People are fired from jobs for not doing their work, right? Well, Debralee Lorenzana, a 33-year-old New Yorker, is suing Citibank, claiming that they fired her for being too hot.
She said that her former bosses told her to tone down what she wore to work because it was too distracting to her male colleagues. But, Loranzana explains that she was wearing turtlenecks, pencil skirts, fitted suits, and high heels. “Never did I ever show cleavage,” she said. “I like fashion, but I always dressed professionally.”
She even tried to go into work without putting on make-up or straightening her hair. But, without make-up, she looked “sickly” and her boss told a colleague to pass on the message that she couldn’t come into work with curly hair.
Lorenzana also says that they didn’t send her to enough training sessions, so she wasn’t cleared to perform tasks such as opening a checking account for a client.
The suit describes how she was moved to a corner of the office so she couldn’t be seen by her coworkers. A month later, she was fired because she wasn’t signing up enough
new clients.
Unfortunately for Lorenzana, she’s had to deal with this kind of harassment her whole life. “I get harassed in the supermarket with my son just wearing sweatpants with my hair in a ponytail,” she said. “I can’t help how I look.”
This is just as wrong as not hiring someone because they aren’t attractive. Where do we draw the line when it comes to hiring and now, firing, because of looks? How can a company tell someone to stop being who they are?
Because of a mandatory-arbitration clause she signed when she became employed with Citibank, Lorenzana’s case won’t be tried in front of a judge or jury. Instead, an arbitrator will decide.