Ethan’s Friday Evening Club

It’s Friday at the Baltimore Area Council.  Most of the professional staff has left for the day to get ready for Scouting events in their districts in the coming morning.  Ethan’s Friday Evening Club is getting ready with boxes.  The call has already been made to the IT folks to migrate files and information from your computer.  It’s not like you didn’t know this was in the works.  About a year after you were promotable Ethan and the boys moved you to one of the largest districts in the council, over 100 units, a district that had two full-time professionals before Ethan started cutting unit service to fund the expansion of the finance department.  Let’s face it, that is all BAC is anymore, a fund raising operation that occasionally puts on large Ethan events (that lose money, but make Ethan look good).  You’re a single father, veteran, over 40 and one of the few African-Americans on the professional staff.  You take the promotion, because not to will not work with Ethan.  Within a year, you’re on a work plan.  It’s an Ethan work plan, which means you have 90 days to get done what the last three DE’s were not able to do (yes, over three DE’s in the past four years). 

So you knew this was coming.  You thought you could out last Ethan, hell you’re about the last person over 40 who has been here since Ethan was hired who has not been fired, or demoted, you just needed a month, then no more Ethan.  Of course, that is not how Ethan works.  While you’re meeting with the late night bumper car champion of Baltimore the Friday Evening Club boxes up your belonging.  It’s after 5:00PM, no one is left in the office as the boys escort you out to your car.

Hell, it could have been worse.  You didn’t get a call during the weekend telling you that you needed to report to work on Monday to be fired because you should not have been fired on Friday.  You didn’t have to go through one work plan (successfully) only to be demoted and moved to another district (across the council) and placed on another work plan and when this work plan was not working for Ethan have the job eliminated.  Or told at camp on a Friday not to go back to the office while your co-workers call your cell phone asking why Ethan’s boys were piling all your belongings into the middle of your office.  The stories of Ethan’s Friday Evening Club are truly mind opening – yours is really pretty tame.

Your district chairman and commissioner have received calls, they most likely knew about Friday before you did.  Don’t expect any support from volunteers.  They really don’t care about the DE’s that work the districts.  You’re just like a person at McDonalds to them, “would you like popcorn with your order?”  You’re just another tree to the board of directors who can’t see the forest in front of them.  BAC’s board of misdirection has had three strikes in  a row with hiring Scout executives; John Maxwell got BAC into financial debt, Hugh Travis got BAC into membership debt and Ethan has gotten BAC into a program debt (with the closing of one of our camps due to attendance).  The best thing this board of misdirection could do is outsource the selection process for a new Scout executive to…the Girl Scouts?  The National Council will be of little use.  This same bunch recommended Ethan to us and now Greater New York Councils.

We wish you well and thank you for the work you did for Scouting and we're sorry that Ethan was your Scout executive.                        

                         

Getting to know Ethan Draddy

At number two on our list of things to know about Ethan is that he is very concerned about his reputation. 

The few staff members and volunteers that had meet Ethan before he become our Scout executive thought the world of him.  He was understanding, knowledgeable and friendly, all nice qualities for a Scout executive.  Ethan works hard on developing a positive reputation in the wider Scouting community.  Before social media, this was an easy thing to do.  Now some of you that are reading this blog will at least be watching for clues to the real Ethan.  You’ll have perhaps a six month head start on the Baltimore staff in understanding Ethan.  We’ll be writing more in the coming weeks about surviving Ethan Draddy – not an easy task.  Of the 23 professionals that were at BAC when Ethan was hired there are seven left.  We only know of one who was promoted out of BAC.

His reputation is vital to him, for many of the points we have made in getting to know Ethan.  He is emotionally insecure, self-centered, controlling, bullying and possibly has adult ADAD.  Ethan was a marketing major in college and has a good handle on how to control information to people that could affect him.  However, his reputation, and his need to control it, is also his Achilles heel. 

Ethan Draddy is a bully

Coming in at number three in getting to know Ethan is that he is a bully.

Ethan uses the strength and power of his office to harm or intimidate those who question his leadership, ethical standards or values. 

Ethan’s only priority is to look out for his own best interests, and if climbing the ladder of success means having few scruples and ignoring the welfare of others, so be it.  Ethan is always on the lookout for an opportunity to short-circuit legal and regulatory requirements when he thinks he can escape detection.  If you are an employee or a volunteer that Ethan has some privileged knowledge about (gossip, rumor, lies or innuendo), don't be surprised if Ethan attempts to leverage this knowledge to bully you into doing something for him.  If you don't aid him in his plans he'll use gossip, rumor, lies and innuendo to continue to bully you. 

There are two new open spaces on the staff roster.  Is Ethan forcing employees out right up to the end of his tenure or did someone make it out of BAC?

Ethan Draddy -- ADHD

At number four on our list is Ethan the adult Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder poster child.

As you get to know Ethan you’ll start to notice that he has difficulty concentrating.  He is addicted to his cell phone and normally is texting, twitting or playing with it.  He is impulsive – moving from one project to the next.  He likes to be on the go, attending meetings, visiting with board members and community leaders.  He has relationship problems with his staff.  If the economy was in better shape, he would be on his third rotation of staff members since 2008. He can be happy one movement and ready to fire people the next.  There is little capacity to tolerate frustration.  You’ll rarely see a written plan of how Ethan wants something done.  Organization of his plans is for other people to think about.  If you question him on any of the above he’ll question your value to the organization, because the organization is Ethan Draddy 24/7.

So we have:

·         Difficulty concentrating

·         Impulsiveness

·         Low frustration tolerance

·         Low self-esteem

·         Mood swings

·         Poor organization skills

·         Relationship problems

·         Addiction

All the above are symptoms of adult ADHD.  Why is Ethan the poster child for adult ADHD?  Because only in professional Scouting could someone like Ethan make it big.  You might say that someone with adult ADHD is a perfect fit for the modern professional Scouter. 

Concerted Protected Activity - Social Media

Facebook Criticisms Of Supervisor Protected, NLRB Finds

Share us on: Twitter Facebook LinkedIn By Abigail Rubenstein

Law360, New York (April 24, 2013, 2:46 PM ET) -- The National Labor Relations Board on Friday said that Facebook posts by employees criticizing the manager of a San Francisco clothing boutique's handling of employee concerns were a “classic concerted protected activity,” ruling the store had unlawfully fired the workers who penned the posts.

The NLRB agreed with an administrative law judge's ruling that the Facebook posts were part of the employees' efforts to get Bettie Page Clothing to close earlier in the evening based on concerns about working late in an unsafe neighborhood, and that as such, the store had committed an unfair labor practice when it fired the workers. But the board went a step further than the judge, saying the posts themselves — which included a discussion of bringing an employee rights handbook to the store — constituted protected concerted activity under the National Labor Relations Act.

“The Facebook postings were complaints among employees about the conduct of their supervisor as it related to their terms and conditions of employment and about management’s refusal to address the employees’ concerns,” the board's decision said. “Such conversations for mutual aid and protection are classic concerted protected activity, even absent prior action.”

According to the judge's decision, the workers had asked their manager if the store could close at 7 p.m. instead of 8 p.m. because other stores in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood were closing earlier and street people occasionally harassed the employees from outside the store, which had no security system. The manger said she would discuss it with corporate officials, but there was no resolution, the decision said.

One day when the manager was out of town, two of the employees who were later terminated, Vanessa Morris and Holli Thomas, were working together, and Thomas had telephone discussions with the store's owner and its human resources consultant about closing the store early, which led to angry phone calls with the manager, the decision said.

That night, Morris Thomas and Brittany Johnson — a third employee who was also eventually fired — posted several messages on Facebook critical of the manager, including one in which Morris said, “Tomorrow I’m bringing a California workers rights book to work. My mom works for a law firm that specializes in labor law and BOY will you be surprised by all the crap that’s going on that’s in violation,” according to the decision.

Another employee who was friendly with the manager showed her the posts, and the manager contacted the human resources consultant, who sent copies of the postings to the store's owner, the decision said. Six days later, the manager fired both Thomas and Morris, it said.

Johnson was fired afterward, allegedly because of chronic lateness.

The NLRB, like the judge, rejected the employer's argument that the posts were intended not for employees' mutual aid and protection but to entrap the employer into firing them.

The board found that the posts were protected by federal labor law and that as such Morris and Thomas should not have been fired because of them. As for, Johnson the board found that the store enforced its policy on lateness inconsistently and that she was actually unlawfully fired for her association with the other two workers.

The board ordered the store to reinstate all three employees and to give them back pay.

“This decision is indicative that if employers fire people for things they put on their Facebook accounts about workplace issues, that's unlawful,” David A. Rosenfeld of Weinberg Roger & Rosenfeld PC, who represents the workers, told Law360.

An attorney for the employer, however, said the store planned to appeal.

“Bettie Page Clothing disagrees with the ruling and intends to file an appeal both on the merits of the decision and the authority of the recess-appointment board members who rendered the decision,” David R. Koch of Koch & Scow LLC said. “Bettie Page Clothing looks forward to an objective venue before the appropriate appellate court.”

The decision marks the NLRB's third ruling on firings that stemmed from Facebook posts.

In the first decision, issued in October, the board concluded that posts by a salesman at Karl Knauz Motors Inc. regarding an accident at an adjacent Land Rover dealership also owned by the company were not protected by the law, and that his termination was therefore lawful.

The board's second decision on Facebook-related firings held that nonprofit Hispanics United of Buffalo Inc. ran afoul of the NLRA when it axed five workers for Facebook comments responding to a co-worker's criticisms of their job performance. The posts were protected because they were the workers' first step toward group action to defend themselves against accusations they could reasonably have believed the co-worker would make to management, the board found.

The employees in the instant suit are represented by David A. Rosenfeld and Nina A. Fendel of Weinberg Roger & Rosenfeld PC.

Bettie Page Clothing is represented by David R. Koch of Koch & Scow LLC.

The case is Design Technology Group LLC d/b/a Bettie Page Clothing, case number 20-CA-35511, before the National Labor Relations Board.

--Editing by Eydie Cubarrubia.

Email offtherecord@law360.com.

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The Control Freak: Ethan Draddy

Coming in at number five in getting to know Ethan is that he is a control freak.  There is nothing and we mean nothing that Ethan won’t stick his nose in.  Maybe that’s a good thing in a CEO, except he will never tell you what he wants (because he really does not have a clue), so there is always a great deal of guessing going on.  This wastes time and resources as people attempt to make him happy. 

Do you run a program that is successful?  Don’t think that will prevent this control freak from wanting to put his special “Ethan stamp of approval” on it.  The first place he starts is the approval process for purchase orders.  Expect delays and many questions about every single purchase order you request.  He will then move on to the budget for the program, cutting without asking or understanding the requirements.  Finally, he will remove you for not cooperating with him.  Give it about two years and as your program starts to fail Ethan will return to the way it was before he messed with it.

What we have never gotten is why Ethan can’t focus on what is NOT working.  Could it be adult attention deficit hyperactivity disorder?   

Ethan Draddy—Social Entrepreneur, not!

Ethan likes to think of what he does for the Boy Scouts as social entrepreneurship. Now Wikipedia would tell us that:

Social entrepreneurship means identifying or recognizing a social problem and using entrepreneurial principles to organize, create, and manage a social venture to achieve a desired social change.

Essential qualities of social entrepreneurs are leadership, management ability, and team building.  Qualities that come into question with Ethan, the more you get to know him.  Although the program and organization of the Boy Scouts of America can, and is, used to address many of our country’s social problems--one person does not set the program.  The national executive board determines and approves the program, quality standards and operating procedures for the Boy Scouts of America.

We believe, after years of observing Ethan, that he uses this concept to justify to himself and others doing things his way.  Not following the rules or making them up as he goes.  When questioned by the bureaucrats in Irving he just tells them he is being innovative. 

At number 6:  Ethan the great social entrepreneur.

Has Ethan really done anything very innovative here in Baltimore?

·         The report to the State of Maryland is an old idea.

·         The Big Ethan Shows are nothing more than Council Camporalls.

·         We covered money management in a past post. 

·         Signing up bulk membership in inner-city schools is nothing new.

·         His innovative ideas for our long-term camping program have resulted in one of our summer camps closing this year.

Be ready for a great deal of unnecessary disruptive change in the name of social entrepreneurship New York.