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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

#261
post #12

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…

Agreed. Being technically right isnt the only thing which matters in an employer/employee context. They (the employee) represent the company

She's not technically right. Her article is filled with "all my bosses cheerfully agreed that the social media policy was impossible to comply with", which is nonsense. She could have just stopped using Twitter. She's not a shark who will die if she doesn't tweet every few minutes, it's just social media. Yet she seems to be convinced that she found some clever gotcha here and everyone in every meeting bowed to her superior intellect, meaning she has an impressive inability to read her colleagues.

Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job

#262
post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Even worse than that. She took the $40k in return for agreeing to not disparage VMware. She then immediately started disparaging them, but it was "in private" whatever that means, so she presumed she wouldn't get caught. And then once her preferred candidate is in the White House she figures it's now safe to violate her agreement in public too, thus keeping the $40k AND going back on her word. She stiffed VMware once…

> And then once her preferred candidate is in the White House she figures it's now safe to violate her agreement in public too, thus keeping the $40k AND going back on her word. She stiffed VMware once at the conference, and then again afterwards!

Regardless of how the vicissitudes of politics go, the current NLRB has made its decision, so the author is acting in accordance with the law. Their legal counsel agreed. Perhaps you find this dishonorable or morally disagreeable because of the particulars of this case, but given this is about an individual employee vs. megacorp, it seems no different in principle from the adage of "don't feel bad for quitting, your company would lay you off without a moment's thought." That VMWare vice president is not losing any sleep over the $40k.

Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job

#263
post #223
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the fist bumps and cheers in these social media echo chambers won’t help them reflect. Unlike the OP who casually tagged some tech guy on Twitter and said “I’d shake your hand but the blood never washes off” (what the actual fuck), reasonable people won’t engage them on social media and tell them how incredibly toxic they are.

[flagged]

You don’t need to invoke “some people”, I happen to find the U.S. military immoral, and you can find posts supporting that from my comment history right on this site.

Still, this person displayed unbelievable lack of judgement by posting like that to a speaker of their employer’s conference, and it crossed at least two more lines beyond the simple “fuck you” preceding it.

Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job

#264
post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

I suspect the author owns quite a few pairs of programming socks, however.

Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job

#265

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…

Engineers with unicorn / my little pony avatars is a slight red flag to me. I am as socialist as they come (I am not even American, I am Brit and a left wing), but I always try to not engage with those folks on twitter, to easy to get caught up in personal attacks if anything you say is remotely misunderstood. It can quite easily turn into a digital lynching.

[flagged]

Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job

#266
post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

[flagged]

Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job

#267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because you retain the right to say F U to your government doesn't mean you have the right to say F U to your employer's customers while acting in the context of such employment.

They absolutely do have that right. They even exercised that right. The government did not send police to their house to arrest them. There are many governments that would. What they don't have is freedom from consequences. They don't have imnunity from being fired.

> The government did not send police to their house to arrest them

A government official used his position of power to get a critic fired over a personal insult.

I'm not sure what "free speech" is good for if government officials can just get you kicked from your job for exercising it.

Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job

#269
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> some speech chills other speech Is this not just a way to say "my speech is free speech and protected, your speech is hate speech and should be banned"?

No, that is just one of many examples of how it can happen (and in your case, in both directions, because the name things have in politics doesn't need to match the reality).

Therapists and doctors have to guarantee to their patients that no beans will be spilled just to get what they need to do their jobs.

Whistleblowers need to know their names won't get shared to be willing to blow their whistles.

Filibusters, in the political rather than military context.

That's just off the top of my head.

Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job

#270
post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you really want to play the game? > The Department of Defense provides the military forces needed to deter war and ensure our nation's security. You very well understand what I mean. If your stance is anything military - that’s fine, but your arguments are straw and you know that.

Lol I love the snarky end. Roasted em. They’ll never recover from that put down. Re:substance, the idea that the DoD is for anything but war is… puzzling. It’s literally a rebrand of the War Department. That’s what “providing military services” is ?? Definitely one of the goofiest arguments I’ve ever seen on here. I highly value this forum, because I’m 99% sure everyone here argues in good faith

Right, and no matter how much you love (or hate) the DoD, war and defense == geopolitics == political.
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