"You're not being a team player around here," says a male supervisor to the female employee summoned into his office. "I like all of my employees to maintain a very close relationship with me," he adds, visually disturbing the woman sitting uncomfortably across from him. "You have a nice smile. I want to see more of it around here."

His innuendo and abuse becomes even more unbearable as the conversation proceeds. "You could always stop by my place," he finally suggests to the shocked woman.

Fortunately, in this case, this scene was fictional, a scenario portrayed by professional actors in a relatively new and recently honored CD­ROM, currently available for training businesses in the prevention and handling of possible sexual harassment incidents. However, husband and wife team Robert Lipman and Alison Plesur, the two Jericho lawyers who created, wrote and produced the program, said that every scene in their informative, interactive and yes, even entertaining program, "What Supervisors Need to Know About Sexual Harassment," is grounded in reality, and based on real events.

"I'm always struck with disbelief that people believe certain actions to be appropriate in the workplace," said Plesur, of Lipman &Plesur, the Jericho­based law firm that has represented multiple plaintiffs in two very famous Long Island sexual harassment court cases, that of Del Labs in Farmingdale and Lew Lieberaum in Garden City (and Manhattan). The former resulted in a multimillion dollar settlement, and the latter is now in litigation.

But it was not the firm, for once, that made the news on Friday, February 26. It was Lipman and Plesur's other Jericho business, Interactive Employment Training (IET), that received recognition when the CD-ROM, its first ever product, was officially honored in person by monthly national trade magazine Human Resource Executive as one of the Top 10 Business Training Products of the Year.

Magazine sales executive John Fasti presented a plaque to the couple, explaining that their product was selected because it met the criteria for "innovative presentation, uniqueness, clarity of direction and meeting its stated objectives."

And just what were those objectives? As an attorney who has represented women claiming sexual harassment, and who has also defended supervisors accused of the offense, Lipman's objective was "helping employers take preventive action against sexual harassment incidents. That's the key to preventing liability, from a lawyer's perspective."

Though it was only last Friday that Fasti delivered the honor, it was actually the publication's Sept. 1997 issue in which the top ten training programs were printed. This followed a lengthy and selective process of nominations and eliminations that went back further, to July. "What Supervisors..." was just one of over 300 contenders nationwide, beating out products from much larger corporations with greater budgets with which to work.

The abstract printed in the periodical best summarized the CD-ROM's uniqueness and applicability. It reads, "The user-friendly CD-ROM contains challenges on sexual harassment issues that serve as a good refresher for even the most savvy HR professional. The program is interesting, featuring bold graphics and interactive questions."

The CD-ROM was filmed and programmed in early 1997 by Open-I Media, a company so obsessed with perfecting every catchy graphic detail that the coffee cup on the main screen of the program even spouts steam. To also add to the visual element, two BBC documentary film-makers directed the scenes in a visually catching, hand-held fashion. And while some CD-ROMS are infamous for their third-rate wanna-be actors, Open-I Media used the veteran cast of a Barbara Streisand movie, which was on break from a New York shoot, to ensure realistic performances.

Upon running the CR-ROM, the program user, or trainee, takes on the role of human resource executive, and chooses one of 10 workplace scenarios to review. Then, in the interactive section, the user must decide the best course of action to take, following the incident. Trainees who believe they can easily identify sexual harassment and properly respond to it may discover themselves in the midst of a greater challenge than they thought.

"These are tough issues," said Lipman. "There are only two scenarios on this CD­ROM that are true cases of sexual harassment," said Lipman. The rest, he explained, are examples of behavior that may lie somewhere on the fringe ­behavior over which a lawsuit would likely be unsuccessful or inappropriate, but for which discipline or sensitivity training may be needed.

In one scenario, an overbearing office worker tells off-color jokes to his co-workers, offending one woman and amusing another. Following the scene, the trainee observes several interviews involving the characters who took part in the incident. One woman says that the man's jokes really offended her. Another woman says that he was being humorous, and harmless.

"This is not sexual harassment," said Lipman.

The computer eventually asks the trainee what he would do as a human resource executive, offering four options. The CD-ROM then corrects the user if he picks one of the wrong selections, such as firing the man or ignoring the incident. The appropriate action is to amend the man's behavior, explaining to him that his actions were offensive and how he can act more responsibly in the future.

However, some of the scenarios are examples of sexual harassment for which companies would be liable in court. Lipman and Plesur's experiences in dealing with such cases offered them excellent insight as to how to script the offenders.

"It all boils down to two kinds of cases ­a pig on a power trip, or someone in the workplace who wants sexual favors," said Lipman. "The [former] is more common. These involve men who use authority in an abusive and sexual behavior. The other kind is somewhat harder to prove."

Though the obvious goal for those undergoing the training program is determining what is or isn't sexual harassment, and learning how to respond, Plesur said these skits offer subtler lessons as well.

For example, a supervisor can help prevent accusations of sexual harassment against himself by keeping detailed, objective evaluations of his employees. If he decides to fire a certain employee, and can specifically cite the problems with her work that prompted the discharge, then he is protecting himself from accusations.

Otherwise, said Plesur, "If a supervisor approaches an employee and simply tells her, 'I don't like your attitude,' she can turn around and say, "My attitude was that I wouldn't sleep with him."

Other scenarios on the CD-ROM include dealing with people who are abnormally "touchy-feely" and women who sexually harass men.

Several large businesses and institutions have already instituted the training program, including the Town of Oyster Bay. On Wednesday, March 4 on the campus of Nassau Community College, Lipman publicly presented his CD-ROM at the largest sexual harassment conference ever held on Long Island.

Even if their CD-ROM is effective, there probably won't be much of a decline in Lipman and Plesur's law business, where calls pour in daily from women who believe they have experienced sexual harassment. But perhaps it will prevent some unfortunate incidents.

"If people would just think about their actions in advance, they'd find that they would avoid trouble," said Lipman.

"And if they don't, "We'll get 'em."

Interactive Employment Training can be contacted at 822-9004.