"Do As You're Told" Syndrome and it's fascinating/terrifying consequences
On my commute to work this morning, I was listening to the new SModcast (32), where Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier talk candidly about anything they want for 52 minutes, which is exactly how long my commute takes and laughing out loud on the subway is completely worth any strange looks at 8 in the morning when you’re listening to these guys.
Anyway, after some horrifying news about six boys dying from brain eating parasites contracted by swimming in a normal lake (for the record, Kevin Smith would rather die from one of those parasites than a shark attack, given the two week delay and less pain), they delve into a fascinating news story.
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Sodomized Ex-McDonald’s Employee Wins $6.1M
Incident Happened In 2004, Part Of Nationwide Scam
SHEPHERDSVILLE, Ky. — A Kentucky jury has awarded $6.1 million to a former McDonald’s employee who sued the company after being strip-searched, humiliated and sodomized in the back office of its Mt. Washington, Ky., store.Louise Ogborn had sued for $200 million.The jury also awarded $1.1 million to a former assistant manager who strip-searched Ogborn.A man impersonating a police officer called the restaurant in April 2004 and persuaded assistant manager Donna Summers that Ogborn, then 18, had stolen money from a customer.The caller asked Summers to take Ogborn into a back room and strip search her. A security tape showed Ogborn, crying and covered only in an apron after the strip search, enduring further humiliation that continued for more than three hours.According to court records and security camera tape, the caller’s requests became more bizarre as the situation proceeded. Eventually, Summers called her fiancé at the time, a middle-aged man named Walter Nix Jr., to come to the restaurant and guard the teen while continuing with the caller’s demands while Nix went back to work.According to the tape, Nix, while continuing the phone call, made Ogborn remove her apron, jog in place with her hands in the air, do jumping jacks, stand on a chair and, eventually, Nix began spanking her for several minutes at a time.The taped showed Summers reentering the room several times, at which point Nix would throw the apron back to Ogborn and remove it again each time Summers left.Eventually Nix ordered Ogborn to perform oral sex on him.The abuse stopped when a second man, a maintenance worker at the store, was called into the room, picked up the phone and refused to follow the caller’s instructions.
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And if you’re disturbed/horrified/shocked/appalled like I am, then here’s the Primetime ABC video:
Strip Search at McDonalds
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It’s long, and ultimately so outrageous that not only do you not believe it, you don’t want to believe it. But it’s true. And Kevin and Scott were all over this, talking for 40 minutes until it seemed (by their own admission) to be more like the O’Reilly Factor than a SModcast.
But the more I thought about it, the more troubled my morning was becoming. CAN YOU IMAGINE? A guy calls on the phone, pretends he’s police, gets a middle aged female manager to back room her 18 yr old employee, strip search her, then send in her 43 yr old fiance, who takes it to the point beyond sexual assault when he gets off on believing that the “police” on the phone is having him spank this naked girl for 10 minutes, then have her perform oral on him.
::breathe::
Four hours. Four hours this girl was back there, and it took a 53 yr old janitor to hang up the phone and say it was wrong. I would hope everyone reading this can understand that no real police officer would ever say anything like this on the phone and that no one should ever follow through on such instructions as “naked jumping jacks” ever.
The girl says her parents taught her to “listen to adults and do whatever they say,” plus she was physically and psychologically under the control of the man on the phone working through her ignorant captors.
How naive can so many people be? The man calling was wrong, sure, but he wasn’t forcing anyone’s hand in this matter. The manager was crazy to let this happen, and her fiance was criminal in his actions.
Here’s another site chronicling this shocking incident, but what’s even more shocking is that it’s hardly an isolated incident! Click through for 11 more specific incidents even though up to 70 have been reported.
I’ve never worked in the service industry, but I would hope to be in control enough to never find myself in any one of these situations.
Can you imagine being a juror in this case? These people had to deal with the whole mess. All in all, it’s a whole lot to think about and too much for a Friday. But, just consider the blind faith this manager put into her caller’s credibility, and the sickness behind her fiance taking advantage of the situation rather than shutting it down. Are we all cogs in the wheel taking blind orders from anyone willing to give them? These people were and before this morning I never thought this was possible.
And to top it all off, the poor girl gets 5 million because the jurors decided McDonald’s was such a lousy company that they tried to make it look like the girl was off the clock and on her own time; firing the manager and leaving her out to dry with the criminal charges; and not educating their employees that such a hoax had happened before.
I don’t know about you, but no one would have to tell me to walk away from this situation, but several people have been taken advantage of and I could live with it except the sheer naivety and sheeplike manager also gets $1 million for locking this naked girl in a room with her fiance.
Here’s the timeline for the entire fucked up case. As usual, lawyers ruin everything. This girl was horribly wronged by the adults she trusted and big pockets corporation that turns their backs, denies up to the point of bad publicity, throws money at the situation, and ultimately, after asking for $200 million, the poor girl gets $5M, and has to sue her lawyers to even get $3M of that. Unbelievable.
Talk about winning the McDonald’s Monopoly for being completely fucking ignorant; instead please send that bitch manager to jail for having no common sense OR a spine. I’m done.