No one who lived in Salt Lake City during Rocky Anderson’s two terms as mayor would put “stellar manager” at the top of his skill set. Warm and fuzzy he is not. However, he is brighter than most, usually way ahead of others when seeking solutions to city problems, and suffers fools not at all.
He is also a champion of the downtrodden and those victimized by our government, which, when dealing with the disadvantaged, can be indifferent at best and downright cruel at worst.
So, was I surprised to read that Anderson had offended two women who used to work for him? Not one bit. What did surprise me is that The Salt Lake Tribune would run the equivalent of a full page in the Sunday front section to dive into the nonstory of Anderson’s abrupt and insensitive behavior toward these two female employees and their response to it.
From this comprehensive coverage, I can find no claim or evidence of sexual harassment or incidents of forced attention of a sexual or threatening nature. Nor do I see clear discrimination based on sex. All I can glean from this article is that two women felt “uncomfortable” with Anderson, with his blurring the lines between work done for his business and his personal life, with the fact that he yells at people, and that he may have favored a male employee who does fine work and does not gripe about having to do tasks that may be more personal than business in nature.
By the way, as a manager for several years, I will confess to having favorites among my staff. It’s simple, really. The people who do their work competently and professionally and without complaint are favored.
I guess my real concern with this so-called reporting/editing is that I believe the #MeToo movement has the potential to create real change in how women are treated in the workplace. But empty reporting like the article printed Sunday about Rocky Anderson, where women are simply uncomfortable with the culture of a particular business, but no sexual harassment has occurred, will diminish the potential of seeing real change for women.
Rocky Anderson may be guilty of creating a difficult work environment in his small law office, but this does not make his behavior discriminatory, or front-page news.
Cathryn Collis, Salt Lake City