who is responsible for anger management therapy when an employee needs it?

by Alison Green on July 17, 2024

A reader writes:

This is a question about an unfolding situation involving the behavior of a couple of professional dancers on Strictly Come Dancing (the UK version of Dancing With the Stars). Last year, one contestant complained about the behavior of her pro partner (Pro A) towards her. Because she’s been publicly vocal about it, the BBC hasn’t been able to sweep it under the carpet and had to be seen to be taking action. As a result, they conducted an investigation into the behavior of all the pros last year and one other pro (Pro B) was suddenly fired in the last few days.

Based on newspaper reports from “sources” (which may or may not be accurate), when reviewing the training footage during this investigation, Pro B was seen behaving in a manner so egregious towards his celeb partner that it apparently brought the observers to tears. Said behavior allegedly included kicking and hitting her and spitting at her — and possibly more we haven’t heard about.

More information has come out gradually — which, again, may or may not be accurate. At this point in time, the general public has no way to assess this.

At first, reports implied this behavior only came to light when the general review began due to the behavior of Pro A. Then it was reported that a junior member of the production team had seen worrying behavior by Pro B at some point during the course of the last season but didn’t feel able to report it. Then we heard that two warnings had been issued, although it wasn’t specified (only implied) that these warnings were issued to Pro B. Then we heard that Pro B had asked for assistance with anger management after receiving at least one warning but that had been refused — with the implication being that it was because the BBC didn’t feel it was their responsibility to provide this. He’s apparently considering suing the BBC because they didn’t provide this support.

In short, we have a man in a pressured and stressful job, who has anger issues. He’s old enough to know that hitting, kicking, and spitting are unacceptable behavior towards another person. He’s aware that he has anger issues and he since doesn’t have to account for every minute of the day to the BBC (we’re aware that plenty of couples take plenty of breaks during training) he could simply remove himself from the room until he calms down. There’s also nothing to stop him accessing anger management therapy by himself. He comes across as completely unrepentant and appears to have abdicated responsibility to the BBC.

But what if he’d lost it with a random stranger, for example, during an argument over a parking spot at the supermarket, and had assaulted them? I wonder if he would be blaming the BBC for this. We know that Strictly/DWTS is high-pressure and stressful for the couples, but at what point ethically and morally (not legally because this is the UK, not the U.S.) is it the employer’s responsibility to provide help with anger management and at what point is it the employee’s own responsibility to look elsewhere for the assistance they need?

Two big caveats: I haven’t been following this situation and don’t know anything about it, nor can I comment on UK law. But since the questions you’re asking could come up in any workplace, I can offer some general thoughts.

It’s not an employer’s responsibility to provide or fund anger management therapy. It’s reasonable, and in some cases wise, for an employer to tell an employee that if they want to keep their job, they’ll need to seek help for anger management, at the employee’s own expense and on their own time.

It’s also 100% okay if the employer skips that and simply fires the person, because kicking, hitting, and spitting are egregious enough that they don’t require a second chance.

In fact, by offering a second chance, the employer would be risking that other employees will again be kicked, hit, spit upon, or otherwise abused, unless there’s going to be very close supervision in place. I’d argue that the biggest obligation the employer has in this situation is to their other employees. They’re not obligated to provide anger management therapy, but they’re absolutely obligated to keep this kind of behavior out of their workplace, whatever that takes. They might decide that means they’ll fund the therapy if they want to keep the employee badly enough, but that would be about their obligation to their other employees, not to the problem person. (And again, they’re not obligated to pursue that path at all — and if they did, they’d need to monitor things closely for quite some time afterwards to ensure the problems don’t recur. Anger management isn’t an overnight cure.)

Frankly, I don’t know why an employer would choose to go the anger management route at all. This is a person who kicked, hit, spit upon other people. Just fire him.

And then look into what’s going on in the work environment that apparently allowed two people to behave like this, and people who witnessed it to be afraid to report it. The problem goes beyond Pro A and Pro B.

You may also like:
{ 301 comments }

{ 301 comments… read them below }

  1. inksmith*

    Also, anger management therapy doesn’t work on abusers, which it sounds like Pro B might be – since there aren’t reports of him hitting other people in his life (specifically men in his life). So even if they had provided it, it probably wouldn’t have worked, and then we’re back in the exact same situation.

    1. sparkle emoji*

      Yeah, I haven’t followed the situation but as described here, I feel “anger issues” feels like a disingenuous excuse rather than like a disability the workplace needs to accommodate, which seems like the framing Pro B is using when asking for the BBC to pay for therapy.
      (Side note, what’s going on that he was able to do this to a celeb? Maybe this is the American celeb worship mindset, but I’m shocked the power imbalance was such that the celeb was the victim here. I’d assume the stars would have the upper hand over the pro dancers teaching them.)

      1. Viki*

        The celeb has already been through the wringer. Famous for being famous, Love Island reality tv star who then has started presenting BBC docs on revenge porn etc.

        Also the Strictly cult of pro worship is a big thing. Celeb A is a more controversial figure, but a rather well respected actress, and when she came out with her experience, the internet was not kind. It is incredibly understandable that celebs who are on the famous for being famous scale, would not feel empowered to speak out against a beloved public figure.

        1. sparkle emoji*

          I totally get how this could be the case, this just isn’t the cultural attitude around celebrity I’m familiar with in the US so it’s interesting and kind of confusing as an outsider.

          1. gmezzy*

            I don’t know that I agree with that. Rihanna/Chris Brown, Ike/Tina Turner, Britney/her dad, more I can’t think of… there’s a long list of men abusing and controlling celebrity women in the US, too.

            It’s shifting now, thankfully, but pointing the blame for abuse at the (usually female) victim is pretty normal in the US media culture, too.

            1. Moira's Rose's Garden*

              Exactly. And if we look what’s happened to high profile celeb women who’ve disclosed abuse by peers (and from what I understand, the pro dancers on these shows can be considered celebs in their own right). The mere mention of one women brings hoards of abusive bots anytime her name is brought up on the interwebs.
              You can understand not disclosing. You can also understand why someone would feel empowered to be abusive to women, and consequences don’t factor in.

          2. Trotwood*

            I think it’s a lot different if you’re going on Strictly/Dancing with the Stars as, for example, Tom Hanks, or as “second runner up from season 27 of the Bachelor.” Tom Hanks doesn’t need DWTS to make him famous, but the second runner up from the Bachelor is using the show to advance their career/celebrity and might feel pressured to put up with a lot more.

          3. Mongrel*

            I don’t follow the celebrity stuff but with the way the BBC is funded they tend towards being placatory rather than risk another politician or going on a tear or a Murdoch newspaper calling for de-funding them, again.

            None of this has been helped by some recent(ish) issues about their behavior, the Jimmy Saville affair being the most obvious.

          4. JB*

            As a fellow American, are you very serious?

            You can’t think of a single celebrity who’s come out about being abused by managers, co-stars, spouses, etc. and was resoundly mocked and re-victimized by the public for it?

        2. Person from the Resume*

          Yeah! Reality TV star is some level of fame, but not someone I would consider a star. I already question their judgement because I think the decision to chase fame through reality tv is a terrible idea.

          1. MigraineMonth*

            A lot of reality TV is straight-up abusive towards its “contestants” (who aren’t part of any actors/performers union).

      2. Cat Tree*

        I don’t know the specifics of this case, but quite a lot of celebrities are mistreated by those around them, especially if they’re young or new to the industry. We imagine famous people as very powerful, but it’s more nuanced than that. Very often there’s a team of people and the celebrity is essentially a product that they’re marketing. Celebrities have to be very successful for a sustained long time before they really get control over their jobs.

        1. sparkle emoji*

          I’m familiar with stories of celebrity mistreatment, but the specifics of this case are surprising to me. Dancing with the Stars professionals are what I’m familiar with, and I wouldn’t consider them in the same category as a producer, big name director, or talent exec who I’d expect to have the power to get away with something of this nature.

          1. Nebula*

            The Strictly pros are celebrities in their own right here, and notably the two who have been fired were very popular ‘sexy’ guys. I would say a lot of the audience cares more about the pros, who they follow year on year, than their partners, who are often fairly minor celebrities (so in fame terms, on a par with or actually less famous than a popular Strictly pro) and who are only on it once.

      3. ChattyDelle*

        actually I would disagree. The celebrity is (usually) not a dancer and is going waaaay out of their experience & comfort zone. They are completely dependent on the pro to teach them the choreography & depends on the pro to not make them look foolish on national TV. It would be very easy for a pro with control or anger issues to overstep and become abusive

        1. Nebula*

          There’s also the fact that the celeb wants to get as far as possible, as the more exposure they get, the more likely it is that going on the show has a positive impact on their career. So I can see the pro holding that over them, that if they don’t do what the pro says, they’ll go out of the competition and lose that opportunity.

          1. used to be a tester*

            It’s also bad for the pro if they’re eliminated early, right? If a pro keeps getting knocked out of competition with different partners, I’d assume the pro was the problem – they’re a bad teacher, they can’t figure out how to make their partner look good, etc.

            1. M*

              The audience for these kind of shows tends to blame the celebrity, particularly if they don’t have all that much of their own following, or the producers for pairing a fan-favourite pro with “duds”.

      4. MK*

        Your last point is what struck me most. I understand that celebrities in this show probably aren’t A-listers, and I get why the assistant didn’t feel empowered to report it. But aren’t the dance pros in these situations hired freelancers, and not particularly famous at that? Why did the celebrity tolerate his behaviour?

        1. Derry Girl*

          I asked myself the same question- why did she put up with it? Was it because she wanted to continue to be part of what is considered a very glamorous programme watched by millions and she didn’t want to miss out on her chance. If so, I feel so very, very sad for her.
          I refuse to buy the line about it being a stressful job and that he was under pressure. Wtf? He’s a dancer and a celebrity only because he’s on the show.

          1. WheresMyPen*

            I believe that it is a really stressful job and that there’s loads of pressure. They train for around 10-12 hours six days a week, and have a full show day on Saturdays. They have to choreograph and teach non-dancers to such a high level to avoid them making mistakes and looking bad during the performance. Plus there’s apparently more and more pressure for them to score highly because it’s more entertaining for the audience. Plus they learn lots of pro dances for the Sunday show. They’re also becoming increasingly seen as celebrities, with appearances on other shows (including the Strictly It Takes Two behind the scenes show which is on every night of the week) and lots of them are doing other advertising etc. No excuse for assaulting someone of course, but I’d call that a stressful environment.

            She was probably also conscious of the fact this is a very popular show and to be a whistleblower against something as big and popular as Strictly and the BBC would be terrifying. It happens time and time again for victims of abuse – fear they won’t be believed, that they’ll be targeted by trolls, that they’ll lose work, their reputation will be damaged…

        2. pandop*

          The programme makes the pro-dancers into celebrities. In the case of pro-A, if it is who I am thinking of, he and another person made famous by the show have had their own travel show.

          Also, it was mentioned above that celeb-A got a lot of push back after the allegations, I suspect that is because it appeared to be a complete change of behaviour from pro-A, according to previous celeb partners.

          The situation with couple B has only just hit the news, and there is less out there in the media for me to comment on.

          1. Media Monkey*

            and also now a suggestion of a 3rd pro who is no longer part of the show that people have complained about (i think we all know who that’s likely to be)

        3. Irish Teacher.*

          I don’t think we can blame somebody for being abused or bullied and there are all kinds of reasons that make it difficult to speak up. A major one with those kind of shows is that “being a good sport” is kind of expected from the celebs. Many are trying to revive a career and being seen as a “good sport” is probably more important than being a good dancer in terms of public perception.

          Criticising the pro could be seem as “being precious,” “not willing to accept instruction” or “trying to blame the pro because they didn’t do as well as expected.”

          Celebs have gotten pushback even simply for dropping out of such shows; they “were weak and couldn’t handle it.”

          And even if you look through the quotes here, there is one person suggesting the victim should fact investigation, in case they provoked the bullying with toxic behaviour. If you are a celeb looking to revive a career, you can’t risk people speculating that you might be toxic.

          And all that is assuming the bullies didn’t gaslight them into thinking they were “overreacting” and “imagining it”.

      5. Anandatic*

        I know nothing of the situation, but the kind of person who would physically abuse someone they are working with, is also someone who would claim that someone else was responsible for stopping them. Abusers never take responsibility for their behaviour; it’s always someone else’s fault.

        That said, the BBC has a responsibility to not continue to employ someone who would abuse others, but ethics in reality TV are generally considered unimportant. After all, think of the ratings! *eyeroll*

      6. Media Monkey*

        on strictly, a lot of the pros are more famous than the celebs they dance with – they’ve been on prime time saturday night tv for 5 or 10 years in some cases. each year out of the 16 or so celebs, there will be 2 or 3 who are genuinely famous, a couple from breakfast tv/ radio, sports people who a lot of people won’t know and a few soap actors. in a lot of cases the power is with the pro.

    2. Briefly anon*

      Where on earth did you get the idea that anger management therapy as a rule doesn’t work on people who commit abuse? Family therapy is generally contraindicated when there’s intimate partner violence but anger management is generally recommended for people who have problems with anger.

      Sure, we all know someone who was abusive who went to therapy and it didn’t change things, but lots and lots of people engage in abusive behaviour (like assaulting people when they’re angry, screaming and calling names, threatening to harm themselves when triggered) and really benefit from therapies that focus on managing emotional responses and learning more productive ways of expressing themselves.

      1. LateRiser*

        I don’t know whether it’s some, most, or all, but it’s a known thing that abusers use displays of “out of control” anger as a tool of abuse while in perfect control of their own emotions. Sending such a person to anger management would be as effective as operating on a kid faking a stomach ache to get out of school.

        1. Elbe*

          Exactly. A lot of abusers have the self-awareness to know that other people think that their behavior is wrong, so they report “seeing red” and being “out of control” to minimize their responsibility for their behavior.

          That doesn’t mean that what they are saying is actually true, and research indicates that that is generally not the case in ongoing abuse situations.

      2. StrikingFalcon*

        This is the prevailing advice given by many domestic abuse prevention groups, including the National Domestic Violence Hotline. Abuse is about one person trying to control the behavior of another. Abusers most typically direct that behavior towards only their victim and do not show the same behaviors towards other people in their life, like their boss. Anger management is appropriate if someone is losing their temper in all kinds of situations in their life. But it will not help (and may make the situation worse) if someone is abusing a victim or a couple of victims.

        1. She*

          Exactly, many of us know someone who is sweetness and light with everyone except their intimate partner or family. My ex was a “gentleman” who prided himself on being one but was verbally abusive behind closed doors.

          1. Anonymous Educator*

            Similarly, in a professional context, if someone is angry with and violent to only those in the workplace with less power and not at all angry with or violent to those with more power, that’s also classic abusive behavior that has nothing to do with anger management.

            1. Deejay*

              “The red mist came down. I couldn’t control myself”

              “Really? Tell me, has the red mist ever come down when dealing with your boss, a police officer or someone twice your size? No? Seems like you can control it just fine, but you don’t bother unless the other person is in a position to hurt you”.

      3. Rooby*

        Not an expert, but I believe the kinds of things anger management helps with (uncontrolled outbursts, quick escalation of rage, etc) are very different when happening themselves than when happening as part of a pattern of abuse.

        The anger-issues person is just having their emotions go out of control and they come out inappropriately in whatever direction. Abusers engage in a deliberate pattern of terrorizing, confusing, humiliating, gaslighting, and otherwise holding captive their target, and while violence or outbursts can be part of that, they are happening in service of the abuser’s goal. Anger management techniques will not help that )I believe), because they’re not having an outburst in a vacuum, they’re having an outburst in order to make their victim more powerless and less able to leave.

      4. Beth*

        I think inksmith might be trying to get at the difference between 1) “person who acted abusively because they couldn’t manage their emotions” and 1) “person who used a pretense of being unable to manage their emotions as an excuse to act abusively.”

        Anger mananagement therapy could help #1, but probably won’t do anything for #2. And someone who shows control over their emotions around, say, their boss, or that guy at the bar who looks a lot stronger than them, but suddenly ‘loses control’ around someone they see as weaker than themselves? Looks a lot more like #2 than #1.

        1. Prototype*

          This has never made sense to me. A child who holds it together through a stressful day at school and then has a tantrum at home is experiencing emotional regulation struggles. Adults can be like that too.

          1. Rooby*

            Adults have a lot of control over who in their lives they build more emotional regulation around. It’s not about losing stamina over the course of the day, it’s about your self-interest enabling you to remain contained around your boss, but allowing yourself to develop the habit of letting yourself go off on e.g. your wife or a waiter.

          2. AMT*

            Yes, but the difference is in the *pattern* it creates. An adult with issues regulating their emotions might lash out at others sometimes, but they will generally be remorseful and want to change their behavior. And usually, when they’re given the right tools and environment to do that, they’re receptive and the behavior improves.

            Conversely, an abusive adult uses anger as a weapon in order to control people over whom they have power. Their angry behavior is not random or triggered by external events, but targeted to create fear and confusion in their victims. (As an aside, this is why abusers can often be charming to authority figures but turn on a dime with their spouses or children. They *have* emotional control, but use it selectively.) Because their behavior is motivated by a sense of entitlement rather than a lack of emotional regulation skills, helping them with emotional regulation won’t do much. Abusers need programs that directly deal with their entitlement and hold them accountable for their behavior.

            1. Spiders Everywhere*

              Growing up, my father had an anger problem. It didn’t show up in public, but at home tiny things would set him off and he’d turn into a frightening creature, screaming, red faced, breaking things. Afterwards, he’d act like nothing was wrong, and his general attitude was that if we didn’t do things to set him off everything would be fine. Prevailing wisdom would call this the behavior of a dastardly villain intentionally using his behavior to control us, but what I only realized later is he was having autistic meltdowns. Honestly, I dislike this framing that abusers are all manipulative masterminds in full control of their actions – it’s supposed to make people more willing to leave them, but I think it’s just as likely to get people thinking “my partner isn’t like that, so they must not be a real abuser.”

              1. TuxedoCat*

                Oh my God… I think you might … have explained my father’s behaviour to me?
                His meltdowns and other stuff from my childhood make so much sense framed this way! Mind blown.

                1. Spiders Everywhere*

                  It’s worth looking into! Understanding the underlying causes can really matter – figuring out that what was actually setting him off wasn’t so much what he seemed to be mad at as literally just like “three things are making noise at once” made a big difference to both dealing with him and with the lingering issues his behavior had on me.

                2. Azure Jane Lunatic*

                  Late in my dad’s life, I suggested to my mom that autism might be a very useful lens to look at his apparently unconnected eccentric behaviors, because it explained so much to me when I thought about it. Unfortunately he never seemed to feel there was a problem with his occasionally breaking down into destructive rages, because at least he’d stopped most of the direct violence, and he was better at control than his own father!

              2. AcademiaNut*

                That’s an interesting point. When it comes to abuse, abusive behaviour does not necessarily mean malicious intent. If someone is screaming at you, breaking things, hitting you, and blaming you for it, it might be because they enjoy hurting you, or they’re afraid/insecure and lashing out, or having an autistic meltdown, or have poor emotional regulation and can’t control their behaviour.

                It also doesn’t matter all that much, because it’s still abusive behaviour. The underlying reason your father was screaming and throwing things was less important that the fact that he was doing it, and didn’t see any reason to stop. The reasons would matter if he say a problem with it, and were pursuing professional help to stop it.

                And the “they’re a good person, they just can’t help it / are stressed at work / had a bad childhood / was screwed over by their last girlfriend” is a narrative that keeps people in an abusive relationship, when the response should be “You’re not currently capable of being in an intimate relationship and need to work on your issues so that you aren’t damaging your partner / kids.”

                I’ve seen advice columns from people who got a late in life autism diagnosis, and realized that this was what was behind their regular screaming meltdowns. Chillingly, they were writing in to get advice on how to get their partner / kids to accept that they couldn’t help it and quietly put up with it.

                1. Spiders Everywhere*

                  Yeah, I think rather than have this one-size-fits-all picture of an abuser who’s some kind of inhuman monster, we need to recognize that whether or not they can’t help it/they really love you/they’re otherwise a good person, you STILL need to get out.

              3. Boof*

                I mean… yes? The part where your dad acted like nothing happened / blamed you for for setting him off are abusive behaviors?
                My husband has anger issues, it’s been a long time since he broke stuff, but he can get furious/panicked over [the computer not working][sudden loud noises ie the smoke detector going off][dinging a truck and panicking while driving in a tight space] – yeah it’s true he can sort of hold it together if he really needs to (ie, at work) and that’s not a great litmus test because just about everyone can behave differently when they need to – but he doesn’t blame me for (whatever he flipped out about), he usually apologizes / thanks me for being patient if he was really worked up (swearing/yelling/etc), he know it bothers me and tries to keep it under wraps rather than just telling me to not set him off (but, he also doesn’t fly into a rage because of things I do, more because of inanimate objects not working the way he wants them to work – sure we have arguments but those are really different / not with the swearing etc). You know your dad best and few people are all out mustache twirling villains through and through, I’m just saying that what you describe does sound abusive. I’m not as well versed in autistic meltdowns but I can’t say I’ve heard autistic folks blame people around them for triggering them except maybe to point out when environments don’t have a place to destimulate?

                1. Freya*

                  Yep, and I’ve done a lot of work figuring out how it feels when I’m ramping up to the point of meltdown so I know when I feel like that to seek out what I need to back off from that point. Because I don’t want to do that, I don’t want to do that to people, and even more don’t want to do that to people I care about.

                  (Also, meltdowns are exhausting, and post-meltdown is kind of like the postdrome phase of my migraines, and I’d really rather have the energy to do things I like doing rather than spend it all on meltdowns)

                2. Adrian Chase, Vigilante*

                  Oh man, I used to get the WILDEST “adult temper tantrums” that could be set off by NOTHING. Whenever this happened I created a lot of distance between myself and my partner, because if I didn’t I would say VERY mean things or even physically lash out, and I didn’t understand what was wrong with me that I could just turn into someone so abusive.

                  It took us years to realize I was having autistic meltdowns, and that his attempts to help were often adding stimulation to a disaster zone. (As in, my physical lashing out was literally PUSHING HIM AWAY (after he followed me to try to help) because I couldn’t handle any additional sensory input.) I mentally thought of myself as like a proto-abuser for the longest time, and it’s been truly life-changing to learn what was actually going on inside me, rather than feeling like I was just born angrier/meaner than everyone else.

          3. Manic Sunday*

            Sure, adults can be like that, but adults can also be people with the ability to regulate their emotions and behavior who simply choose not to bother trying when the target of their abuse is available.

          4. Ray B Purchase*

            In addition to other comments that it’s about a pattern, big part of growing up from child to adult is learning to self-regulate your emotions so that you can behave in ways that are acceptable and safe to you and others.

          5. Elbe*

            When someone cares deeply about the people around them, they tend to work on their issues in a timely way. They understand the impact their actions have on others and they take it seriously. They try to find other outlets for their emotions, they seek help, or they withdraw from triggering situations.

            When people have abusive behavior well into adulthood, it’s generally more of an empathy problem (or an entitlement problem) as opposed to a genuine lack of control. There’s a reason why these people haven’t already sought help, and too often that reason is just that the behavior works for them, they don’t care if others are hurt, and they feel justified in what they are doing.

          6. Ellis Bell*

            Children have less choice about their circumstances. A child will endeavour to keep it together at school, but then lose it at home because they don’t feel safe at school, or the consequences at school are too high (but there are also children who can’t exert even that much control or choice). You would call this a clear choice if it was an adult, because they chose their workplace and their home life, but children are more likely to be victims of circumstances.

            1. Lenora Rose*

              Or just because having held it together so long, they need the emotional collapse and haven’t figured out a better way to express it. Non-abusive adults don’t necessarily lack the need for an emotional collapse – they just often have a different/better way to release it than a tantrum.

          7. Reluctant Mezzo*

            If an adult never is abusive over someone more powerful than their usual victims, there’s a lot of deliberate control there.

          8. Azure Jane Lunatic*

            My father was like that, unfortunately. He did have some work problems with authority, but he never went on destructive rampages at work. He saved them until he got home and something else set him off.

            When I got big enough, I saw him starting to have a tantrum and I puffed up like an angry rooster right back at him and I very calmly told him that what he was about to do was destructive and wasteful and I expected better of him than that. He subsided and slunk off.

            I thought he’d had some sort of epiphany, because he never again offered a destructive rage in front of me. But I learned that in my absence he’d still been having episodes in front of the remaining household members.

            He probably could have used a class that laid out better ways to channel his emotions, but he was clearly capable of controlling his reactions to some extent when he was in the presence of someone who would make him account for his actions.

          9. Lady Danbury*

            I have a family member who is both neurodivergent and a mental health professional. She has consistently engaged with other mental health professionals to ensure that she can have healthy personal and professional relationships, as a spouse, parent, manager, etc. That has included having a mental health plan, knowing her triggers/warning signs, medication at times, etc. She does this because she is an adult who is responsible for her own behaviour and understands that her own individual circumstances may be a reason but they are not an excuse to harm others, especially the most vulnerable around us. Adults have far more control over their own environment/choices than children do, including the choice to avoid seeking help to address harmful behaviours.

          10. Irish Teacher.*

            They CAN, but there are also people who do NOT have difficulty with emotional regulation but who fake it in order to frighten others to do what they want.

            I once had a student who was a bully and never once did I see this student upset or angry. It was all VERY deliberate and most chillingly he once, after banging a door, asked me, “how come you never gets a frightening?” He was setting up situations to see who jumped in order to make a guess at who he could best intimidate.

            He was also a master at turning things around. It was my fault he didn’t learn anything from a video because I just put it on; I never told him he had to actually watch it.

            I could see him claiming anger management issues, if he thought it would help him get out of trouble, but he didn’t have them. He was using intimidation techniques.

            It’s not that adults CAN’T have trouble with emotional regulation, just that not everybody who claims it is necessarily telling the truth.

      5. CommanderBanana*

        There is a difference between someone seeking out anger management therapy to work on their own behavior and a person who is abusing someone else and gets put into anger management therapy by court order or decides to attend to try to keep their abused partner from leaving.

        Lundy Bancroft’s Why Does He Do That, a seminal work on domestic violence, has an entire section dedicating to unraveling why court-ordered anger management courses (and couples therapy) can be more harmful than helpful in many instances.

        This is a pretty nuanced but very important distinction.

        If anyone in this comment thread is experiencing intimate partner violence or domestic violence, or knows someone who is, the National Domestic Violence Hotline (800-799-7233) is available 24/7, and your city/county may also have a domestic violence hotline that can connect you with local resources.

      6. inksmith*

        Because people who abuse don’t do it because they have problems with anger, in most cases. People with anger issues lash out at lots of people in their lives; abusers only do it to a small number, usually those they feel they have power over. It’s two separate things.

        And I get the idea from a PhD in domestic violence work, a decade working in that field, and my own experience as survivor, as well as my mum’s. Since you asked.

        2. CommanderBanana*

          Seriously! I’ve been working in DV for about 7 years. That’s how I know.

          Thank you for the work you do.

        3. Anony*

          Can’t remember where I read it, but someone pointed out that abusers only have issues with the anger of their victims, i.e. when they try to push back on abusive behaviour. They are usually quite comfortable with their own anger however and, as many pointed out, tend to use it selectively.
          The most recent letter at Captain Awkward addresses something similar (breaking things).

      7. Moira's Rose's Garden*

        There’s actually a pretty solid body of evidence in the literature showing exactly this:
        the most likely outcome of most interventions is that the abuser comes away with new tools with which to groom a cadre of supporters, and to use against victims.

        Again, from the literature, abusers are actually pretty unlikely to seek treatment, unless court or employer ordered, abusers don’t seek out help. They don’t see the problem, or rather, from their POV, THEY don’t have the problem. At best, they will engage in couples therapy, with the effects as above.

        The disconnect here is that there is a framing that abusers suffer from anger issues. That framing, btw, helps keep victims trapped, because it supports the narrative that if only I had X’d or didn’t Y, this wouldn’t be happening. But multiple studies confirm that abusers do not suffer from deficits in “anger control”. Quite the opposite – they are calculating and controlled in when and how they deploy threats & violence. They are very good at creating a circle of supporters who never see this side of them – which would happen if the problem were that they can’t control their anger or how they react while angry. Even further, they are frequently known for being generous and kind!

      8. Boof*

        becuase the problem isn’t uncontrolled anger, it’s being abusive.
        I’m blanking on the book; I don’t think it was “why does he do that” but a follow up book (that I found some parts questionable but their focus was on lessons from men who were abusive enough that they had to go to jail and get counseling for it) that dealt with types of abusers. They specifically said that you can tell if someone has an abuse problem vs an anger problem because the person with anger issues will break THEIR OWN stuff most of the time (what they have the highest exposure to), but the abuser will mostly break THEIR VICTIM’S stuff. That’s just one example, but telling; the abuser has control of their behavior they’ve just decided it’s acceptable/rewarding to treat someone that way, the person with anger issues really has trouble with controlling their anger not their attitude.
        … my husband has anger issues and yep, when stuff gets broke it’s usually his stuff, and the one or two times it was my stuff he was so remorseful and made sure to replace it etc. And it’s hella hard to find good anger management therapy if you’re just like “this is bad for my life/relations, but not so bad I’ve been to jail/committed crimes” too because most of them are oriented towards people who got in serious legal trouble and their goal is to not commit crimes basically. Like, ok, got that on lockdown, but occasionally accidentally breaking things because you get mad and too rough with them, or stressing out your partner with stormy moods over fairly minor annoyances, still a problem?

        1. littlehope*

          My dad went to anger management therapy when I was in my…I’m gonna say very early teens, because my mum asked him to. And it really helped! But the thing is, it worked because my dad wanted it to; he recognised that his anger was making things unpleasant for the people he cared about and *he didn’t want that.* He was never abusive or controlling, he didn’t throw tantrums to get people to do what he wanted, he just had a really low frustration threshold and didn’t know how to manage it well. He never raged out at people, just things (my dad and the physical world are not friends) and the realisation that people were on edge around him or scared of him blowing up really upset him.
          That’s when anger management works. If people are *using* anger to control and intimidate people, then anger management’s the wrong tool for the job.

          1. Boof*

            Yea I mean, the same is sorta true of abuser programs, they have to actually want it to work too, but the focus is different. It’s more on teaching them why it’s not ok to abuse someone and less on techniques to control themselves, maybe? Like I said as far as my husband goes, the one thing we found was pretty crappy so I’m not sure what good anger management looks like, and the only thing I know about abuse programs were from that book I read. And yeah it’s the really low tolerance for frustration for my spouse – it’s mellowed out a lot with time and I think just trying to not indulge it.

        2. Prototype*

          I really want to thank you for your comment. I’ve struggled with my temper all my life and I’ve always been scared that makes the same as an abuser or will inevitably lead to abuse. I don’t know how clear cut the anger vs abuse distinction always is in real life, but I can see I fall very clearly on one side. (My issues are currently pretty well managed with medication and an excellent therapist. Best of luck to you and your spouse!)

          1. Boof*

            It sucks, I believe it’s truly something physical that just tends to be over activated/under inhibited (higher sensitivity to stuff then add some ADHD to make impulse control a bit more difficult as far as my husband goes), and it doesn’t define who you are as a person, as long as you try to manage it; there’s just a huge difference between someone who cares and is trying vs someone who is abusive. I’m glad you have some good help – my spouse has been able to mellow out a lot over time even if it’s mostly been without much professional assistance (it’d be nice but it’s not really such a problem anymore, and back when it was more of an issue just couldn’t find anything useful). It’s actually been a really long time since he’s broken anything, that was more “stupid thing, it is safe to twhack and I am frustrated; oops it was not safe to thwack REGRET”. Never chewing someone out or getting physically aggressive with anyone.

      9. Flat Margaret*

        I am an actual expert. This is my field, and I echo unequivocally what others are saying–anger management is absolutely not the recommended intervention for abusers. It’s exactly for the reasons others are saying. Abuse is not about the abuser’s lack of control. Do they hit their boss when they have a bad day? Nah. They manage their anger just fine when they want to.

    3. AMT*

      As a therapist, I was going to comment much the same thing. Abuse is not a phenomenon of inability to control one’s anger. Abuse happens when someone feels entitled to bully and harass others and is given enough power to do so. The “treatment” for abuse at work is to create an environment that doesn’t protect and reward abusive behavior.

  2. Chairman of the Bored*

    A stressful job is no excuse for yelling and screaming and acting like a maniac, especially if that stress is derived from something as trivial as a game show.

    Listen to the cockpit recording of Sully Sullenberger landing an airplane in the Hudson River. He’s under about as much stress as a person can encounter, and he sounds like he’s placing a takeout order.

    1. Jackalope*

      I absolutely condemn the behavior of the pros in this letter, and am in no way wanting to excuse them. They should have been fired, and not work on the show again. But I do want to point out that working in an ongoing stressful job is very different from a one-time life or death emergency in the way our bodies and brains react to the stress. You might argue that a show like this isn’t important in the grand scheme of things, but when it’s all you’re focusing on 24/7 and you know your every mistake is being broadcast to an international audience, and that you can work as hard as you’re able to and still wash out, it’s a lot of pressure. Again, 100% not okay what the pros did, but it was still incredibly important to them while it was happening. A solution for this would probably need to involve not just more monitoring, but also ways to make the process less high-stress, such as giving more breaks (I’m certain that they didn’t get enough breaks or days off), having a day or two in the middle that’s not a competition but just everyone shows off their flashiest routine, or whatever. As someone who hasn’t been on a show like that I can’t say the best way to fix things but I bet the people involved would have some good ideas.

      1. londonedit*

        Agree – there is no excuse, and the vast majority of the pro dancers seem to be able to get results without being abusive about it, but part of the whole premise of the show is its pressure-cooker environment. We’re always being told that the celebs have just days to learn a new routine, there’s a big focus on celebs having to fit in training around their ‘day jobs’, and it’s a secretive and stressful bubble where it must become all-consuming for those few weeks you’re in it. Celebs give up basically every aspect of their normal lives for weeks and dedicate themselves to training – it must be hugely stressful. Add to that the pressure on the pros to teach the routines and make everything perfect – you don’t want to be the laughing-stock couple getting pilloried by Craig every week, and the standards and scores have gone up and up every year – and it’s no wonder things bubble over sometimes. Not that that’s any excuse at all for shouting, hitting, spitting etc – that is completely unacceptable – but at the moment I don’t think the whole pressure-cooker vibe of the show is helping matters.

        1. Jackalope*

          I Will add as someone with a fair amount of dance experience (although not at a pro level) that learning to dance at that level is HARD. You have to watch every tiny foot placement and hand gesture, feel every beat of the music, pay attention to your facial expression, and you have only a minute or two to perform. If the angle of your arm styling is off by a degree the whole country can see it. And that means that you’re being watched and criticized on a whole new level. I know that people in acting are going to have some familiarity with that, but it really is different than most other situations where everything about your body is watched so closely. I can see how it would be hard to complain. (And it doesn’t help them if you’re the female dancer you’re told to follow every single thing your partner leads, and to be open and aware to everything they tell you to do. That doesn’t have to be an abusive dynamic, and I don’t think it generally is, but it does push you into a lot of existing gender dynamics that can be unhealthy and make it harder to push back against abuse if it happens.)

          1. The Magician's Auntie*

            That’s a great point – that some traditional gender roles in dance make the training room an environment where gendered abuse can happen more easily. I have a little dance experience and am aware of how the training about openness and following-the-other’s-lead is very deep, it becomes almost spiritual or deeply embedded in your body. Like, part of your function now is to accept influence, immediately and openly. Obviously, only when *dancing*, but of course that culture could enable abuse in rare, toxic partnerships.

      2. rebelwithmouseyhair*

        Surely the pressure is as high as you decide it will be? If you want to win at all costs, yes it’ll be high. If you’re just there for fun, there’s no pressure. So maybe the stakes should be lowered if there is too much pressure.

        1. FrivYeti*

          I think the key piece that you’re missing is that you can’t just be there for fun, because your dance is being broadcast live in an environment that encourages people to tear you apart for a mistake. And on top of that, even if you’re just there for fun, your coach isn’t – this is their job and their reputation and even a non-abusive one is going to be pretty pissed if you aren’t taking it “seriously enough”.

          So yes, if you’re someone who’s chill about having an entire nation’s press viciously mock you and with spending a few weeks in close proximity to a group of people that hate you, there’s no pressure. But if that’s the case, why are you on the show at all?

          And yes, the stakes *should* be lowered, but then the show doesn’t have a point – as noted, it is specifically designed to be a pressure-cooker because the stress sells.

          1. Zoe Karvounopsina*

            It even effects your pay: pro dancers do routines the whole way, but the longer you’re in, the more you’re paid, the bigger parts you get in follow on productions…

        2. Beth*

          People don’t go on national television just for fun, though. They go to make money, advance their careers, gain fans and followers, etc. There’s both a lot of pressure to do well (there’s a lot to gain if you succeed!) and a lot of pressure to not fail (if you perform really badly, SO many people will have seen it, and a lot of them will remember you as the idiot they saw on TV–even if you’re generally easygoing about making mistakes, that’s a tough pill to swallow). As long as there’s such a big audience, there’s going to be pressure.

        3. Andromeda*

          Nah, if you’re doing Strictly (or any reality TV) it is 100% (part of) your job.

      3. Siege*

        The first quarter of this year was one of the most stressful of my life. I was grieving the sudden death of a parent, planning a conference, putting together a newsletter, and coordinating my workplace’s legislative session, along with all the regular duties of my job, which don’t abate just because I suddenly need to liaise with the governor’s office on conference issues, and my life because no one has enough underwear to avoid doing laundry for three months.

        The person responsible for treating my other coworkers like human beings, in this incredibly stressful time for me, was me. The fact that the stress was prolonged and ongoing and not emergent changes the management of the stress, and the way the reaction presents itself, certainly, but there is nothing whatsoever about ongoing workplace stress that is unusual; it is a circumstance that lets your inner self run the show, and from the sounds of things, this person’s inner self is abusive.

        It would be lovely if our employers could just function as advocates for us (and I do want to stress that in my situation my boss was right there with me) but they can’t. We are required to care enough about ourselves, and others, to advocate for ourselves, and advocacy starts with recognizing that you need help with something. It doesn’t sound like SCD is the sort of butt-in-seat hell a lot of office jobs are, and the person in question should have been taking advantage of that, if he cared enough to do something different.

        The fact he didn’t, blamed the BBC for not setting up anger-management sessions, and (in the article I just read about this) shifted responsibility for his behavior to his “passion and commitment to win” suggests strongly that he was not interested in advocating for his needs because he thinks his behavior was fine, and our employers are not required to manage how they treat all employees on the basis of one person with something else going on. If the entire culture was reported to be abusive, if multiple people had this experience at all levels, I’d change my mind (and they do need to look into why people felt unable to report these issues and address that) but that’s not this, and your workplace is under no obligation to do more to manage your “stress” than you are. Some jobs are very high stress, and you need to learn to manage that or leave the job. I left a high-stress job because it made me an alcoholic and I didn’t want to be that. It sucks, because I love the field, but it was a really stark choice by the time it needed to be made, and I had the responsibility of choosing.

        1. A Nonny Nonny*

          The person responsible for treating my other coworkers like human beings, in this incredibly stressful time for me, was me.

          This. All of this.

          I had severe anger management issues as a young adult. I had been abused and gaslighted as a kid- when I was a teenager, my parents repeatedly told me I was sociopathic and certifiably crazy because (checks notes) I wasn’t grateful enough to them and I didn’t make an effort in my relationship with them. My messed up childhood gave me PTSD, including hypervigilance and hyper aggression.

          You know who was responsible for fixing that mess? Me. I didn’t make the mess, but I am still responsible for my own actions and I needed to make sure I didn’t hurt anyone else. It would have been nice if someone else had helped, but at the end of the day, I am the person that is ultimately responsible for my actions. And it’s utterly ridiculous to say “My employer didn’t get me help so I couldn’t possibly get help”- there are a lot of free resources online.

          1. Chauncy Gardener*

            Welcome to the Adult Children of Narcissistic Parents Club, unfortunately.

            And I couldn’t agree more with all your points.

            The BBC needs to fire this dude yesterday

          2. Bag of Goods*

            Thank you for this attitude. I have dealt with someone with a very messed up, abusive childhood, who didnt fundamentally grasp that they still had ultimate responsibility for how their anger impacted me and others. It was so hard. I am so admiring of everyone who takes a certain kind of responsibility even when life has been very unkind to them.

        2. Goldenrod*

          “your workplace is under no obligation to do more to manage your “stress” than you are. Some jobs are very high stress, and you need to learn to manage that or leave the job”

          YES. And you know what’s more stressful than being a highly paid (I’m assuming) high profile dancer on TV? Being the on the receiving end of that person’s abuse.

          1. Elbe*

            Exactly. Being a pro on a dance show is stressful. I would argue that it’s MORE stressful to be the celeb, as they have just as much scrutiny, but they have less experience and fewer skills. If the partners can manage to not assault others, surely there is more going on here than stress.

          2. Polly Flinders*

            Tangential detail, but last I heard, the professionals on Strictly get salaries that could be described as ‘mid’. Especially in London.

            They’re highly paid relative to the national average, but Britain is a low-wage, high COL economy. And even if it weren’t a BBC (non-commercial) show, the pro dancers would still probably be perceived as a cost.

          3. NoMoTango*

            Hi. Former pro dancer here (in US, not UK, but it isn’t a large field). Pay is peanuts unless you’re one of maybe 25 partnerships worldwide. If you work 60ish hours a week, you can probably cover your bills. If you want to improve your standing, you travel & compete–which costs money. Which you make by teaching or coaching, with the occasional cash prize should you win.

            Life is stressful and unglamorous. That’s why I got out. But there’s never an excuse for abuse and a pro who can’t keep it together here probably suffers consequences away from the cameras in ways people outside the dance world may not see but IS KNOWN to those within it.

        3. MigraineMonth*

          I absolutely agree that we are responsible for our own actions, and that the type of abusive behavior should get them blacklisted in the industry.

          As a fellow escapee of a toxic job, I will push back a bit on the workplace not having a responsibility to help manage stress (starting with FIRING anyone that out-of-control, not offering them therapy). A workplace can do a lot to be a decent place to work, or to be part of a “sick system” where everyone is always exhausted, overworked and on edge.

          Looking back, I hate who I became when I was at my toxic job. I never yelled or kicked anyone (!), but I was (rightly) fired for sending angry and incredibly unprofessional emails. It’s difficult to accept, but our behavior is often more heavily influenced by context than our values/identity.

          But yeah, fuck Pro A and Pro B. They should face criminal charges.

          1. Siege*

            I may have been unclear. The workplace is obligated to react, and to manage, and to protect victims, completely agree! But they’re not obligated to do more for the person claiming stress than that person is, that was my point.

            1. MigraineMonth*

              Yes, I understood that. I think that workplaces have an additional responsibility to not be toxic, because a toxic environment *does* lead many people to act in ways that would be out of character normally (for example, the LW who bit a coworker). That doesn’t mean that I or that LW weren’t ultimately responsible for our behavior or, like you, responsible for getting out of that bad situation.

              Of course, that’s a lot more nuance than this case requires. The only level of toxic workplace that would justify Pro B’s alleged behavior would be if the performance they were preparing for was the Squid Games.

            1. MigraineMonth*

              I thought Pro A had also struck their partner (in which case assault and battery), but on a reread it doesn’t say that. I don’t know what their bad behavior was or if it was criminal.

              1. Nonny*

                ‘Bullying’, apparently all verbal, which is shity, and should get him fired, but is not illegal.

      4. Carol*

        I don’t really think there is any excuse for behaving this badly. A lot of jobs are stressful and if you take that job it is your responsibility to handle the stress and not dump it on others, especially not on people working under you.

      5. Observer*

        But I do want to point out that working in an ongoing stressful job is very different from a one-time life or death emergency in the way our bodies and brains react to the stress

        That’s true. Which makes the message you are responding to all the more salient. Because flying planes *with hundreds of passengers* is the very definition of “high stress”. And the a primary reasons that he was able to execute so skillfully and coolly is that he spend a good chink of his life “focusing 100%” on this. And at any time, the stress on any pilot of passenger jets is multiple times higher than that of these “Pros”. Because any mistake on the part of a pilot could lead to the deaths of hundreds of people.

        1. Evan Þ*

          I disagree. Most of the time, pilot mistakes are recoverable, because huge efforts have gone into designing airplanes and traffic control systems to make them recoverable. What’s more, most of the time, a pilot doing something ten seconds or so late isn’t even a problem – the sky is big, and airplanes are far enough away ten seconds don’t matter.

          When you’re piloting a low-flying plane over New York City with engines destroyed by birds – none of that’s the case. That’s a one-time emergency. The system has gone to great lengths to keep emergencies like this very unusual.

      6. Not Australian*

        Also, a large part of Sully’s training throughout his distinguished career *focussed* on keeping cool in a crisis, and it would have been far more surprising had he not done so.

        That said, I’m firmly on team “there’s no excuse” because – really – *there’s no excuse*.

        1. Slow Gin Lizz*

          Yeah, this. Pilots (and air-traffic controllers and others in absolutely life-or-death lines of work) are trained to be the coolest of cool in a crisis. One could argue that performers and entertainers are trained to be the opposite. I mean, if all the reality shows were full of pilots and ATCs, there would be no drama and therefore no entertainment, right? (I say this as someone who abhors reality TV because of all the drama and yelling and stupid fights; I don’t find those shows entertaining at all, but a lot of people sure do.)

          That said, there’s a world of difference between drama on a TV set (even a reality TV set) and drama IRL. And of course I agree, NO EXCUSE for assault and abuse.

          1. dbc*

            –x 1000
            I’m trying to figure out how we can make a sea change (possibly globally) toward an appetite for Sully-like steersmanship vs. hyper-drama entertainment on the leadership front, whether political or corporate.

            1. Angstrom*

              No kidding. There’s a whole industry ready to provide us with entertainment and drama. We don’t need it from our leaders.

          2. New Jack Karyn*

            “if all the reality shows were full of pilots and ATCs, there would be no drama”

            It’s beside your overall point, but I disagree on this. A lot of people compartmentalize pretty thoroughly, and keep their emotions out of the workplace. But they still have emotional lives, and sometimes things get messy in their private arenas.

            1. Boof*

              Yeahhhhh… I can be totally cool with trying to save/resuscitate someone who is dying because that is my job and I am on my A game but can totally fall apart at home if I’m tired + that thing I was looking forward to just fell apart because I’m trying to herd 5 cats (family) and they all want to go different directions – and feel extra crappy because it was totally a stupid trivial selfish luxury that I’m flipping out about and I know that! D:

    2. Crencestre*

      That’s the difference between a strong, mature leader and a spoiled brat of ANY age! Stress doesn’t change your character – it reveals it. Anyone can be pleasant and calm when everything’s going right and they’re coasting along happily. It’s when the going gets toughest that we see what the person is REALLY like.

      Capt. Sullenberger’s character shone through when he was under the greatest possible stress. In the letter above, Pro A and Pro B revealed THEIR characters as well. Not only did they behave like unruly 3 year olds, when they were caught and confronted they blamed others for not having provided them with anger management classes. Riiighhhht…not!

    3. Carol the happy*

      THANK YOU for that analogy!
      I tried to explain that exact scenario years ago, (Sully On The Hudson) to a coworker who is extremely hard of hearing. (Even with her hearing aids, she can’t assess for herself how loud she’s being.) I just kept repeating “Calm and in control” which is like repeating something in Greek on a broken record. So I just copied part of your explanation-and gave creative credit-

      She sends a great big “Thank you and MMMWAH” kissy emoji for that helpful comparison.

    4. Pescadero*

      For a professional dancer on one of these shows – it isn’t “trivial as a game show”.

  3. Pastor Petty Labelle*

    The problem goes beyond A and B. So very much so. BBC has been investigated as a toxic workplace before. This is just more of the same.

    If management won’t take kicking, hitting and spitting on seriously, then of course no one bothers to report it, because nothing will be done. Not even feeling comfortable reporting it shows a definite blame the messenger attitude on the part of the management.

    If this were an employee writing in about what to do if the employer allowed this behavior, the only answer is get out. But like jobs in television are so easy to come by right?

    1. Observer*

      But like jobs in television are so easy to come by right?

      Which is why sometimes people have to make the choice to leave their “dream” field. Because it’s not a “dream” it’s a *nightmare*.

    2. Nebula*

      I was, at one point, going to apply for a job at the BBC, despite having heard it was a toxic workplace. I quickly realised it wasn’t worth it when I saw that one of the skills required for an admin job was ’emotional resilience’ and the following description made it clear that what they meant is you’d have to deal with being shouted at on a regular basis, and they placed the responsibility on you, as a junior staff member, to be ‘resilient’ about it.

      The fact the junior person on the production team who witnessed that behaviour didn’t feel able to report it is not in the least surprising, since there is a general attitude that the people with power at the BBC get to behave badly and everyone else just has to suck it up.

      2. allathian*

        Doesn’t surprise me, given how they were willing to cover up Jimmy Savile’s child abuse for literal decades. Or rather, they enabled it because they produced and broadcast the shows that gave him access to kids. He hadn’t been dead for long before the story broke, but I think it’s a shame that he never faced any consequences fo his crimes. He should’ve been in prison, not celebrated for his charity work.

    3. AMT*

      Absolutely. When I see abuse in a family, workplace, or institution, my immediate reaction is not, “The individuals involved need therapy.” My reaction is, “How has this been allowed to happen? What people or systems are enabling it?”

      1. Wolf*

        Right now, it reads like the silent part here is “once we’ve decided to build you up as a star, you become irreplaceable to us, and anyone you hurt is replaceable”.

    4. Deejay*

      Two words. Jimmy Savile.

      The Beeb turned a blind eye to complaints about a man who stopped just short of boasting “I’m the most prolific sex abuser in the country’s history”. He once answered on TV the question “What do you do in that caravan parked in the BBC car park?” with “Anyone I can get my hands on”.

      Christopher Eccleston has cited being unable to tolerate a culture of abuse as part of his reason for leaving Doctor Who.

      At least the Corporation didn’t just let Jeremy Clarkson’s status as a presenter of one of their flagship shows protect him when he punched a producer in a moment of anger. Probably because of the Savile backlash.

      Some people criticised that producer for going to hospital just for a cut lip. I wouldn’t. If I was him I’d probably think “I want a record of this. The BBC might cover it up, but can they force the NHS to do the same?”

      1. allathian*

        The NHS has been accused of being complicit in some of Jimmy Savile’s abuse. He was accused of sexually abusing staff and patients at 28 NHS hospitals, and the NHS just covered it up.

  4. Alton Brown's Evil Twin*

    I have a feeling this is such a protracted and notable thing because this is the entertainment industry, which has really skewed ideas and customs about a lot of stuff. Deference to authority, publicity, sexism, emotive behavior, etc.

    Not to mention – who really has the authority, regardless of what the titles and org chart say? The hot star, the hard-to-get legend, the money behind the project? The manager/publicist/agent who also represents other talent that related projects are trying to land (and therefore needs to be coddled and appeased), but who isn’t officially involved in this project at all?

    1. Smithy*

      I agree that the entertainment industry elevates this focus – but I also think that smaller scale versions of this do happen where an employer’s “rainmaker” is known to be a problem and leadership invests heavily into fixing or alleviating the issue vs firing the person. A big difference can be that cameras aren’t on all the time, so there isn’t always such concrete evidence of behavior.

      Where I do think the issues can remain the same is that if an employer is that invested in changing the behavior or mitigating the impact of that kind of person vs letting them go. For someone on the receiving end of that kind of anger, if the immediate solution doesn’t meet your needs – then it’s probably worth just trying to leave. For situations that do work, a lot of the time that may be a case where the person on the receiving end no longer works with the offending personality AND stopping that working relationship does not significantly adversely impact their overall ability to have meaningful work and advancement.

      I will say that if someone stays with that employer and the attempts at “fixing” the behavior do not work – you do find yourself at risk of being attached to an employer that’s potentially allowing that behavior to continue. For most of us, this won’t necessarily impact our own reputation – but I think some classic examples like the Weinstein Company certainly are out there.

    2. Tiny Dancer*

      All this is egregious.
      In the US anyway, SAG- AFTRA, the TV- film union has a 24 hr hotline to the union (the number is on the back of your card).

      1. MigraineMonth*

        Unfortunately, my understanding is that the performers on reality show are not considered “actors” and are not therefore covered by SAG-AFTRA. There’s an ongoing campaign to unionize reality performers under SAG.

  5. Peanut Hamper*

    Like all mental health issues, it’s no excuse to lash out at other people. Abuse of any kind is an do-not-pass-Go-go-directly-to-fired kind of situation.

    1. Wolf*

      I might consider it an argument against firing if the person said “I did a bad thing that I regret, then figured out I have a mental health issue, and I’m working on it”. But it is never an excuse if it ends at “oh well, I have a mental health issue, there’s nothing I can do”.

  6. bamcheeks*

    Speaking from the UK, I find it hard to imagine that there could be a situation where an employer was obliged to provide anger management therapy, unless the individual was able to demonstrate that the actions of the employer was causing the anger or stress or whatever. The company might have some liability in that case. But I think generally their liability for the victim of the angry person would be a higher concern.

    I was reading about this the other day and my first thought was that it’s probably indicative of a much broader toxic culture in arenas like professional dance training, gymnastics, and other arts where people tend to start very rigorous training at a very young “old” the US gymnastics team are, with lots of people competing in their 20s and 30s when the going wisdom used to be that gymnasts “peaked” in their late teens, and how that was a direct result of abusive and physically damaging practices. Abusive training and development has been normalised for SO long in dance and gymnastics, and I feel like there are probably a lot of professional dancers who have never had good models for supportive and non-abusive authority.

    1. dulcinea47*

      Yep, this. And other types of athletes too… really anything where competition is involved. Society likes to punish people for not being perfect instead of supporting them for being talented.

    2. bamcheeks*

      very young “old” the US gymnastics team are, with lots of people competing in their 20s and 30

      Oops, some words got deleted — “very young age. There’s been a lot in the media recently about how comparatively “old” the US gymnastics team are, with lots of people competing in their 20s and 30…”

      1. Justme, The OG*

        The US women’s gymnastics team is the oldest it’s been since 1952. I think Hezly Rivera is the only one under 18 on the team.

    3. Liz the Snackbrarian*

      I proving the employer was causing it could be viable, but I also don’t think the employer should have to help someone who is kicking, hitting, and spitting at other employees. There’s just no excuse for that behavior.

    4. Zoe Karvounopsina*

      I think it’s definitely an industry issue. I remember listening to a podcast called Choral Chihuahua where two professional singers were discussing their experience with abusive ‘genius’ bosses, and part of the issue was an idea (less common now) that this is just what happens. It’s acceptable to do it Because it was done to you.

      Very interesting podcast, actually. They were discussing whether such behaviour had worked.

      1. New Jack Karyn*

        I really think the TV show ‘House’ did a lot of damage in this way. Brilliantly portrayed by Hugh Laurie, it promulgated the “A-hole but a genius” trope to a ridiculous extreme. No, you can’t get away with being a jerk just because you’re super smart and/or good at your job. And a workplace that puts up with that is going to be toxic in other ways, too.

        1. Zoe Karvounopsina*

          The conclusion of Choral Chihuahua was that it did work! Abusive geniuses got incredible performances! But they’ll never know if those performances could have happened another way, and what the people who left could have been.

          1. MigraineMonth*

            Yeah, it’s the “opportunity cost” that we’ll never know.

            Would those performances have given just as great performances a few years later, after being able to peak on their own? Would they have given a lifetime of pretty great performances, instead of peaking and quitting, as so many highly-pressured talents do? Were there others who would have given even greater performances, but they crumbled under the stress or noped out as soon as they realized how much abuse they’d have to put up with?

        2. EmmaPoet*

          I’ve known a few scientists who were/are geniuses in their field, and all of them have been genuinely lovely, sweet people. They all knew that collaboration is essential, and being a jerk means nobody wants to work with you.

    5. Elbe*

      Agreed.

      When a high-stress job is affecting the employee (headaches, insomnia, anxiety), I think that there can be a case to be made that the employer should provide mental health services. But I agree with Alison that once that employee starts deal with these problems by lashing out and harming others, the employer’s primary responsibility is to protect others, even if that means firing the employee.

      It’s simply not at option to force other employees to be punching bags until this person changes. That would be deeply unfair even if the person had legitimate struggles but is even worse considering that a lot of this type of behavior stems from an abuse mindset as opposed to genuine inability to control behavior.

      When someone is being physically harmed, ‘compassion’ for the abuser will always come at their expense. You can’t cut that person some slack without enabling additional harm.

    6. Media Monkey*

      absolutely agree. those pros will have been training to dance competitively since they were tiny children, and be used to having driven partners who want to win as much as they do. not someone who has another day job and really no intention to become a great dancer beyond next sturday night. the culture within that sort of environment has a lot to do with it (and i’m by no means excusing the behaviour of the pros concerned)

  7. CommanderBanana*

    Isn’t it just so interesting that people who do this kind of stuff at work do it to people who are in less powerful positions? So interesting how people who are just so out-of-control angry are somehow able to control their behavior around people who have actual power over them. Just so interesting.

    I’ve been in the workforce for 15ish years and I’ve had two bosses who were physically abusive (including one who was sent to anger management at least twice, yet still works at the org and has been promoted, and in fact was hired back after leaving) and yet, they somehow managed to only be abusive to underlings. How interesting.

    2. bamcheeks*

      do it to people who are in less powerful positions

      I completely agree broadly, but I’m not sure that’s true here– I think the question of where the power lies between the dance professional and the celebrity participant is pretty murky. The fact that the production assistant or whoever witnessed it didn’t feel empowered to tell anyone is pretty damning of the overall BBC culture though.

      1. londonedit*

        Definitely – the celebs can often be of ‘national treasure’ status, or at the very least very dear to the public’s hearts, and while Strictly fans do have their favourites among the pros I think there’s definitely a question of where the celeb/pro power balance overlaps. Also, in this case Pro B hasn’t been hugely popular in the past, and has been criticised for making dances all about him and not taking criticism well, so I don’t think – in terms of the viewers – it’d be a ‘poor Pro B’ thing.

      2. Nancy*

        There is a power deferential in pro-am dancing, I don’t think the fact that the am is a celebrity changes that. And some pros do abuse that power.

        1. rebelwithmouseyhair*

          Similarly, the pro who taught Natalie Portman to dance for Black Swan, married her and then cheated on her. He clearly felt he had the upper hand in the relationship to be able to do that.

          1. KWu*

            I thought I remembered reading at the time that Millepied had left his pregnant girlfriend for Portman. So, not that it excuses any of his behavior, but he had some red flags from the start and I don’t know that it’s necessarily evidence that he felt he had more power in the relationship in recent years.

            1. Trotwood*

              They were also married for 12 years, I’m not sure his cheating can necessarily be attributed to him feeling “more powerful” in their relationship…

    3. AnonAcademic*

      I work with someone who is exploitative and nasty exclusively to women, but to women up and down the chain – students, his colleagues, his immediate manager, and to a lesser degree her immediate manager. He has been formally disciplined one time. I’m currently watching the cycle of closeness and abusive behavior with another (notably as per the pattern, younger) female colleague and although she’s self-aware and smart, it’s going to continue until he retires since she doesn’t have the institutional power or capital to make him stop or request that he be curtailed.

      1. Elbe*

        It’s awful that he’s doing this at all, to anyone. But being allowed to do this to his managers is particularly disturbing. It seems like the people allowing this / protecting him are very high up, and likely have control over a lot of people.

      2. CommanderBanana*

        It’s interesting that he can’t control his behavior towards women – but can towards men. Again, I think that the narrative that people are somehow not responsible for their behavior because they “snap” or “can’t control themselves” ends up aiding and abetting abusers most of the time.

        If someone is truly, really and truly out of control of their behavior, that is an entirely different conversation, as that person is a danger to themselves and others. Someone who is not able to control what they are doing warrants immediate intervention, preferably by trained medical / mental health professionals.

        Abusers may act as if they just “snapped” and “couldn’t control themselves” but it is often just that – an act.

        1. Elbe*

          Yes. I think it is very telling when someone’s ‘problems’ only have negative consequences for other people. It seems less like it’s truly out of their control and more like this behavior is just working well for them.

    4. Cat Tree*

      Exactly. It’s amazing that he can manage to have self-control specifically when it benefits him.

      1. Alpacas Are Not Dairy Animals*

        Everyone, whatever their particular issues, is likely to work harder at masking or controlling those issues in situations where not doing so will result in trouble, and let their self-control relax when it’s “safe”. When the issue is doing that weird thing with my fingernails or zoning out, it’s not surprising and not a big deal. When the issue is shouting (!) and spitting at people (!!!) it is a big deal, but it’s still not surprising.

        1. MigraineMonth*

          I don’t think that *kicking people* is a tic this guy works to control all day and just comes out when he’s relaxed and working on a routine with his partner. I think he is perfectly in control of when he kicks someone, has decided that this woman is a person he can terrorize and kick without consequence, and his claim that he struggles to control himself at other times is complete bullshit.

          I think that shouting, kicking and spitting at people is both a big deal and a very surprising thing for someone to choose to do when they feel safe.

    5. Happy meal with extra happy*

      Well, unfortunately, yes. People who are abusive to those above them are more likely to be weeded out early on in their career. I don’t think it’s strange that people who can hide their behavior better slip through. (And many people who are abusive to underlings do get fired and/or face consequences! We just hear about that less.)

      1. Admin Lackey*

        CommanderBanana knows all this, everyone does. I believe their point is that the excuse these abusive people often give is that they were under stress and out of control, but then who they choose to bully shows they actually have LOTS of control over their behaviour

        1. CommanderBanana*

          ^^ Yes, that was exactly my point. I’m sure that out there in the big wide world is someone who started the first day of their job by walking up to the CEO and screaming at them, but that is very much not the norm.

          If you have encountered people like this, you’ll start to notice certain patterns that are more true than not, and of those is that people who claim to be “out of control” of their behavior are often actually quite in control of their behavior, even if they may be trying to give the impression that they just “snapped” and “couldn’t control themselves.”

          For example – the abuse partner who punches the wall next to your head. In control enough to aim the punch somewhere it would scare you, but not hurt you (yet). The abusive partner who breaks your stuff – but not their stuff.

          The abusive boss who screams in meetings – but not when the CEO or someone higher up the food chain is in the meeting. The abusive boss who berates his/her underlings…but is pleasant to those with more power. The manipulative manager who seems kind in group settings but is vicious one-on-one.

      2. Irish Teacher.*

        Yeah, I think there are two types of angry/abusive people, the ones who genuinely don’t seem to be able to control it and who behave like that constantly, reacting with anger to any perceived slight or disappointment. Those people tend to end up in prison or unemployed and estranged from family members. If you are abusive towards your boss when he corrects you, you tend to get fired. If you are abusive towards an interviewer, you don’t get the job. If you are abusive towards a police officer who questions you, you are likely to be arrested.

        Then there are the people who seem to hold it together with those they perceive as being worth impressing – their bosses, those in authority, etc – and instead take their anger out on their employees or service workers or family members, especially those they have power over. Those are the ones who have the ability to do more harm.

        Not that the former can’t be dangerous/harmful too, but they are easier to avoid, less likely to be in powerful positions and there tends to be less victim blaming when they harm people because everybody can see what they are like, whereas the latter group tend to have those they perceive as equals or authorities thinking, “what? They couldn’t have done that. Last person ever.”

    6. Msd*

      Yeah. Men beat on their wives and kids because they have anger issues but somehow can control themselves around their bosses.

    7. Siege*

      Yep. There is a very fine line between keeping your emotions where they need to be (I don’t lash out at my neighbors because my partner and I are having an argument) and bullying, shading into abuse, because someone is attacking someone with less power, and we don’t pay enough attention to that. If you can control your target and your target is always less powerful, your anger is probably not the kind of anger that leads partners to argue! (I also can’t think of a circumstance where an actual argument is necessary in a work context so I’m having to resort to a slightly inappropriate personal life example, but I think the point holds.)

      And it is, indeed, very interesting.

    8. Statler von Waldorf*

      Interesting isn’t the word I’d use, but I think Alison’s commenting rules prevent me from using a more accurate one.

      I’m a big dude, and I’ve got some impressive scars. I’ve also got an .. interesting history, which involved me making some terrible life choices that led to me being a goon for an organized crime group well over 30 years ago to get out of an even worse situation. As a result, I’ve gotten very good at code switching over the years. Even with that, I’ve been fired for being “too intimidating” in the past. (If I wasn’t white, I’d be so f******) This website has been an invaluable resource for me, as I’ve soaked up a lot of professional norms here that have served me well over the years.

      I say that not to brag (I’m not super proud of my life, but it’s the one I got) but instead to set the stage for my point. All those men who are so out-of-control angry that just can’t keep their cool? I work in Oil & Gas, and that type is everywhere in this industry. They universally fold like wet cardboard as soon as I push back even a bit. Every. Single. Time. I’ve had a gun pointed in my face by a man who was ready to kill me with it more than once. Compared to that, a rig manager on a power trip doesn’t faze me much. The second they realize that they can’t physically intimidate me or yell me down, they calm down.

      Never believe for a second that those men can’t control their behavior. They just don’t want to.

    9. Polly Gone*

      Precisely. I once worked for a woman (grandboss, thankfully) who actually threw a stapler at a subordinate who announced her pregnancy at the office. Amazingly enough, she was able to curb her behavior enough not to throw office supplies at her own boss.

      1. CommanderBanana*

        Yup. I worked for a boss who slammed a coworker’s hand in his door because he was slamming the door in her face and didn’t realize her hand was resting on the doorjamb (she ended up with a fracture. He was not fired. She ended up quitting). He someone never slammed a door in the executive director or director of development’s face.

        I had a friend whose boss threw a phone headset at her face. She somehow managed to never lose her temper that badly in front of anyone higher on the food chain to her.

        I worked for a woman who was so abusive that the HR director warned interviewees beforehand that they probably shouldn’t take the job. She managed to be pleasant and polite to the people who had any power over her (the CEO and members of the board) and vile to everyone else.

          1. MigraineMonth*

            Never wrap your fingers around your thumb when making a fist, and aim for soft spots, or else you might fracture something in your hand.

    10. Peanut Hamper*

      Yep. Which means that it’s not mental illness, it’s just plain old abuse. You can’t just therapy your way out of that. You need to be held accountable, as well.

  8. londonedit*

    I would assume that, like many (most?) BBC presenters, the pros on Strictly aren’t even BBC employees, but rather freelancers who are engaged to work on the programme. So I’d say it’s even less of the BBC’s responsibility to sort out Pro B’s anger management therapy.

    That’s not to say the BBC is in the clear here – it obviously isn’t, and it seems very much like it tried its best to sweep all of this under the carpet until it became obvious it wouldn’t be able to (especially as this year was meant to be the big 20th anniversary celebration). It has a duty of care to the celebrities taking part, and to the production staff, and it’s obviously failed in its obligation to provide a safe environment for everyone to work in. They have now said that a member of production staff will be present for all training sessions, and celebs will no longer be left alone with professionals. But I still don’t think it’s on the BBC to provide anger management sessions for anyone – if Pro B needs help with anger management then he should go and sort himself out.

    1. Naomi*

      Having someone else present for training sessions is helpful in theory, but it needs to be backed by authority. If this person does witness bad behavior, can they report it without fear of blowback? Will the report be taken seriously and the wrongdoer held accountable? In other words, is the BBC addressing their part of the problem, or just firing Pro B and pretending it was a case of one bad apple?

      1. londonedit*

        You’re right – my first thought when I heard about it was that I hope it won’t be some junior member of the production staff tasked with standing in the corner and watching out for anything untoward. It definitely feels like it could be a case of being seen to ‘do something’ rather than actually doing anything about the causes of these behaviours – whether that’s more thorough vetting of the pros, or a more open culture where people can report bad behaviour without fear, or whatever.

      2. Sloanicota*

        Yes, I think there’s plenty of evidence here that there’s a larger systemic issue with how people are treated, probably network (maybe even industry) wide; these things don’t really happen in a vacuum. Unless the solution is also systematic and has a *lot* of buy in from the top, I’m not very optimistic. Usually leadership only wants to pay some lip service to the problem and maintain business as usual; their incentives haven’t really been changed.

    2. Elsewise*

      I’m also a little leery of the “someone else needs to be present when the pros are interacting with the celebs” resolution. I remember a celebrity who was in the news within the past few years for being a bully. He’d been a showrunner, and one actress who worked with him said that there was a rule on set that he wasn’t allowed in her trailer unattended. She was a teenager when they’d worked together. That’s one of those situations where if there’s a rule, it raises more questions than it answers.

      1. MigraineMonth*

        I thought she reported that he wasn’t allowed to be alone with her *anywhere*. (Assuming we’re talking about the same misogynist racist showrunner bully.)

    3. MsSolo (UK)*

      I thin what stands out to me here is that a certain amount of mental health support is standard now on reality shows in the UK, in no small part due to Love Island (celeb B’s launch show). I honestly think most reality shows in the UK would meet a request for anger management therapy at this point, because of the reputational risk of now doing so – it’s cynical, of course, because really it’s about pushing the blame back from the format (so they can keep making shows) and onto the individual suffering the impact of it.

      The BBC refusing to do so is as much a sign that they don’t want to tar Strictly with the Reality Show brush – we don’t need to offer help because these are all entertainment professionals – as it is a genuine belief that it’s not their responsibility.

  9. Kris*

    Ok–slightly off-topic, but I just binge-watched “America’s Sweethearts – Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders” and my friend and I were wondering if we should write in to AAM about Kelli and Judy’s firing process (when they have to cut someone from training camp). It seems so toxic to me and I kept wishing they had a script from Alison that they could follow to make the girls who were let go feel less awful about it! (… However, Kelli and Judy would never hit or spit on anyone, good Lord.)

    1. sparkle emoji*

      I was especially frustrated when they cut Ari for being too short and didn’t tell her that. Don’t give her false hope when she can’t change the issue!

      1. Sloanicota*

        Haha I think we could come up with a lot of good letters from reality TV – but the whole thing is so skewed away from professional norms that I feel like there wouldn’t be a lot of helpful advice to offer. Plus I think they have most people as individual contractors if they’re paid at all, unfortunately. It’s like when she has to say “this is how things *should* work … unless you’re in academia (or the military) …”

        1. Angstrom*

          The New Yorker recently published an article on abusive conditions in reality TV. The argument producers give is that participants “know what they’re signing up for” so they can’t complain when things go badly. Participants typically have to sign nondisclosure agreements so they can’t talk about their experiences on the show, and some have been sued for talking to the press.

        2. Jamie Starr*

          I was rewatching Boomerang (film from the 1992) the other day. So much sexual harassment/inappropriateness in the workplace! The main story line hinges on sex between the boss and someone who reports to her. And she’s telling everyone at work about it. I saw it a year or two after it came out (in college) and I don’t remember thinking any of it was highly inappropriate for work because I didn’t know any better I guess? But now I’m like, “Holy crap; this is all so wrong!”

      2. Kris*

        Yes! That was one of the frustrating ones. For the last few cuts, I wondered why they couldn’t just start with “You know there are only 36 slots, and even in the early stages, we’re eliminating some really talented women who really want to be here, and it’s hard. By the time we cut it to 45 (or 38 or whatever), it’s really the cream of the crop, and eliminations are almost impossible,” etc etc. Like there’s a way to do it that would be kind and supportive, but at the same time clear definite that it’s over.

    2. K8T*

      I mean, I actually don’t like that we got a letter about reality TV and hope this doesn’t become a genre of posts.
      The practices of NFL cheerleading programs aren’t going to be applicable to 99.9999% of jobs and I’d rather read about situations that could/have potentially impacted people who read the blog. The don’t want or really need (being realistic here as the Cowboys/Jerry/most the fans don’t care) to be too nice about it, their whole thing is exclusivity and making it hard for those women while paying them pennies. You should watch the older DCC reality show, they were downright tame for Netflix.
      Also – want to be clear I’m not condoning their practices but barring unionizing/a complete overhaul of the entire NFL, that’s just how this industry is.

      1. Ask a Manager* Post author

        It’s not going to be a constant thing, but I’ve periodically tackled stuff from TV and books for years (here’s one about a vampire) and think it can be really interesting. I mean, most of us aren’t going to have a boss who pees in the sink or an employee putting magical curses on their coworkers either, but what’s interesting to me about those situations is how you can draw out principles that apply to more mundane situations as well.

        1. Keymaster of Gozer (She/Her)*

          BTW I absolutely love the vampire one, and when your niece(s?) answered questions.

        2. New Jack Karyn*

          I’ve considered writing up a letter based on some media representation of a workplace, in the ‘voice’ of a character. Not as a fake, I’d clearly label it. Hopefully it would be amusing, even if you never run it.

          1. MigraineMonth*

            There’s an AAM tag on the Archive of Our Own (ao3.org) fanfic site. Just saying.

            A while back there was a hilarious Saturday post by someone wondering if they should accept partial ownership in a land deal before the extremely volatile current tenant had been evicted… signed by Bilbo Baggins. If someone can find that for me, I would love to immortalize it on AO3.

      2. Elbe*

        I disagree about how relevant things like this are to other workers.

        Having relatively extreme examples can really illustrate points and patterns that are applicable in other contexts. Part of why toxic environments are allowed to thrive is because of how normal they can appear from the inside.

        Most people a probably never going to be an NFL cheerleader, but there are a lot of jobs that will use a person’s passion for the work against them to underpay and exploit them. Most people will never be on a reality dance show, but a lot of people work in high-pressure environments where top performers are seemingly permitted to violate boundaries and decency.

        Part of the reason why these stories make the news is because they are both extreme and relatable.

      3. Frustration Nation*

        The thing is, the workplace environment of most TV productions could very easily be more corporate, and those in charge just don’t want to do it because it will make it harder for them to have their little dictatorships. I’ve worked in nonfiction/reality TV for 20 years, and I’ve worked with AT LEAST one abusive colleague at every job, and there have been a lot of them, since we change projects so often. I’ve had abusive field producers who yell at the cast ON CAMERA out in the field, abusive bosses who’ve cussed me out and yelled at me in the middle of the bullpen in front of everyone, and colleagues who’ve emailed me curse-filled missives about how I was trying to get them fired when I’d been there 6 months and they’d been there a decade. This behavior is everywhere in so many creative industries because of the “volatile genius” nonsense, and it just doesn’t need to be. I’ve worked for a few very lovely companies and the good work still gets done. A workplace is a workplace, and people should be treated respectfully, feel safe and supported, and be well-compensated for good work at ANY workplace. Especially those of us who are not eligible for unions and are trying to form them.

  10. Time for Tea*

    This was a situation where a national institution in the UK that is still seen as very much “an authority figure” in the broad sense could have made a very public stand that violence against women is unacceptable. They chose not to do that, which I find very disappointing.

    1. Storm in a Teacup*

      I totally agree.
      When the initial allegations against Pro A surfaced the tone was almost victim blaming in some media outlets – partly I think because Pro A is one of the most popular pro dancers. I was supremely disappointed in them to learn about the behaviour. There is no excuse for their behaviour or that of Pro B, which I hadn’t realised the details of. It is horrifying how easily they turn on the charm for the cameras.
      It’s interesting that the BBC have announced that from now on all training for the celebrities will be supervised by a BBC staff member.
      I’m sure the toxicity the others have mentioned in dance and sports industries has been a factor (not an excuse though) but I am surprised that the BBC don’t train their pro dancers on teaching / training others or have guidance or standards on behaviour. I wonder if this is also now being developed.

      1. Flor*

        Yeah, I’m also not really thrilled at the “a member of the production crew” will sit in as their response because, well, I don’t imagine that the average member of the crew is terribly empowered to step in or report workplace abuse like this; if the celebrities involved didn’t feel they had the power (and when they did speak up, they were criticised and blamed), then I doubt the average intern who is tasked with watching a training session will be able to do much (or present much of a deterrent).

  11. CityMouse*

    I don’t think someone who has abused or assaulted other employees should be retained at all. The idea that the employer would be on the hook for therapy is ridiculous.

    1. Observer*

      That’s really one of the things that’s so mind boggling. And that makes it 100% that this guy is simply not salvageable. He simply does not see that he has any responsibility to work on his behavior. Behavior, to state what SHOULD be obvious, that a first grader is learning to understand is improper, and the we expect kids to stop doing at all by the time they reach their teens.

  12. Viki*

    Was not expecting Strictly drama here!

    Basically, there’s no excuse for either of the pros to do this. How they were trained does not make it okay, and an employee’s anger issues are not the employer’s responsibility (they must deal with the fallout and protect their other employees, and demand that the anger issues get dealt with appropriately, but they do not have to offer treatment.)

    This is a person issue, that has become a job issue, but is still a person issue. And so that person has to deal with it

    1. Expelliarmus*

      Me neither! Especially since I’ve only been vaguely following the situation from the US and didn’t know about the Pro B debacle until this post!

    2. WheresMyPen*

      The Pros have been making celebrities cry since the beginning of the show. One of the original pro dancers was renowned for being harsh with his celebs and not caring when they got upset, and there have been others who’ve had a reputation for being overly harsh and aggressive. The BBC has known this is a risk for years but don’t seem to have done anything about it. I wouldn’t be surprised if there have been physical assaults by Pro dancers before the news came out about Pro A.

  13. Athenae*

    I feel like “anger management” is just code for “we’re afraid he’ll sue if we fire him” so they do this half-ass thing and then have to whole-ass fire him anyway, unless the other partner and everyone else just quits in disgust. Which is by far the most likely outcome.

  14. CubeFarmer*

    The professional dancer should be brought up on assault charges. This isn’t “anger management” it’s basic human behavior.

    1. Elbe*

      Agreed. It is really a legal matter when the behavior is this severe. If it’s on video, it should be a fairly open-and-shut case.

      1. CubeFarmer*

        We teach pre-schoolers that you can’t hit and kick people! Adults should be held to at least that standard.

  15. Nancy*

    They did the right thing by firing Pro B; if he feels that anger management would help him, he is welcome to sign up for it. Pro A quit.

    1. londonedit*

      Did Pro A quit? If so, it must have been under extreme pressure. Pro A is facing legal questions from his last Strictly partner, relating to his teaching methods.

      1. Chocolate Teapot*

        The reports I heard were that Pro A decided to leave to concentrate on new projects. The BBC had given him a travel programme, but I doubt he will have that contract renewed.

        From what I understand, the Strictly dancers are engaged on an annual contract for the show. This gets reviewed every year and either the BBC renews it or the dancer turns it down.

      2. Expelliarmus*

        I thought the last partner dropped the claims against Pro A? Because I was seeing so many things saying “{celeb} dropped the claims, further proving Pro A didn’t do anything wrong”

        Not that I think taking the legal system out of a situation automatically disproves any fault, of course.

    2. Storm in a Teacup*

      I thought Pro A was not fired but not in the next series. I assumed they were ‘benched’

  16. rebelwithmouseyhair*

    This sounds like your typical narcissist learning the language of therapy to be able to turn themselves into the victim: “poor me, I need anger management classes and they won’t pay for a course for me even though I’m begging them and entitled to X hours of training”.

    Anger management courses have bigged up a lot, nobody knows how effective they can be on different personalities, and I suspect that those with the biggest “anger management issues” are the ones that are least likely to internalise anything they learned.

    Thing is, everybody manages their anger, but some just don’t bother in certain situations, such as when they think they have the upper hand.

  17. atalanta0jess*

    Sounds like classic buck-passing. “Oh, it’s not my fault I behaved abhorrently, THEY didn’t give me free help so I could behave like an ethical human.”

  18. Heffalump*

    Some years ago I read an interesting article (to which I no longer have the link) saying that it’s pretty rare for people to self-refer to anger management therapy. Usually they’re required to go, by their employer or by the court system.

    One man who was sent for anger management therapy after a road rage incident was quoted saying, “Maybe I’m dealing from a different deck than other people.” I wasn’t sure whether he was justifying his behavior, or merely explaining it.

    1. Elbe*

      This seems like he was trying to justify it.

      Even if he is somehow biologically more predisposed to anger than other people, it just means that he has to work harder than other people to control it. It’s still his problem to deal with.

      Anger is a problem, but the REAL issue is the mindset that, if you feel that certain behaviors come naturally to you, you should be able to act on them even when they hurt other people. THAT is what is making that guy abusive.

  19. Apples and Oranges*

    What? Hitting, spitting, kicking? This is assault. It’s not (it shouldn’t be) an employer’s responsibility to deal with this at all (besides obviously firing the employee). The police should be involved.

  20. Anon for This*

    Having done a bit of ballroom and Latin dance myself (mostly on the university circuit but some not as well)… I think the general culture there does have something to answer for too. Yes it’s not everyone, but some dancers and some *coaches* have boundary problems. Spending hours of the day pressed up against someone, with emotions running high from competition, plus the pressure of ‘looking sexy’ or ‘looking elegant’ can lead to a relationship that is way more personal than ‘colleague’ relationships. I have seen multiple people shout at their dance partner in practice, I have had multiple coaches make inappropriately sexual comments to me & others… I hope it’s improving but it doesn’t surprise me.

    2. Observer*

      Spending hours of the day pressed up against someone, with emotions running high from competition, plus the pressure of ‘looking sexy’ or ‘looking elegant’ can lead to a relationship that is way more personal than ‘colleague’ relationships.

      I can see that. It’s a problem, but I could see how it somewhat comes with the territory. But *somewhat* is the key. Not that it’s ok to shout at people and make sexual comments to people. But it’s still worlds away from *spitting* at people, much less the rest of it.

      I do agree that the culture is problematic. But even a “bad” culture typically has SOME lines. When physical assault is still “within” the lines, it’s BAD. Really, really bad.

      Does anyone remember the letter from the person who bit a coworker?

      1. Anon for This*

        Yea I completely agree and I hope that if I had seen someone spit (!!!) at their partner someone would have stepped in. It is fundamentally a physical thing though so it is boundary pushing – if you yank your partners arm a bit too hard whilst frustrated in practice is that abuse? (I would say ‘yes’ but it’s not as straightforward as a job where you have no good reason to ever really touch a colleague).

    3. Zoe Karvounopsina*

      Just look at the Strictly Curse, where pros and celebs keep ending up in relationships!

    4. Jackalope*

      Yes, it ends up being at the least a physically intimate relationship even if nothing ever happens but dancing. Some people can dance with the same person for years and have it be strictly professional but that’s harder than it might seem.

  21. "anger management" through EAP*

    I don’t follow this televeision program or have any idea what is up with this group of people beyond what’s said in the article, so I’m going to address the article title rather than the article itself (which I did read, just don’t have anything to say about).

    In a very, very different sort of situation (I did not hit anyone, had more what I now suspect was an autistic meltdown at work when given a set of mutually conflicting ridiculous rules to enforce with no administrator support in a pretty dysfunctional high school), work sent me to anger management paid for through the EAP.

    (To give you a sense of what I was dealing with, among that principal’s greatest hits was the time a student walked down the hall loudly swearing up a blue streak in front of the principal and a teacher, and that teacher turned to the principal to indicate that he should, perhaps, address this in some way and the principal replied that no action was needed because the “the student wasn’t swearing *at* you, just *near* you” and the time I brought up that we’d had at least 4 different students break windows in anger that semester and perhaps things were getting unsafe around here, and he tried to minimize it by pointing out that one of those windows was just broken “because [window breaker #3] and his girlfriend were having an argument about the cafeteria food” that led to him chucking a chair through a window as though that should somehow make me feel safer than if he’d broken a window for a less trivial reason. By the end of the year I only bothered to write referrals on days when he was absent and we had a substitute principal, because I knew that nothing would happen on days that the regular principal was there.)

    The therapist quickly concluded that I didn’t have an anger management problem, I had an impossible job problem, and so we instead focused on trying to get my mental health in a good enough place to job hunt. It was at least affirming to have some professional in my life affirming that my job was completely bananapants and I wasn’t somehow just bad at doing it.

  22. RagingADHD*

    Given that the celebrity guests on these type of dancing shows have entirely separate careers in their own right (such as sports or film), and the pro (and the BBC hierarchy) have no authority over their employment, I’m shocked that Pro B’s partner didn’t immediately lodge a complaint.

    They must have been truly desperate for the career boost / comeback opportunity that these shows are predicated on.

    1. Time for Tea*

      She’s a relatively young Love Island alumni trying to create a media career from that springboard. UK Strictly doesn’t ever really get big stars on like the US version does.

      1. allathian*

        It’s all in the name, too! Strictly Come Dancing has a different vibe than Dancing With The Stars does.

  23. PDB*

    I was in the entertainment business 50+ tears and I can tell you why he wasn’t fired: He’s talent. Talent doesn’t get fired.

    1. Peanut Hamper*

      Yep, this is it exactly. There’s a good documentary called Quiet on the Set about the abuse in the kids television industry. These are awful people who did heinous things and yet people still come to their defense. It’s terrible.

  24. Elle Woods*

    A childhood friend’s employer put her on a PIP and ordered her to undergo anger management therapy. By her own account, she had yelled at people numerous times at work and acted in an obstinate manner when she didn’t get the answer she wanted (among other things). She never physically assaulted anyone but she did create a tense work environment. The company paid for her anger management therapy because she had a unique skill set and knowledge that was difficult to find. The PIP was a lengthy one (12 months, IIRC). She managed to successfully complete both the PIP and anger management therapy though her reputation at the employer has never been the same.

    1. Meep*

      Yeah, occasionally, they will and it will sometimes be enough to be a kick in the pants.

      My (difficult) boss send me to a seminar on how to deal with “difficult people” (at the time, we had an employee she was abusing who was lashing out like feral animals backed into the corner are wont to do, but we didn’t know she was the problem). There was this older man in his 60’s who was clearly there because he had anger management issues at work. All he did was complain about those millennials (to me, a millennial). I had a feeling he was there because he was the difficult person.

      This was an engineering company and it was split evenly between the new and the old guard, so I guess he felt forced out. I wonder how he did and if he learned anything.

      1. CommanderBanana*

        Probably not. It’s been my experience that you have to have some self-awareness in order to recognize patterns in your own behavior and be willing to do the work to break them. And self-awareness is sadly in short supply these days.

  25. Richard L*

    I understand all the emphasis is on the abuser. Yet, I would want to know what the actions were of the abused. This is not to diminish the actions taken, but to ensure that there were not extenuating circumstances which pushed people over the edge. You wouldn’t want to have a situation where everyone else is secretly cheering Pro A because of an unknown toxic situation. Yes, let’s discuss Pro A’s behavior, but don’t forget to do a full investigation from both sides.

    1. Middle Name Jane*

      No, that’s gross. Short of self-defense against a threat upon their life, I can’t think of any situation in which is would be okay for someone to hit or kick another person. And spitting? Absolutely not.

    2. Angstrom*

      The celeb may have been the world’s most exasperating person to try to teach, and that’s still no excuse for physical assault. “I can’t work with this person. Find someone else.” would be a reasonable way to handle an unreasonable situation.

    3. Peanut Hamper*

      abused person: *exists*

      There, that’s the “action” of the abused.

      To think that there are extenuating circumstances for abuse is disgusting.

    5. Unkempt Flatware*

      Once, an ex-boyfriend hit me in the face because, while he was struggling with removing a bolt from his car he was working on, I asked him if I could help myself to a coke from the fridge. I should have known I was pushing him over the edge. What a jerk I am.

    7. Observer*

      This is not to diminish the actions taken, but to ensure that there were not extenuating circumstances which pushed people over the edge.

      What kind of “extenuating” circumstances could exist that make this kind of behavior ok? If the situation is “toxic” that’s on the employer. There is simply NO excuse for physical abuse. There are no “both sides” here.

    8. Irish Teacher.*

      Honestly, I disagree. For one thing, it doesn’t matter. You don’t kick and spit on somebody regardless of what they do. And there is no reason at all to assume they did anything.

      Also, this only tends to be an issue with certain crimes. When somebody breaks into a shop, we don’t have a full investigation from both sides to see if the shopkeeper has done something that might constitute “extentuating circumstances that pushed the person who did the break in over the edge.”

      And most importantly, to do so would be very dangerous for the future. If we start treating being abused as something that means you should be the subject of an investigation and start acting like there are “two sides” and that the person making the report is also somehow suspicious, then nobody is going to report abuse. Who is going to ask for an investigation into themselves, which, even when they are found innocent, will likely damage their career as they will always be known as somebody who was investigated for misconduct?

      We need to stop acting like victims are in some way to blame for abuse and treat it the same way we would if somebody reported somebody stealing from them or damaging their property. Sure, the criminal may have done any of these things to get back at the victim, but a) it’s highly unlikely and without evidence to support it, there is no reason to even consider it and b) it’s irrelevant anyway. You can’t go around beating people up because they annoy you.

    9. CommanderBanana*

      ^^ No. This is a really disgusting comment.

      If you are truly unable to interact with someone without kicking, hitting, or spitting on them, you can elect not to interact with them. And if you are truly unable to interact with someone without kicking, hitting, or spitting on them, that is a you problem. Not a them problem.

    11. Zoe Karvounopsina*

      Regarding Pro A, who has been accused of bullying (and not, I stress, physical assault) some of the rumours were that his celebrity was unwilling to meet his teaching standards, and he was unwilling to let things slide.

      This is a pattern of behaviour: for years people said he was great if you worked hard enough, but if you didn’t…

      And of course this is a relationship both sides are stuck in. If it isn’t working, you can’t change pros.

      1. Zoe Karvounopsina*

        Not to defend his behaviour with his celeb! But other partners weren’t able to praise him enough.

        1. Keymaster of Gozer (She/Her)*

          Abusers are often very, very good at creating plausible deniability. ‘But he’s such a nice man’ – nobody believed me when I tried to report my ex for abuse and pointed out how nice he was, how charming, how rich…

          They’re nice to the ones who matter.

          1. Andromeda*

            Not to mention: they are fitting filming around a regular job, and some people are just not going to be able to put the same amount of effort in as others. There is also a huge disparity in how much experience the non-pros have going in — several winners have been singers who have danced onstage, and many others have been pro athletes. If someone just weren’t able to perform to the standard of a pro athlete, would the pro be justified in browbeating them?

        2. Unkempt Flatware*

          It is defending him if you came here to say, “But others love him!”. There’s just no need to say it in this context.

          1. Zoe Karvounopsina*

            I think it is relevant if others say that his treatment and training worked for them. He’s won Strictly. He was having it reinforced that the way he acted *worked*, even though it shouldn’t have done.

            1. Irish Teacher.*

              That kind of assumes he treated them and trained them the same way though. I mean, maybe he did but it is equally possible that he treated them well and treated her badly. For all kinds of possible reasons, from he perceived them as being higher status than her or they came across as more self-confident and he thought they were more likely to report him to they were better dancers so he respected them but she struggled so he didn’t respect her or just something about her – her accent, how she looked, an expression she used – annoyed him and he responded by abusing her.

              People can behave very differently with different people and abusers are very good at singling out certain people to torment while being nice as pie to everybody else. Why they choose a person, who knows? Maybe they think them an easy target, maybe they find something about them irritating. But I wouldn’t necessarily assume he treated his other partners the same way as he treated her.

        3. Elbe*

          My understanding is that two other partners submitted complaints against him before the third partner’s account made the news.

          It’s possible that he treated more like-minded or compliant partners better, but that doesn’t change what happened to the others. You can’t just behave abusively when someone doesn’t do what you want them to do.

        4. CommanderBanana*

          ……..what exactly is your point? The fact that other people didn’t have the same experiences with him does not invalidate that someone did.

          I have worked with many people who were nice to me (a white, cishet-passing woman) while being vile to other people. It’s almost like people who are abusive monsters aren’t abusive monsters 100% of the time to 100% of the people.

          1. Zoe Karvounopsina*

            It is that he’s previously been rewarded for being the hard taskmaster, the ultra-professional, and is in an industry that rewards such behaviour. Obviously it shouldn’t! But it does.

            1. CommanderBanana*

              Being “the hard taskmaster” is not the same as hitting, kicking, and spitting on someone, but ok.

          2. Bag of Goods*

            I don’t think Zoe K is defending him. Just pointing out a detail about how he seems to have been inconsistent with who he bullied. As someone following Strictly I’m definitely interested in that. For instance, he and his ex-dancer-partner Rose seem to have had a strikingly wonderful working relationship. I’m interested in how he was apparently good to some and abusive to others (which is not remotely the same as blaming the others!)

            1. Irish Teacher.*

              I do think that’s a fairly common pattern with bullies and abusers and yeah, it’s interesting in a way, because as human beings, we do have a tendency to categorise people and it seems weird to us when somebody is really nice to some people and abusive towards others.

              Sometimes there’s a fairly clear pattern, like a person is nice to all men but abusive to women or they are nice to middle class people but abusive to working class people and minorities or they are nice to people who are popular or seem confident but pick on those who they think unlikely to report them (either because they are shy and underconfident or because they are unpopular and less likely to be believed). It’s not even uncommon for it to be the opposite of the last. As a teacher, I’ve seen class bullies who are at least neutral, sometimes even kind to the shy kid or the kid with disabilities, ’cause those are no threat to them, but they bully the confident kid or the popular kid because those are the ones who don’t give them their way.

              The last seems like something that could be possible in this case. It’s possible that so long as the celebs did things his way and showed appreciation and admiration for his great talent, he was nice to them but if they had their own ideas or questioned him in any way, he felt “disrespected” and became abusive. Just one possibility of many. I don’t know much about this whole situation but it would fit with part about her being “unwilling to meet his teaching standards,” which could mean she wasn’t a very talented dancer, but could also mean she didn’t do stuff his way and wanted her own input.

              And sometimes, there is no discernible reason. I mean, I’m sure there is one, but it’s possible even the abuser doesn’t know it. It could just be that the victim “irritates him in some way”. Perhaps they have the same name as the person who bullied the abuser when he was four or they look like the girl who turned him down for a date or they have the same accent as a group or kids in his secondary school who bullied him for being from a different background.

              It’s psychologically interesting and I do think it’s something that should be stressed more, because people do tend to doubt that somebody who seemed really nice to them could have bullied or abused somebody else, but it’s fairly unsurprising.

      2. Observer*

        some of the rumours were that his celebrity was unwilling to meet his teaching standards, and he was unwilling to let things slide.

        Nice excuse for bullying. If you can’t “let it slide” then refuse to work with them. And that’s assuming his “teaching standards” are universally reasonable.

        for years people said he was great if you worked hard enough, but if you didn’t…

        That ellipses is doing a LOT of work. That is just untenable and should have been stopped a long time ago. You simply cannot respond to someone who won’t meet your standards, EVEN if they are reasonable standards, by bullying them. When it’s a pattern?

        And that *also* indicates that maybe his standards were not all that reasonable.

        1. Zoe Karvounopsina*

          He regularly made the semis and finals, which is probably why he got away with it.

        2. Irish Teacher.*

          This reminds me of a friend of mine talking about a driving instructor who she’d heard had slapped a learner’s hand when they made a mistake and was apparently known for insulting them. I said that I would not continue paying somebody who behaved like that towards me and she argued that “but if he gets them to pass their test… I think I’d rather have somebody ‘tough’ and pass than somebody nice and fail,” which ignores the fact that it is possible to be an effective driving instructor without hitting your clients or humiliating them.

          And people are often more likely to make mistakes if they are nervous, so it’s counter-productive anyway.

    12. Admin Lackey*

      Nice victim blaming. There’s truly no hope for women – people hear a woman was kicked and spat on and there’s always at least one person like, “well, she probably did something that justified it.”

    13. Boof*

      Not appropriate if the behavior is definitely abusive (ie, you actually saw or have a credible witness of someone hitting/getting physically aggressive with someone else). If you are trying to figure out who did what and when, yes, you need to talk to both sides, and probably a witness or two, if only because some abusers love to claim to be the victim.

    14. Elbe*

      Yikes. What a nasty comment.

      I’m not sure what makes you think this is appropriate. There’s no need to call for a full investigation when it’s clearly stated that the BBC is already investigating.

      When you read an article about someone who reported a different crime do you jump in the comments to flag that this person could have contributed to the situation in some way? Or is it just when the topic is about women being abused?

    15. RagingADHD*

      The only circumstances that would justify physical violence would be if the partner physically attacked Pro B and Pro B were using necessary force in the moment to defend himself /escape.

      There is no hint that anything of the sort occurred, and since the tapes of the incident have already been reviewed, it would have been immediately obvious to the reviewers. No deeper investigation would be necessary to see such a thing.

    16. Ellis Bell*

      So… victim blaming. It’s possible to make someone upset, it’s not possible to make them violent.

    17. Quandong*

      Hey, it’s time to stop blaming the victim, Richard L. Just stop, for the love of all that’s holy.

    18. Jennifer Strange*

      The only way the Pro would have been justified in hitting and kicking his partner would be if she were physically assaulting him and he was acting in self-defense (spitting at her is unnecessary no matter what). Otherwise, it doesn’t matter what “pushed him over the edge”. This rhetoric perpetuates abuse and is not a good look.

  26. Angstrom*

    Couple dancing and the partner relationship is difficult when done at a high level. All the more reason for someone who bills themselves as a dance pro to know how to handle the stress in a professional manner.

  27. Middle Name Jane*

    I agree with Alison–if someone is kicking/hitting/spitting, that person needs to be fired. And if I were the person who had been on the receiving end of that kind of abuse, I would file charges with the police.

    I don’t know the legal definitions of assault and battery, but that person’s behavior is unacceptable. And if I had been the person who was kicked, hit, or spit on at work, I sure as hell wouldn’t be satisfied with that person getting off with only anger management classes.

    1. CommanderBanana*

      Right? I was a nanny and the toddler never even hit, kicked or spit at me (granted, she was one of those rare toddlers who didn’t throw tantrums). How interesting that a 16-month-old had better emotional regulation than this grown-ass man.

  28. Observer*

    My two cents here.

    The BBC seems to have a really bad history in terms of allowing toxic behavior. I think that it is really telling that no one who saw the abuse felt able to report it up the chain. And that it took a celebrity using her outside position to force them to make ANY changes.

    Having said that, an employer has *ZERO* moral / ethical obligation to offer or obtain anger management therapy. Now, if they want to be involved in it, they will probably have to be the ones to do it, but that’s not something most workplaces can or should do.

    Would it be nice for an employer to provide the therapy for a really valuable employee? Maybe. But ultimately, if someone has issues it’s on them to get the help they need.

    I cannot imagine anyone being taken seriously if they tried to blame the BBC for not getting the employee anger management help if the guy lost his temper and hit someone when not on work premises and not on the clock.

    1. Keymaster of Gozer (She/Her)*

      I mean, the BBC only went as far as to not renew Clarkson’s contract when he straight up punched a crew member in a hotel. Because he couldn’t get the dinner he wanted.

      They didn’t fire him.

      I’m sorry to say that here on TERF island there’s a lot of old boys clubs masquerading as businesses.

      1. New Jack Karyn*

        From what I recall, Jeremy Clarkson had a long history of . . . edgy? problematic? jerk-ish? behavior before he was finally cut off.

        And that’s even before we consider the history of Jimmy Saville.

  29. Stoli*

    The Entertainment industry is its own beast. A kicking, hitting, spitting employee would have been shown the door at almost any other job site.

    1. CommanderBanana*

      One would think! And yet, I’ve worked with not one but two bosses who injured other people by throwing things at them / slamming doors on them, but they were not fired!

      1. Andromeda*

        Yeah, imo responses along the lines of “it would never happen here!!” are both incorrect and unhelpful.

  30. Elbe*

    From what I’ve read, my guess is that Pro B is just an abuser, rather than someone struggling with anger issues in a general sense.

    Everyone should read Why does He Do That? by Lundy Bancroft. It explains the dynamic of abusive behavior, and basically lays out that the true root cause is that abusers just feel justified in their behavior. Even if they know that other people disagree with them, they feel like they didn’t do anything wrong. And that definitely seems to be the case with Pro B.

    He says, “My intense passion and determination to win might have affected my training regime.” I mean… what? Justifying this behavior as a result of ‘passion’ is appalling. And minimizing physical abuse as merely an undesirable “training regime” is beyond inappropriate. Whether he’s saying stuff like this or blaming the BBC, it’s clear that he doesn’t really think that any of this is his problem.

    1. CommanderBanana*

      Is that kind of like how Newt Gingrich’s fervent, patriotic love for America drove him to cheat on his wife?

      In response to a question about his two marriage-ending affairs, each of which occurred while his respective wives struggled with illness, Gingrich told the Christian Broadcasting Network’s David Brody that there were times, when “partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country… I worked far too hard and things happened in my life that were not appropriate.”

      Don’t you just hate when you love America so much that you keep cheating on your ill wives?

        2. CommanderBanana*

          Hah right? Things also happen in my life, yet weirdly, loving America so much I had to cheat on not one but two wives while both were dealing with serious illnesses is not one of them!

        3. Boof*

          I love that one captain awkward response to a letter about someone basically going on about being a horrible cheater that mentioned they felt like all the cheater letters they get have this totally passive voice about their own actions, as if they were a bystander who “just happened to fall into bed with” so and so – and their advice to that LW was 1) they were being really crappy to their wife (cheating on them and wanting to divorce but blaming their wife for not being sexy enough in family therapy when actually they weren’t into them all along by their letter, but too cowardly to fess up) and 2) to at least start using “I” statements like “I chose to text someone I found really attractive at work about personal stuff late at night” and “I chose to sleep with them” and “then I chose to…” :P

          1. CommanderBanana*

            Ahhhhh yes, I remember this one!

            My years working in DV have left me hyperaware to this type of “distancing” language both in that job and just in general. Once you start to notice it you can’t un-notice it, and it’s a red flag to me when people use distancing language when describing something they chose to do or were responsible for.

            1. Elbe*

              YES!

              When I learned about the passive voice in English class, I never guessed how helpful it would be in dating/relationship/life contexts. It is such a huge red flag that a person is not fully taking responsibility for their choices and behavior.

            2. I went to school with only 1 Jennifer*

              Dan Savage had a column about this kind of language too. It wasn’t being used in abusive settings, but rather in discussions of sexual behaviors that …. somehow just happened? In ways that the letter writers had no hand in whatsoever? My wife and I like to quote his much-repeated line in that column. “HOW’D THAT HAPPEN?”

  31. Meep*

    Are we really boiling down physical violence against women as “anger management issues”? I hope that isn’t what the LW is intending, but it comes off that which is very much a big ole Yikes!

    1. Elbe*

      I think it’s Pro B who is trying to boil this down to anger issues, not the LW. I think the LW wrote in because Pro B’s claims miss the mark and they were looking for confirmation on that.

  32. ijustworkhere*

    Many people like Pro B behave that way because they have been allowed to. Not every behavior is the result of some kind of mental illness that somebody struggles with. Sometimes it’s just because it is successful behavior that gets the person what they want in the manner they find easiest.

  33. Keymaster of Gozer (She/Her)*

    No, there is no excuse. Nothing one person can say to another warrants physical violence.

    The situation with the employer is that mental issues are not an excuse either. Doesn’t matter if it’s ‘anger management’, ‘stressed out’ or even outright psychosis It. doesn’t. Matter. A company that knows that abuse is going on and continues to employ the abuser is in the wrong. A company that knows that someone is lashing out in anger is not responsible for getting that person help. They DO have a responsibility to the abused though.

    The BBC, like so many other old UK organisations, has a big issue with sexism and misogyny and the ‘men can do no wrong’ attitude. Take it from one who did over a decade in another old large UK business.

    Until their cry is no longer ‘what did she say/do/wear to make him do that?’ don’t trust them.

  34. Disaster Diva*

    On a completely random note, any other US reader go down a rabbit hole on what Strictly Come Dancing even was, and then get sucked even farther down by the drama surrounding it?

    1. Unkempt Flatware*

      Even just the title of it is so interesting to me! What a different way to say, I guess, Only come to dance (?).

      1. Disaster Diva*

        exactly! I was intrigued. From what I read it’s a mix of a movie from the 90s and a BBC program from the late 40s.

      2. Ladybird*

        It’s a mash up of ‘Come Dancing’- a tv programme from way back when about dancing, and Strictly Ballroom- the film from the early 90s

    1. Angstrom*

      I think it’s a mash-up of the titles “Strictly Ballroom”(movie) and “Come Dancing”(BBC dance program 1949-1998).

      1. Chocolate Teapot*

        Yes, the problem being that not everyone understands the Strictly reference.

        Come Dancing was a regular broadcast of ballroom dancing competitions.

  36. LovelyTresses*

    I have a feeling Dunder Mifflin’s treatment of Andy Bernard helped perpetuate the belief that companies regularly pay for anger management

  38. Boof*

    Yep, shoulda fired them the first time or issued some serious supervision, depending on the severity of the complaint. “my bad actions are your fault for not making me behave differently” doesn’t fly, and as others have pointed out, smacks of abuser attitude not anger problems.

  39. Hroethvitnir*

    FYI, I’m from Aotearoa (NZ) and our legal termination process requires three warnings before firing. *However* there is a clear exception for actions such as assault, and I’m confident that’s the case in other countries that don’t have (thank god) “at will” employment.

    He sounds like an awful person, but that’s not novel insight. Less shocking coming out of a mix of competitive sport and television, two industries known for condoning abuse. Eugh.

    1. Freya*

      Ditto Australia – I don’t know if the number of warnings you have to get before being fired is codified, but I know that notice periods don’t apply for ‘serious misconduct’, and that serious misconduct is grounds for summary dismissal. Most properly written employment contracts here include a clause reinforcing it.

      The definition of serious misconduct on the Fair Work website is currently “Serious misconduct involves an employee deliberately behaving in a way that is inconsistent with continuing their employment. Examples include: causing serious and imminent risk to the health and safety of another person or to the reputation or profits of their employer’s business, theft, fraud, assault, sexual harassment or refusing to carry out a lawful and reasonable instruction that is part of the job.”

    2. Media Monkey*

      in the UK, bullying/ abusive behaviour would be likely classified as Gross Misconduct and even with employees generally having contracts, they would move straight to firing.

  40. Dido*

    Lots of people have stressful, high-pressure jobs and don’t resort to violence. Violent and abusive people will generally make any excuse to be violent and abusive. It is not the employer’s responsibility to provide anger management therapy – the employee is just using this as another excuse. If they wanted to really wanted to change, they’d find the resources to go themselves.

  41. MCMonkeyBean*

    My completely uninformed thoughts are that company-provided anger management probably only happens when there is a person the company strongly wants to keep but they feel like they need to at least look like they are trying to make the employee behave better. I can’t imagine any scenario where a company would *owe* someone anger management.

    I don’t know anything about laws in general let alone in England but I would be shocked if that lawsuit went anywhere!

Comments are closed.