Who's the adult around here?

There has been a lot of turnover and turmoil at work this year (see previous post about professional kidney shots). And the shots just keep coming. The latest is the new Exec Direc. He started as the interim, which was fine because, well, it wasn't forever. Now he's the actual ED and he is ruffling quite a few feathers - and not in a wonderful change- and growth-oriented way. The ED is a nice man, overall. But he's a 78-year old Southern boy - read: not a lick of professionalism and definitely not any current century ideas of workplace professionalism. His comments are inappropriate and sexist, he discloses personal information about staff members (and their families) in organization-wide emails asking for prayer, and he makes disparaging comments about certain employees to other employees. This is a problem, not the least because he works in and is now the boss of an office comprised of mainly women, the majority in their 20s & 30s. Since he's officially taken office (last week), more than a few employees have come to me to voice their complaints and concerns and ask about the formal complaint chain and/or HR person to whom they should report. Yeah, we don't have that. All of this left me wondering where the hell is the adult around this place. And then I realized that, with a few others, holy shit - it's me.

I'm only concerned because it seems
like a man is wearing this shirt.

He recently offended me personally and I was not excited about coming to work today. Staying in bed with Nora and calling in sick seemed the easier option, but I put on my big girl pants (a blue dress by Lauren Conrad that I got at Kohl's) and came in (albeit a little late). After a pep talk from my friend/coworker/SLiz, I invited him for a little sit-down in the ol' office to essentially say, ya can't say those things. I started with the banal "clear the air" opener and then asserted my hurt feelings over his comments. We moved into talking about privacy and confidentiality and the need to keep formal religious language out of the workplace. You know, because we're not a Christian organization and it's the law. But he surprisingly took it well, and while he made some comments that I was glad he made in the privacy of my office and not in an email, he also made a couple comments that make me think he will try to be aware in the future. He even noted that he shouldn't have said the things he said to me. It might take a while for him to learn the proper rules of professionalism, but I'm hopeful we're on our way. If not, I'm sure there will be more sit-downs about it.