P&C drink and review Port City’s Long Black Veil, an American style, black IPA, then discuss whether employers should have any say in what employees do on their own time.
There seems to be a difference in degree, based on the extent to which the employee represents the company. To put it simply, there’s the line worker, the manager, and the company officer, and in each case, the company has an increasing interest in the employee’s positions on issues. Or at least what they say about them.
Is it different when the company has an explicit goal? How about a nonprofit that advocates for a particular issue. Can they only hire people who agree with them?
Is company culture a good enough reason? What if a company doesn’t want any Trump voters?
The old standard, back in the 80s, was that the only thing that mattered was your ability to do the job. That was the standard progressive view. E.g., Bill Clinton’s sex life was irrelevant as long as he was doing his job well.
The new standard is harder to parse, but the boys do their best to meander their way through it.
The old standard may not have been perfect, but it seems better to err on that side than on that of the new standard.
I agree.
QUOTE: The old standard, back in the 80s, was that the only thing that mattered was your ability to do the job. That was the standard progressive view. E.g., Bill Clinton’s sex life was irrelevant as long as he was doing his job well.
The old standard was likely better in most cases. An appropriate exception is/was when an employee’s behavior negatively impacted the organization’s brand and profitability. Therefore organization’s had mechanisms such as “morality clauses” which gave them the ability to protect themselves in the event an influential employee temporarily lost their ever-lovin’ mind. We saw echoes of that during the Rob Lowe sex scandal. Despite his popularity and perceived excellence as an actor, he was banished by the liberal elite for a number of years from entertainment. Another exception was Clinton, being the President, conservatives and the religious right were appropriate in their criticism of his wanton behavior.
Interesting thing, despite criticizing liberals for the old progressive standard at one time, conservatives don’t seem to have an issue using it currently in some situations. For instance, Franklin Graham once said relative to Clinton, “If he will lie to or mislead his wife and daughter, those with whom he is most intimate, what will prevent him from doing the same to the American public?”. Relative to Trump he said, “I think some of these things — that’s for him and his wife to deal with…and I think this thing with Stormy Daniels and so forth is nobody’s business.”. Indeed, it seems time brings about changes in standards.