MARKET WATCH COLUMNIST
“What Were the Implants Supposed to Accomplish” Ellis Henican Column, amNewYork, June 11, 2010
First things first: Debrahlee Lorenzano isn’t all THAT hot.
Clearly, ‘money honey’ ain’t what it used to be.
She’s got a reasonably nice smile, perfectly acceptable wavy dark hair, and breasts so large it’s a wonder they don’t need scaffolding to hold them up on her tiny frame.
But in the nerdy warrens of the New York banking business,
that third attribute is clearly more than enough—enough to turn her male colleagues at Citibank into a sweaty mob of heavy-breathing 14-year-olds, enough to turn an anonymous bank employee into an instant celebrity babe and an employment lawyer’s dream plaintiff.
It’s hard to know who to pull for in the ‘I’m too sexy for my job’ lawsuit: the oafish boys at Citibank who couldn’t keep track of their own figures when confronted with Debrahlee’s, or the money-grubbing star of this high-interest sideshow who pumped up her own personal assets to unnatural proportions and now is objecting that they’ve been noticed.
But wait!
Didn’t she contribute to her own victimization? Those breasts are clearly after-market installations. Why’d she go to all that trouble if she wasn’t seeking some extra ogling?
The simple truth of the matter is that as long as people go to work, no one will be able to legislate away the natural instinct to notice, to flirt, even to comment on the pulchritude of certain coworkers. This is not a defense of abuse: it’s just a recognition of the fact that human beings are human.
The behavior of the guys at Citibank very well may have been inappropriate, and maybe Citibank will need to make it up to Ms. Lorenzano with a big fat check.
The question is, where does harmless daily banter give way to intolerable workplace harassment? That’s why we have a legal system, to draw those difficult lines.
Now departed from Citibank, Debrahlee is continuing her career at a Chase branch in Brooklyn. No doubt her new colleagues have been instructed to avert their gazes when Debrahlee is in their field of vision.
And what could be worse than having her colleagues notice her shape?
How about if they didn’t?
E-mail ellis@henican.com. Follow him at twitter.com/henican
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Va Va Va voom. Not your type Ellis?