Santa fired for 'naughty' joke

I wonder if there isn't more to this. Even though corporations are renowned for making dumb decisions like this, it seems to me as though there has to be more to it than the lame jokes the Santa said he was telling. One complaint for a bad joke told by a 20 year employee and he gets canned? Where's the Elf Union?
 
Spindrift said:
I wonder if there isn't more to this. Even though corporations are renowned for making dumb decisions like this, it seems to me as though there has to be more to it than the lame jokes the Santa said he was telling. One complaint for a bad joke told by a 20 year employee and he gets canned? Where's the Elf Union?
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I'm starting to recognize sentiments like these as possible symptoms of the "just world" fallacy. To be clear, there may very well be more to the story as you say. But in my experience, there doesn't have to be more to it. Unfair, unjust crap like this happens a lot more than people seem to think.

That said, I hope there is more to it, because I'd like to think I live in a just world, too. Except, I know I don't.
 
slingblade said:
I'm starting to recognize sentiments like these as possible symptoms of the "just world" fallacy. To be clear, there may very well be more to the story as you say. But in my experience, there doesn't have to be more to it. Unfair, unjust crap like this happens a lot more than people seem to think.

That said, I hope there is more to it, because I'd like to think I live in a just world, too. Except, I know I don't.
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I don't see it as a 'just world' so much as a somewhat plausible one. For a major department store such as Macy's to fire an employee who had become something of an institution over this:
"When I ask the older people who sit on my lap if they've been good and they say, 'Yes,' I say, 'Gee, that's too bad,' " Toomey said Monday.
"Then, if they ask why Santa is so jolly, I joke that it's because I know where all the naughty boys and girls live."
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just pushes the bounds of plausibility for me.

I'm well aware of the injustice and stupidity in the world, but the story just doesn't feel right to me. Perhaps the joke was a bit more risque than he's willing to admit. Nothing to back that up with and I'm not about to go to SF to investigate.
 
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Spindrift said:
I don't see it as a 'just world' so much as a somewhat plausible one. For a major department store such as Macy's to fire an employee who had become something of an institution over this:

just pushes the bounds of plausibility for me.
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I'm not doubting you, or how you see it. However, it does smack somewhat of "just world" because you think a person's 20-year job history ought to get them something. And in a just world, it would.


I'm well aware of the injustice and stupidity in the world, but the story just doesn't feel right to me. Perhaps the joke was a bit more risque than he's willing to admit. Nothing to back that up with and I'm not about to go to SF to investigate.
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Not asking for that. But try this on for size: to some people, his second joke about knowing where the naughty boys and girls live could sound pedophillic. Yes, it would take a particular mind-set to interpret the joke that way, but remember that "think of the children" is such a horribly rampant mind-set on its own today. Some people actually look for that sort of thing, and because they are looking for it, their own confirmation bias makes them see it or hear it everywhere.

I'm a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, and yet I did not take the joke that way at all. But I certainly see where some could. And when a big business like Macy's is involved, and the person speaking deals largely with children, one complaint of that nature may very well be enough to wipe out 20 years of service. Better to fire one old man than risk hysterical lawsuits.


...or, the store may have had complaints about how he dealt with children in the past, felt he was pushing it, and got rid of him.

I did say there may easily be more to it than we know, you are quite right.
But then again, crap like this does happen, for scant reason such as this.
 
slingblade said:
...But try this on for size: to some people, his second joke about knowing where the naughty boys and girls live could sound pedophillic.
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Maybe I'm just dense and I'm sorry for coming across as snarky, but what would be another way to interpret his second comment?




edit: Okay, I suppose as old man, he could be referring to naughty boys and girls over the age of 18, which almost excuses the comment.
 
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SumDood said:
Maybe I'm just dense and I'm sorry for coming across as snarky, but what would be another way to interpret his second comment?
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That Santa enjoys "naughtiness" in the form of an exciting personal life, and that naughty persons (adults of consenting age, playfully referred to as "boys and girls" in reference both to the Santa mythology and his age relative to most other peoples') would be willing and able to provide him with some of this excitement, being of similar tastes and mind. Further jollility is implied by the "boys and girls" because it suggests Santa enjoys both sexes as playmates.

eta: The joke hinges, of course, on the suggestion that Santa's character is completely opposite of his public image, and that beneath his grandfatherly saintly exterior lies a titillating and sexually adventurous individual. Pointing that out in such terms, though, robs the joke of it's humor and adds a certain distaste as I'm sure some of you are now quite repelled by the bisexual dirty old man Santa.
 
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SumDood said:
Maybe I'm just dense and I'm sorry for coming across as snarky, but what would be another way to interpret his second comment?




edit: Okay, I suppose as old man, he could be referring to naughty boys and girls over the age of 18, which almost excuses the comment.
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Sure. I've been to parties where someone playing Santa asked me if I'd been a good girl, and just how good was I, could he take me somewhere quiet and find out? Sexual play, between adults, totally harmless in that context. But not necessarily so much in a man who's actually putting kids on his lap, even if, at the time, he's speaking to adults only.
 
slingblade said:
Sure. I've been to parties where someone playing Santa asked me if I'd been a good girl, and just how good was I, could he take me somewhere quiet and find out? Sexual play, between adults, totally harmless in that context. But not necessarily so much in a man who's actually putting kids on his lap, even if, at the time, he's speaking to adults only.
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In many times and places, the default interpretation of the listeners would have been the playful one, and not the creepy one. It's sad that this appears to not be the case anymore.
 
TragicMonkey said:
In many times and places, the default interpretation of the listeners would have been the playful one, and not the creepy one. It's sad that this appears to not be the case anymore.
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Exactly. As a person who once wanted very much to work with teenagers, and saw what it's like today, I can say with no hesitation that anyone who works with kids these days, in this sort of climate, is risking a lot. And it really is very sad.

As a student teacher, I was in a planning period, and a distraught teen girl, my student, came running into the classroom, sobbing. She'd found out that morning her parents were divorcing, and at lunch, her boyfriend broke up with her. I was working with my mentor teachers, and this girl just burst into the room, threw her arms around me, and just bawled.

I disengaged as quickly and gently as I could, because we were instructed never to let students touch us, nor were we to touch them. I comforted her, sent her back to lunch, and got back to my work.

I found out weeks later that my mentors had discussed--with other teachers and student teachers--whether or not to call the cops on me for sexual assault of a minor. From what I was told, they were only just barely talked out of it.

I do not envy anyone who works in any way with children, and I no longer want to, in any capacity.

ETA: that's not to say that nothing is going on with Santa, or that there's not more to his story. I'm only saying there's a kind of hysteria out there, and innocent people get swept up in it very easily.
 
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I hadn't seen the expression "just world" before thie.

I've seen "just reality", but took the "just" to mean "merely", not "fair".
 
Soapy Sam said:
I hadn't seen the expression "just world" before thie.

I've seen "just reality", but took the "just" to mean "merely", not "fair".
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I came across it recently, don't remember where--here at JREF, I think--and found it answered a few questions for me about that kind of thinking. "In a just world," meaning in a world where things are fair, just, honest...which doesn't exist, unfortunately. People will say they can't imagine such and such happening, that it isn't right, isn't fair. But things rarely are just or fair, and so that's just another form of fallacious thinking.

I'm not saying Spindrift is necessarily engaging in fallacious thinking, but I do think we all do it to an extent, and it can...cloud? our thinking. But Spin could be totally right, and there's more we haven't heard yet.

Wiki:
The just-world phenomenon, also called the just-world theory, just-world fallacy, just-world effect, or just-world hypothesis, refers to the tendency for people to want to believe that the world is fundamentally just so when they witness an otherwise inexplicable injustice they will rationalize it by searching for things that the victim might have done to deserve it. This deflects their anxiety, and lets them continue to believe the world is a just place, but often at the expense of blaming victims for things that were not, objectively, their fault.
Another theory entails the need to protect one's own sense of invulnerability. This inspires people to believe that rape, for example, only happens to those who deserve or provoke the assault. This is a way of feeling safer. If the potential victim avoids the behaviors of the past victims then they themselves will remain safe and feel less vulnerable.
 
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slingblade said:
Sure. I've been to parties where someone playing Santa asked me if I'd been a good girl, and just how good was I, could he take me somewhere quiet and find out? Sexual play, between adults, totally harmless in that context. But not necessarily so much in a man who's actually putting kids on his lap, even if, at the time, he's speaking to adults only.
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To me the bolded part is what is important. He is only making the naughty jokes to adults who choose to sit on Santa's lap.

To my mind, the person sitting on the lap is already knowingly engaging in a kind of mildly sexual role-play where they are going to sit on the lap of a complete stranger playing a role of a character that is known to ask people if they have been naughty or nice.

The fact that he is willing to engage in this kind of banter just shows that the man knows exactly what is expected of him from such customers.
 
cwalner said:
To me the bolded part is what is important. He is only making the naughty jokes to adults who choose to sit on Santa's lap.

To my mind, the person sitting on the lap is already knowingly engaging in a kind of mildly sexual role-play where they are going to sit on the lap of a complete stranger playing a role of a character that is known to ask people if they have been naughty or nice.

The fact that he is willing to engage in this kind of banter just shows that the man knows exactly what is expected of him from such customers.
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I agree, and were I asked to play Santa (unlikely, me being female, but still), it's something I'd likely do, too. With the adults, mind you.
 
What kind of *********** weirdo sits on Santa's lap to begin with?
 
slingblade said:
I agree, and were I asked to play Santa (unlikely, me being female, but still), it's something I'd likely do, too. With the adults, mind you.
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Reminds me of college. For my dorm's Christmas party we would get one of the professors to play Santa (my freshman year, it was a female professor) and he/she would give presents to the students with plenty of double entendre going on.

This is somewhat borderline, the issue being student/professor relationships. However, most of the naughtiness was initiated by the students, and I don't recall anything going beyond banter.
 
I might've been inclined to feel bad about this situation if the old bastard had ever brought me that moped I asked for every year. Just a freakin' moped - that's all I wanted!
 
TragicMonkey said:
That Santa enjoys "naughtiness" in the form of an exciting personal life, and that naughty persons (adults of consenting age, playfully referred to as "boys and girls" in reference both to the Santa mythology and his age relative to most other peoples') would be willing and able to provide him with some of this excitement, being of similar tastes and mind. Further jollility is implied by the "boys and girls" because it suggests Santa enjoys both sexes as playmates.

eta: The joke hinges, of course, on the suggestion that Santa's character is completely opposite of his public image, and that beneath his grandfatherly saintly exterior lies a titillating and sexually adventurous individual. Pointing that out in such terms, though, robs the joke of it's humor and adds a certain distaste as I'm sure some of you are now quite repelled by the bisexual dirty old man Santa.
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Maybe Santa asked the lady if she wanted to see his North Pole.
 
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