There have been no shortage of breathtaking blunders made by some high-profile people in the past few days. This week’s top career-limiting moves include accidental porn, sexual assault, and severed heads.
Monday – Accidental Porn
On Monday, Niagara Regional Councillor, Andy Petrowski sent out a Reply-All email about a road closure to about 100 constituents and colleagues – including journalists. The trouble is, he attached a photo of a naked woman to the email. It wasn’t an artful pic of a naked form modestly hidden by shadows. This was a nude woman sitting on a stool facing the camera with her legs open.
Of course, Petrowski apologized immediately, denying that he had sent the offensive email. He claimed the message had been sent by someone else using his iPad. Regardless, there are clamours for him to resign. Today, he announced that he is taking a “leave of absence” from work.
Career lessons: Don’t surf porn on a work device. Don’t save nude photos on a device you use for work. Double check everything in an email and attached to it before hitting Send.
Tuesday – Sexual Assault
French tennis player Maxime Hamou has been banned from the French Open after groping and kissing a female reporter on live television. Eurosport journalist Maly Thomas was attempting to interview the athlete about his first round match when he somehow thought it appropriate to repeatedly grab and forcibly attempt to kiss her.
The French Tennis Federation called his behaviour “reprehensible” and revoked his French Open accreditation. Thomas has since said, “if it hadn’t been live on air, I would have punched him”.
Career lesson: Be professional. Keep your hands to yourself. Don’t sexually harass or assault anybody.
Tuesday/Wednesday – Severed Heads
Yesterday, notedly unfunny “comedian” Kathy Griffith posed in a photo and video holding a fake severed Donald Trump head. Public reaction was swift in condemning the violent image as being in very poor taste.
President Trump himself tweeted just this morning, “Kathy Griffin should be ashamed of herself. My children, especially my 11 year old son, Barron, are having a hard time with this. Sick!”
CNN fired Griffin from her recurring gig of hosting the network’s annual New Year’s Eve special.
She has since released a video via Twitter apologizing for the image and admitting that she “went too far.”
Career lesson: Practice some common sense. No matter how much you dislike or disagree with someone, violent bloody images depicting their death are never okay.
Those are your Bad Career Moves of the Week – but hey, we’re only Wednesday. Stay tuned.
