Ex-worker: Dish exec suite rude, lewd, crude

Former aide says executives yelled, used profanities

By Joyzelle Davis, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Dish Network's executive suite was an environment where officials routinely screamed profanities at each other, slammed doors and uttered crude comments about female employees, a former executive assistant testified in Denver federal court on Tuesday.

"The arguments would start in the hallway, and you'd just sit at your desk and hunker down," said Sharon Baker, who is suing the Douglas County-based satellite- TV provider for claims including sexual harassment and retaliation. "You couldn't answer your phone" because of the yelling.

Baker's testimony came in the second day of a jury trial that offers a glimpse into the secured-access executive suite inhabited by Dish Network CEO Charlie Ergen and other top company officials. Dish, which changed its name from EchoStar, has said in court papers that the company is a "tough" working environment but that yelling and profanity don't constitute sexual harassment.

Baker, who worked at Dish from late 1998 to mid-2004, claims she loved her job as an executive assistant until her boss, Soraya Hesabi-Cartwright, left the company in early 2004. Baker was then transferred to the executive suite and supervised by Executive Vice President Michael Kelly.

Hesabi-Cartwright, formerly a vice president at Dish, also sued the company for discrimination, claiming she was subjected to yelling fits. The case settled for an undisclosed amount ahead of trial.

Baker said she immediately became alarmed at the atmosphere in the executive suite and verbally complained to human resources officials nearly a dozen times. She quit in 2004 after deciding that the company wouldn't grant her request for a transfer.

Baker never put a complaint in writing because human resources officials never told her to, she testified, and her resignation letter didn't state her complaints because she needed company officials as a reference.

Dish attorney Meghan Marti nez pointed out during cross-examination that Baker would sometimes swear herself and that the other assistants whom Kelly seemed to favor were women.

"Did everyone in the executive suite experience hostility," regardless of gender, Martinez asked.

"That's probably true," Baker replied.

Trial highlights

Sharon Baker took the stand on Tuesday in her trial against Dish Network. She testified, among other things, that:

* Former Dish President Michael Dugan showed her pictures of his trip to the Playboy Mansion and told her how everyone "got naked and jumped in the pool."

* Dugan also would hug her "really close on top so he could feel my breasts on him."

* Executive Vice President Michael Kelly, her boss, called her profane names after she sent out an e-mail approved by another executive. When he was asked by the head of human resources to apologize, Kelly came up behind Baker and said, "Well, I understand I (expletive) little Sharon off today. I guess I shouldn't have (expletive) little Sharon off today."

• February 27, 2008

  6:20 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  stevea writes:

  Errr...Ummm...
  Hey, Paid Professional Writers of the English Language:

  "...and verbally complained..."

  Right, that's how humans usually communicate.

  Did you chose the word "verbally" to make it clear that the complainant didn't use smoke signals, or throw things?

  Or should you maybe have used "orally" to indicate spoken, rather than written communication?

  It seems to me that Professional Writers of "the News" should use their language properly.

  Back to High School for you! Wait! That won't work! Not if you're a victim of the Denver Public Schools.

  Nevermind

• February 27, 2008

  2:32 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  eagleye writes:

  Actually, stevea, Merriam-Webster's definition for "verbal" includes "spoken rather than written (as in 'a verbal contract')." While the primary definition of verbal means "relating to or consisting of words," it is commonly used the way RMN did in this article.

  So while I too am often critical of the grammar and word usage I see in the print media, I have no problem with the sentence in question.

  But back to the real subject of the article: I'm not so sure yelling profanities is sexual harassment, yet I'm amazed that a corporation as large and well-known as Dish would tolerate and even seem to encourage this kind of behavior. I have little sympathy with them, should they lose this lawsuit.

• February 28, 2008

  noon

  Suggest removal

  Fred1 writes:

  I worked there and suffered the same experience. The truth comes out - money corrupts absolutely!

• March 1, 2008

  7:03 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  jace1012 writes:

  Everyone in the Denver area knows someone who has worked at Dish Network/EchoStar. Their work experience is identical as described in this article. DISH/ECHOSTAR has fought hard to keep the truth about their unethical behavior by threatening lawsuits. No television broadcaster is not going to air a negative story about DISH / ECHOSTAR, since they derive revenue from them.

  If the FCC did a though investigation on their entire operation, DISH/ECHOSTAR would probably get shut-down.
  However, no one is willing to do it.

  Based on the many lives DISH/ECHOSTAR has ruined to make a buck, it is surprising some of their execs have not been victims of mysterious deaths or disappearances.

• March 6, 2008

  11:27 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  climber4life writes:

  I know several people who have worked or are working for DISH. They treat their employees like crap. Rarely do they give raises because they just say that you haven't met your standards, no matter how good of work you have done. They've cut their health benefits even though the CEO is the 23rd richest person in the world. The HR dept is a joke, it takes weeks to get responses when a response is needed ASAP. This article doesn't surprise me at all.