Shame about their financial package but it feels like the system mostly works. People should be free to be their whole selves at work and in public and they shouldn’t want to work anywhere that fires them for that. Obviously many people don’t have the privilege to live that way, and more’s the pity.
That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job
151–160 of 492 posts
Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job
#152> Being as I’m not an idiot Well, I'm afraid to say after reading this, I have to disagree. Common sense would have made me consider not posting an inflammatory tweet like that, to be perfectly honest.
Do you realize you are all reinforcing that business must come always first before personal expression? It is factual that one person was touting instruments of war, but by most comments here that’s seen as “the right” because it’s representing “business”. What you’re all saying implicitly is that the rights of a corporate employer to make money are always above the freedom to personal expression, by contract, by law…
> Do you realize you are all reinforcing that business must come always first before personal expression?
But it must. If an employer at Starbucks signs off every order with “Heil Hitler,” we should expect them to be fired. Companies don’t have to afford employees free speech when they are on company time.
Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
Genuine question, though (and not "asking just to make a rhetorical point because I've already decided on an answer"): is that really the case? I know the boilerplate "tweets do not represent the views of my employer" thing is a cliche at this point, but I always assumed it was at least partly true. If you're not tweeting directly from AcmeCORP's socials, wouldn't there be some understanding that you're not a direct…
I'm not a tweetin' man myself, but if I were doing business with a company and one of their employees was publicly trash-talking me, I'd probably get pissed and complain to my contacts at that company I wouldn't explicitly dig around to try and figure out who a pseudonymous person is to try and get them in trouble though
It is also unclear to me what role the author played at VMWare. Random, faceless dev, or an external relations role with a much tighter association to the company.
Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job
#154This sounds exactly like the person who first does something stupid, then instead of accepting their mistake doubles down on it and takes several steps to make it much much worse, and then when has to face the consequences blogs about it with a straight face while trying to get public sympathy.
Is there a word for this kind of behavior?
For what it’s worth, IMHO, VMWare comes across as extremely mature.
Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
The key element is the poster was essentially _representing_ their employer at a tech conference. This would be no different than wearing the uniform of a supermarket and going on a political rant with a megaphone.
Genuine question, though (and not "asking just to make a rhetorical point because I've already decided on an answer"): is that really the case? I know the boilerplate "tweets do not represent the views of my employer" thing is a cliche at this point, but I always assumed it was at least partly true. If you're not tweeting directly from AcmeCORP's socials, wouldn't there be some understanding that you're not a direct…
If the company sends you to the event, it’s fair to say that you’re there “representing” them. If you’re there on your own dime, that may be different.
I’m on the fence on this one. The tweets were in poor judgment. Especially tagging the speaker. That’s needlessly antagonistic.
But, if this person were on my team I’d have tried to protect their job - though I probably wouldn’t be sending them to any shows in the future on the company dime.
There’s probably a lot of additional context that isn’t available in this post that might sway me one way or the other. The fact they were brought in via acquisition matters, IMO.
Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job
#156She was right to speak out, and her employer was within its rights to fire her. As long as she subsequently found a job at a company that comes closer to sharing her values, it sounds like a win-win.
indeed! and kids remember: VMware likes to work with merchants of death.
Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job
#157For me, as someone not an American, this level of polarisation and abrasivity is almost unimaginable for me. Like, intentionally provoking people then painting them as dicks when they get enough of it.
Like, this wasn't even about tweeting political opinions and then being fired for it (which is way less black-and-white than this and I could absolutely have sympathy if that happened), this was straight-up telling "fuck you" to someone when representing the employer at a personal event.
Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job
#158I'm pro free speech and hate when people get cancelled for their beliefs. I don't think firing was appropriate based on the story told in the article, but also recommend not acting like the author. Not to avoid being fired but to follow the basic life rule "don't be a dick".
I wouldn't call this being "cancelled". IMO, getting fired can only mean being cancelled if it was for something not work related.
Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job
#159I would have fired this person as soon as humanly possible for basically (actually) telling customers of the company to go F themselves, and making horribly insensitive and inappropriate jokes at their expense. imho the point of this article seems to be to tell the story where big bad VMWare or the target of VMWare’s employee’s ire stomped on poor VMWare employee, but I think it makes the employee look bad. I would a…
I'm not a free speech absolutist[0], but if there's one speech one ought to be free to do, it's to write mean things about a government body (or deals with one) in a country that has a constitutional right to free speech. [0] neither is the US, despite what it says; I am however a free-speech maximalist , and the differences between these positions includes but is not limited to acknowledging that some speech chills…
I'm assuming the "fuck you" was the one that fired her. However you choose to understand free speech, being needlessly rude as a media representative of a company should get you fired.