jenny came back, this fat redheaded girl peeks her head in my door, and crooks her finger, and said, come here.
This is no different than coming to work with 50 “tats” piercings, a beer in your hand, and a bright blue mohawk.
LOL
“Calling a number of your customers or potential customers on your vehicle parked at work Gay Old Pedophiles is not good for business. Would you hire someone to call your customers vile names or retain such an employee?”
Since you put the question that way it is more reasonable. I see your point. How ever the car is her property and that is her right. Could any company not ask that she park in a place that customers not see the car? Like around back? Something like that? Most places I have ever worked asked employees to park in the back so that customers could park in the front to make it easy on them. There are way to resolve issues like this rather than what happened. Because now this will end up as a lawsuit and you better believe the queers will get involved before it is all over and this daycare will be sorry.
"Shannon, we'll send you back to Muhlenberg county,
down by the Green River
where Paradise lay..."
In light of the information exposed in the book ‘Makers and Takers’, there is plenty of evidence that liberals tend to be lousy employees. They show tendencies towards dishonesty, laziness, unethical behavior, entitlement mentality, and they whine a lot.
I certainly wouldn’t hire one.
Davis said she asked the staffer training Grossman how things were going, and the staffer expressed non-specific discomfort. The staffer, who also has a child enrolled at Tiny Tots, later took out the garbage and, after seeing the stickers on Grossman’s car, became quite upset over the word “pedophile.”
(Grossman said she interviewed on Thursday, May 8, and reported to work on Monday, May 12. Davis said Grossman worked a full day on Monday and that the incident occurred last Tuesday.)
Davis said she concluded then that Grossman didn’t fit in and that she cut her loose midday, with the promise to pay her for time worked. Davis said the staffer could corroborate the story, but she is off on Tuesdays and could not be reached before presstime.
excellent discussion! the bill of rights protects us from the govt.....
That, in itself, is enough to decline offering her permanent employment.
Also, notice that even the shyster civil rights lawyers don't even want to touch this one.
That does happen. I don't like it much, but them's the breaks.
If you are in a position where you can be fired at will, you best watch your p's and q's.
It’s her car, but it’s the owners business. The way I see it, they can fire her for any reason they want to. She has no right to that job.
Absolutely.
I refuse to be friends or associate with liberals because, the way I see it, they side with those that would take away my freedom and how can you be friends with that.
“This is no different than coming to work with 50 “tats” piercings, a beer in your hand, and a bright blue mohawk.”
Actually I see more of that in workplaces than I care to see, but that is another story.
Here’s what to make of this... it’s just another shakedown.
I consider bringing your politics to the workplace on your car or any other way as a gross error in judgement. I have a subordinate who shares my ‘winger’ views who can’t seem to restrain himself. In those few minutes while we are waiting for a staff meeting to start he will mention the day’s political headline. It raises the hair on the back of my neck. I think I’ve finally communicated to him that is not the time or place for political discussions.
it wasn’t a political candidate bumper sticker, it was, among others one that read “Gay Old Pedophile”.
now besides the serious lack of class, we don’t know, and the customers don’t know, whether she was calling repiblucans “Gay old Pedophile” (which would be my buess btw), or proudly proclaiming herself to be a “Gay old pedophile” in which case the case takes on a whole new picture.
why take chances hiring someone who may testify in open court some day that you knew she was a pedophile - it was on her car!
Note how the reporter connects the dots for the reader.... This bumber sticker is ‘a reference to that’ and so forth... interesting how the reporter feels compelled to do this.
As for me, I don’t put my politics on my bumper. Too many whackos out there.
The banks are made of marble,
With a guard on every door.
The vaults are full of silver,
That the workers sweated for...
“I consider bringing your politics to the workplace on your car”
Oh I do!
I have a sticker that reads: FRED 08 EVEN ALLAH WON’T SAVE YOU NOW
I am self employed.
I don’t get much business from Muslims. I don’t want any!!!
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