Two points of distinction here, first off, you're right, if I had an employee who did that on the job they would be asked to stop and then fired if they continued the behavior AT WORK. Phil was being interviewed for a magazine article, not on the show. Second point is that A&E knew exactly how this guy felt and many feel that the show backfired on the producers who started the show in a Honey Boo-boo type model where people laugh AT the family as a bunch of hicks. When it turned wildly popular and people actually identified and laughed WITH the family, they had a problem with that. Did you know that A&E people were with Phil when he was interviewed and did nothing to stop the publication of the article?