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That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job

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Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job

#181
post #112

I 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 don't know anything about this person, but I would definitely hire them just because of this story! I like this kind of ppl and i dislike bootlickers, suckers and ppl without a spine

You'd hire someone you barely know because you like their political opinions? You'd be doing them more of a disservice than anything, as clearly your business will go under before the year's end and they'd be stuck finding a better job.

Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job

#182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you read the rest of my comment, I don't actually have a problem with accusing people of war crimes. I think it's assinine to think one could do so and hope to continue to be paid by those people though. I would think that someone so ready to stand on this moral high ground wouldn't want that money but I guess when it actually comes to backing up her morals, she'll take the money instead.

So, free speech doesn't extend to criticism of the government? People should lose their jobs because they said mean words on Twitter?

[deleted]

Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job

#183
post #131
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think what your employer does is unacceptable you shouldn’t work for them (even if this happens via an acquisition). But most people are extremely hypocritical, and will gladly ignore their “ideals” in the name of the holy fat paycheque.

He basically admits as such, when he said challenging the nondisparaging clauses in the name of free speech was not worth risking the $40k paycheck.

She. If you are unsure of a person's gender, just use 'they', but don't assume it's a man. In this case the pronouns are right there on the top of the blog though (as well used in the article).

Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job

#185
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> publicly accusing your employer's client of war crimes What other factual statements should you not be allowed to make about your employer's clients?

It’s very clear that in the interest of business, those statements should not be made by an employee. They are free to make these claims in a way that doesn’t damage the business. Like a second personal Twitter account.

> They are free to make these claims in a way that doesn’t damage the business. Like a second personal Twitter account.

Are they, though?

I mean, presumably they were posting from a personal account to begin with. Just how separate would a second account have to be - Is it enough to just say all opinions are their own, and only post on their own time? Could they use their own name? What about an online handle they'd used before, if a highly motivated doxxer could possibly identify their employer?

Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job

#186
post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was literally written in 2nd sentence of the post I was attending KubeCon on behalf of my then-employer, VMware.

Right, but does it follow that "attending on behalf of" equates to "representing the company's official views and opinions"? I guess what I'm really asking is whether an outside observer would genuinely assume her tweets were indicative of VMware's official stances on anything, or whether they'd assume she was just one cog in their employee machine. Or maybe it's somewhere in the middle.

It equates to being paid to make the company look good. I wouldn’t take their comments or tweets as official policy, necessarily, but attracting negative attention by dragging on a speaker on the company dime isn’t a great look.

Should it be fireable? I’m having trouble there. But they certainly wouldn’t be sent to events for a long, long time.

Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job

#187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering the previous tweet said "fuck you", yes it is an attack.

"Fuck you" has so many different tones, and is so ubiquitous. It can be playful, jocular, intense, deadly serious, all over the place. Fuck you is not, by default, a personal attack, imo. It's also almost certainly culturally different on different coasts, online, in person, etc. A tweet is like, nothing.

I am truly astounded.

Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job

#188

I 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…

If you fire someone for a few insults on Twitter then you belong in Kindergarten, not in a management position. Boy, I'm so happy I don't work for anyone, I'd hate to have to deal with sensitive pricks that think they can dictate what their employees say on social media.

> Boy, I'm so happy I don't work for anyone, I'd hate to have to deal with sensitive pricks that think they can dictate what their employees say on social media.

Here's a genius idea: keep your hot takes to an isolated Twitter account not directly associated with your employer? Have we really forgotten basic OPSEC?

Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job

#189
Had the HR deparment said something like

We became aware that you dislike one of our clients, and that you have strong beliefs that we shouldn't do business with them. Given that, we decided that you should not work with us because you think we shouldn't do business the way we do.

what would have happened? Could this clear and direct justification still be used as basis for a lawsuit from the employee?

Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job

#190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have had a different life from you. I've been homeless, I've been wealthy, I've lived in many cultures and communities from suburbs to communes. I've worked tech I've worked as day labor moving soil by hand. I guarantee you that language (and especially the use of curse words), varies wildly .

I have lived in many countries and had a wide variety of jobs and life situations as well. You are not impressing anyone with your knowledge about cultural nuance, everybody knows that any sentence can be interpreted in many different ways. And everybody that argues in good faith also knows that saying "fuck you" on Twitter, to someone that you don't have any rapport with, is going to be interpreted as an insult.

I disagree, I think of tweets as nothing - air, fluff, someone expressing themselves without thinking. If someone tweets fuck you at me I'm not insulted, it's such a low effort post why would it ever even be parsed by me into anything meaningful?

It's like being insulted because someone farted at the hotel you were staying at. It's of so little consequence it cannot possibly be an insult.

It's incredible to see HN lose their minds because someone sent a two word tweet with a curse word in it, lol. A tweet.

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