10 p.m.

• You know, sometimes when you work for idiots you really want to get the hell out of there. However, there’s something that keeps me from really looking for another job. That reason? Because this place is awesome – in a trainwreck sort of way. Our Marketing Director, which is a fancy way to say “head insurance salesman,” gets boned at every turn at this place and today may have been the final straw. Long story short. Late last month he attended this public event to meet and greet/press the flesh/do that sales stuff which keeps the wheels of commerce spinning. And yesterday he turned in his expense report. Today he got called up and got scolded for a $600 tab. He was gone for three days in Michigan. All he put down was the daily per diem and mileage. He didn’t add anything for food, tolls or other expenses, like, say the RENTAL CAR he got because his two vehicles were in the shop. Here’s how it broke down:

Hotel: More than $100 per night for three nights.

Mileage. Just under $300 round-trip from Shittsburgh to Michigan.

Oh, and this is the first time after more than two years on the job that he turned in a per diem expense. (He didn't even know he was allowed to turn in a per diem for events like this until earlier this year when he told the one idiot that he couldn't afford to keep going to these out-of-state events. That's when the idiot said, "You can put your hotel costs on an expense report." This is the same idiot that gave my co-worker his orientation at this place; I would have thought per diems would have been mentioned when my poor co-worker is "encouraged" to travel as often as possible.) Did I mention he has a "Marketing Budget" of $5,000 that he hasn't been allowed to spend at all this year? After this confrontation, my partner in crime began the day’s job search and had an interview at 3:15 p.m. with a place that knows in 2006 my co-worker did more businesses than the top four producers at the next busiest organization in our field. If he leaves within the next few days I’m going to have a grand ol’ time at work, especially since that will mean my idiot bosses will be too pre-occupied trying to play damage control when my co-worker sends out correspondence describing exactly why he left, which means I’ll be left alone even more than usual. Good times, I say.

• Even though the Smues household may be paying more than he would like for car insurance on a 2000 Ford Ranger that has been driven 115,000+ miles, it could have been worse. The future Mrs. Smues could have had a guy with a penis pendant sell her the car.

A 69-year-old woman filed a wrongful termination and sexual harassment lawsuit against a Monterey auto dealer and one of its employees. Velma Evans says she was fired by Stahl Motor Inc. after she repeatedly complained about a male employee who allegedly wore a penis pendant necklace and used a sausage to flash her in a sexual manner.

 

Auto dealer Bob Stahl declined comment. Employee Kurt Aiken said Monday the allegations are baseless, noting he was merely eating the sausage and wearing a necklace with a religious icon.

 

Evans was a part-time customer service manager at the dealership for 18 years, according to the lawsuit.

 

Her troubles began on Dec. 13, 2001, when Aiken called out to her, as he was exposing a sausage through his unbuttoned shirt or unzipped pants, the suit said. She complained to Stahl and Stahl and the employee wrote letters acknowledging the "untoward incident," the suit said.

 

Aiken wrote that "we fool around in the shop sometimes between the guys and as guys do."

 

Evans continued to work at the company for more than four years until Aug. 17, 2006, when a customer told her Aiken had joked about the sausage incident and was regularly wearing a necklace with likenesses of a monkey and a penis hanging from it, the suit said.

 

Evans went to Stahl to say she was embarrassed and humiliated that Aiken would joke about the harassment to a customer. Stahl then allegedly told her to leave.

• Oh good lord.

According to an upcoming paper by a University of Pennsylvania professor and a Cornell graduate student, white referees called fouls against black players at a higher rate than they did against white players.

 

Their study also found that black officials called fouls on white players more frequently than they did against blacks, but the disparity wasn't as great.