1,001 Facts That Will Scare the S#*t Out of You: The Ultimate Bathroom Reader (36 page)

247

FACT :
Employees who steal rarely do so because of need. In one poll, almost half of respondents said
they stole from their employer out of greed
. Another 43 percent did so out of vindictiveness or “to get even.”
Get even for what? You got a i percent raise!

Nicole Jacoby, “Battling Workplace Theft,” CNN Money, August 19, 1999,
www.money.cnn.com
.

248

FACT :
In 2007, former hedge-fund trader Andrew Tong filed suit against his supervisor at S.A.C. Capital Advisors in New York. The suit alleges that
the supervisor had forced Tong to take female hormones
and wear women’s clothing to curb his “aggressive male attitude so he could become a more obedient and detail-oriented player.”
“Does this dress make me look aggressive?”

“The Top 20 Sexual-Harassment Cases of All Time,” HR World,
www.hrworld.com
.

249

FACT :
A UK woman claims that
she was fired from her job in 2007 for chronic flatulence
. The unnamed woman, who suffers from irritable bowel syndrome, says she was frequently harassed and taunted about her problem by coworkers before being terminated.
That really stinks. What a bunch of asses. There’s a happy ending, though: she found work at the gas company.

Lucy Thornton, “Woman Fired Over Farting Claims,” Mirror. co.uk, May 12, 2007,
www.mirror.co.uk

250

FACT :
In 2005, two former gorilla caretakers requested over $1 million worth of damages in a wrongful termination and sexual discrimination suit against The Gorilla Foundation in Woodside, California. The suit claimed that the two women were pressured to comply with famed gorilla Koko’s alleged
sign-language request that they display their breasts
. When they refused, the suit says, the two were fired.
The fourteen-year-old sign-language interpreter was not named in the suit and kept his job.

“The Top 20 Sexual-Harassment Cases of All Time,” HR World,
www.hrworld.com
.

“Suit Says Gorilla Foundation Employees Urged To Undress For Koko,”
FindLaw.com
, March 11, 2005,
www.findlaw.com
.

CHAPTER 6
We Be
Illin’
The Sickening
Truth about
Your Health

251

FACT :
Demodex
mites, or follicle mites, live in human skin. By some estimates,
you have a colony of 1,000 to 2,000 living in your skin right now
. When you touch someone or share fabrics with them, you’re trading follicle mites.
Unless you touch someone’s heart, in which case you don’t give them follicle mites, but a warm fuzzy feeling inside. It’s a figure of speech, you see.

Yezid Gutiérrez, Diagnostic Pathology of Parasitic Infections with Clinical Correlations, 2nd ed. (Oxford University Press, 2000).

252

FACT :
Two of the most damaging human parasites are the malaria-causing
Plasmodium
and the flatworm
Schistosoma
, which causes schistosomiasis,
an illness that damages internal organs
and can negatively impact cognitive development and growth in children.
Damn plasmodium. I knew I should’ve gone with the LCD instead. I bet those don’t give you malaria.

“Parasite,” Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia 2008,
www.encarta.msn.com
.

“The Carter Center Schistoso-miasis Control Program,” The Carter Center,
www.cartercenter.org
.