"I Have the Right to Pose Naked"

She told me that and I agreed with her. Which made it that much harder to fire her the same week I hired her.

I've hired hundreds of applicants in my career and I take pride in finding good, talented people. And Debbie was a can't-miss-slam-dunk. She wasn't just going to be the head of marketing...she was going to be the face and voice of the companies local office. She stood out from the other applicants. Debbie had a great personality. She was "perky", which was exactly what we were looking for. Afterwards, I had to defend myself that I hired her for her looks. Certainly she was pretty. But not sexy pretty. Not model pretty. A better description might be 'adorable'. She was the neighbor girl you hired to watch your kids. She was an activities director in a nursing home for God's sake. Her husband was the weekend anchor at the local network. Can't-miss-slam-dunk.

Debbie started on Monday...the same day the local paper did the standard puff peice on our new Marketing Director. On Tuesday a "concerned citizen" dropped off a magazine at our office. Maxim...no problem. Playboy...we might have lived with. Penthouse... would have presented some difficulties. But this was...Hustler. And it wasn't a youthful error. It was the current issue! And she was in the middle in all of her "adorable" spread legged perkiness.

Within hours (maybe it was minutes) it was big news at the corporate office and a couple of clerks were dispatched to gather evidence from the local porn shops so the company officers could see for themselves who Jim hired. They needed to see the evidence for themselves before they made any decisons.

On Thursday I fired her. I had to do it with the corporate attorney listening in on the speaker phone. She cried and I felt awful. She talked about her rights and I countered with our rights. She finally left peacefully and with 2 weeks pay.

I still believe she had the right to pose naked. Anyone does. And you have the right to pierce your toungue and tattoo your neck and have a swastika bumper sticker and drink yourself into a stupor. I even believe you should have the right to get high. But as you exercise your rights and "stick it to the man", you gotta realize that "the man" has got rights too.

Good luck Debbie. I wish you the best.