Book Companion:

Library and Information Center Management,
Seventh Edition

"Men Love It When Women Talk Dirty"

The law firm of Rand, Maxwell and Mateer occupies three entire floors of a large office building in downtown Talbotville, a thriving industrial city of some two million people. It has twelve full-fledged partners who receive a percentage of the profits, eighteen lawyers whose names appear upon its letter-head but who are paid regular salaries, and fifty-two other lawyers. It has five departments - accounting, office, personnel, systems and library - each with its own manager and all of whom report to the Director of Administration, a non-lawyer named Martha McFall.

Van Hanna is a fairly recent graduate of a library and information science program, who was hired as the library manager's assistant a week before our story begins. It was made clear to Hanna by the personnel manager, Arabella Betz, at the time of his interview and subsequent appointment, that if he demonstrated the requisite abilities during his year's probation he would replace the library manager, Garrett Teaff, when he retires at the end of that period.

Hanna is a good-looking young man of thirty, smooth-faced, tall and supple. His efficient and businesslike approach, coupled with a quiet sense of humor and an ingratiating manner, have got him off to a very good start at Rand, Maxwell and Mateer.

A never-ending stream of interesting questions keep Teaff, Hanna, and their two library assistants busy all of their days and sometimes well into the night. The lights burn brightly in the library and the secretarial bureau most evenings, because someone who generates work for those two departments is always staying late.

One night during his second week Van Hanna was sitting alone in the library immersed in papers and books when suddenly through the self-conscious back of his neck he had a feeling of being stared at. He looked around to find Arabella Betz standing behind him

"Oh, Ms. Betz!" he said, surprised. "I was so busy I hadn't realized you were here. You're working late."

"Please, Van, call me Arabella. Yes, and I'd like you to come to my office if you would. There's something I want to see you about."

"Okay," the librarian said, and he picked up his notebook and followed her down the corridor to her office. Once inside Betz closed the door and took her place behind her desk and motioned Hanna to the guest chair.

Sitting there in the personnel manager's office with the door closed and most of the staff gone, Hanna found himself ill at ease. He had never felt entirely comfortable in Betz's company. She had a disconcerting habit of staring at him, and he was conscious - was it only his imagination? - of some subtle emanation from her. To be on the safe side he scrupulously kept his words and behavior inside the innermost circle of decorum. He was polite - and very cautious.

All at once the personnel manager got up, walked to the other side of the desk and stood immediately in front of the librarian. She slowly undid the top three buttons of her blouse, leaned forward and said "Did anyone ever tell you you have the cutest buns?" And she kissed him on the mouth.

Van Hanna pushed her away. He looked at her with surprise, with horror, and then with amusement, but it was plain that he was not in the least interested in her. His mood became one of pity. "Are you trying to seduce me, Arabella?"

The crass word seemed to anger her. Quickly she returned behind the desk and buttoned her blouse. Hanna knew before she spoke that there would be some unpleasantness. Assuming a look of blank astonishment, she said, "Why, Van, Dear! What are you talking about?"

When Hanna offered no comment she went on, but her next words almost lifted him out of his seat: "If you're thinking, my dear boy, of mentioning this to anyone, I'd suggest you think twice before doing so. I warn you if you try to tell anyone that I mad a pass at you I'll turn the tables on you quicker than you can bat an eye and tell people you tried to - what was the word you used? seduced me. You see, my dear boy, I've a great deal of credibility around here. No one would doubt for a moment that I was telling the truth. And remember, men harass women. Everyone knows that. It's seldom the other way around. But if it does happen it's almost always by some lower-level female to a higher-level boss. That's obviously not the case here. And anyway, my dear boy, why not admit you're flattered by my interest. Men like it when women come on to them, just as they love it when women talk dirty." Noting the bewilderment in the young man's face, she added: "And anyway you've done a pretty good job of leading me on."

"Leading her on?" "Leading her on?" The words boomed in his temples like tolling bells. Could he have possibly done anything, he asked himself that would have given her cause to think he was interested in her - sexually or otherwise? He had behaved impeccably. Was it not safe to be friendly anymore? Hanna shook his head in vigorous denial, but she gave him no chance to speak.

"One more thing, my dear boy," she ran on. "Don't forget that I'm the St. Peter of the pass-the-probation-period-heaven, empowered to admit or deny."

The librarian could hardly credit his ears. Experienced man of the world though he deemed himself to be, he had never encountered such a vicious person. To the staff of Rand, Maxwell and Mateer she was an exemplary employee. But what an unsuspected streak of cruelty she possessed. A shell infested with worms. She was a figure out of the inquisition; she had him on the rack. That was hyperbole perhaps, nevertheless it showed how his mind was working.

But as the significance of Betz's words sank in, Hanna's ordinary good-natured countenance was suffused with outrage and disbelief. Without a word, he got to his feet and went to the door. As he opened it, she called out to him, "Oh, Van!" He looked back to see her blow him a kiss and then toss her head back and laugh.

Unable to work, Hanna closed the library and left the building. As he walked slowly up First Street to the bus stop, he put himself through a relentless catechism. Had he done anything, he asked himself, that could possibly be construed as "Leading her on?" Did his trousers cling to him? Absurd! Like other men at Rand, Maxwell and Mateer he wore conservative business suits. It was too preposterous for words. Was he making a mountain out of a molehill? Ruminating in this strain, he threaded his way through the crowd. He felt like stopping some of the people and asking them if they thought Arabella's actions constituted sexual harassment and what he should do.

By the time he arrived home he had worked out a plan of action: He would find out whether the firm had a sexual harassment policy and then wait to see if Betz's behavior was an isolated aberration, making certain to behave toward her as if nothing had happened.

The company did not have a sexual harassment policy. The most influential senior partners did not feel one was necessary because sexual harassment would never be a problem at the distinguished firm of Rand, Maxwell and Mateer. Why, the very idea!

A week passed. Two weeks. Hanna and Betz exchanged funeral nods in the corridors, but had no dealings during that period. In a way not to raise suspicions, Hanna inquired of Garrett Teaff whether the personnel department made use of the library and found that the answer was "only now and then." But always in the back of his mind was the contretemps of that night and an increased awareness of Betz as a result. Indeed, he was acutely conscious of her and it frustrated him no end. It seemed to him that she was in the corridor more than ever. Again, was it his imagination? She was beginning to affect his nerves like a single note of music played interminably and from which there was no escape.

One day as he was walking to the systems office, Betz suddenly appeared from one of the rooms. She stopped. He gave her his customary nod, but she took a quick glance to see that no one was around and said, "This nodding, trying-to-appear=disinterested game is fun, isn't it? I know you're interested in me. You can't hold out forever." And rolling tongue around her lips she added: "One of these days you'll give in. Do I have to massage that message in with hot towels?"

An expression of extreme annoyance spread over Hanna's face. "Look Arabella," he said, "let's stop the game playing, all the game playing. I don't appreciate what's going on, and I'd ask you to please stop. Let's put our relationship on a more professional basis."

Glancing around again to make sure no one was in the vicinity, Betz said, "You're even cuter when you're mad!"

Unable to think of a parting speech sufficiently bitter to match his frustration, Hanna turned on his heel and strode off.

The question was: What could and should he do? How much was it possible to share with others? - other than his wife of four months, who was justifiably concerned. The dramatis personae of the offices of Rand, Maxwell and Mateer labored independently by and large and frequently even seemed unaware of each other's existenc3e. There was one junior member of the legal staff who had been working for a couple of weeks at the same table in the library with whom Hanna had struck up an acquaintanceship, but other than that there was no one in whom he felt he could confide - including he suspected his supervisor, Garrett Teaff. Half-formulated early impressions led Hanna to believe that Teaff lived in a padded world where he was protected from all shocking, rough or otherwise unpleasant things in the coarse universe of fact. The library manager's daily life at work consisted of a series of polite and pleasant professional contacts, and his private life from what Hanna could gather was one of quiet evenings and nicely adjusted social events.

But if Hanna did take his problem to Teaff, what would he do if that gentleman was shocked and refused to believe that a fine person like Arabella Betz could be guilty of such gross behavior. Not the colleague he had known for twelve years, since she joined the firm at the age of twenty-nine. Teaff was still trying to come to terms with the fact that Betz was recently divorced. She must have been married to quite a "bounder," he had said once.

What a sweet little cesspool of simmering troubles Van Hanna had stumbled into!

Written by Dr. A. J. Anderson, Professor Emeritus, GSLIS, Simmons College