Today I was on the waterfront and witnessed a horrible confrontation. An individual was screaming he was fired over a facebook status update that another coworker informed the Chef about.
At what point do we draw the line I must ask myself? Is it right to fire an individual because they expressed discontent over lowered hours, on facebook, no less? I do not think so and I am sure many will agree that this is a matter where freedom of speech should be brought up.
Do we not have the right to freely express our opinions through written or vocal expression anymore? John Stuart Mill, a prolific supporter of Liberalism believed that we should have absolute freedom unless their conduct directly harms another individual. Where does one draw the line these days?—A.C.D
This article appears in Oct 14-20, 2010.
this has got wrongful dismissal case written all over it
what the… why did that post twice and with the numbers backwards…?? Anyways, I agree with “martym”!! If the employee was under 3 months they can fire them over nothing, but after 3 months a valid reason has to be provided and applicable notice or severance.
Eh. This has happened before. Huffington Post actually had a story of 15 cases where people have posted shit on FB or Twitter and gotten fired over it, including a CNN senior editor.
People just don’t THINK before they post shit on their FB or Twitter accounts. Those drunk pictures back from first or second year uni? Yeah, may come back to haunt you when you’re looking for a job after graduation. More and more employers are looking you up on the internet while making hiring decisions. And the internet never forgets…think about that! I mean, look what happened to a few LTWWBers and that whole law suit thing.
If buddy would’ve been smart enough to show restraint and know better, he’d probably still have his job.
And if he was PT or casual, I’m not sure the whole severance/notice thing counts.
Welcome to the Internet. Next time dont be so stupid. I’d fire your ass too if you were a terrible reflection of the company and bit the hand that fed you.
Sounds like some defamation of character may be the reason for dismissal. what exactly was put up for his status update? was he dumb enough to tell the world how much he hates work…
Young kids should note that if they hate their jobs so much that there are 10 other people who are lined up to do it instead.
Yep, always be careful what you post on the Internet… like me. Hehe.
Maybe he was already a slacker cook anyway and the big boss just needed a good excuse to get rid of him. There’s always a high turnover in the restaurant business, people are coming and going all the time. I’m sure he’ll find another job somewhere else in a few days.
If you’re going to throw your discontent out there in cyberspace instead of talking one on one with your boss, you deserve to be kicked to the curb
whining on facebook, public melt downs…
Seems to me he is ’employee of the month’ material??
Maybe the Chef thought he was Gordon Ramsey?
It’s kinda hard to make any sort of judgement on this without knowing the exact details of what went on.
ninja’s right — defamation of character. Companies are not required to keep an employee that is detrimental to the organization, especially in the PR/advertising efforts of the business.
Who knows what else this person said in their status. Did this person slam their boss and place of employment? Simply stating they were frustrated over a cut in hours likely wouldn’t have been a problem. But slamming their boss and/or workplace is a problem. People need to be careful what they post on social networks. If you’re dumb enough to go on about how awful your place of employment is then you deserve what comes to you.
Congratulations are in order for the fellow employee who ‘ratted out’ their coworker. Whether the motivation was disposing of a workplace rival to clear the way to a promotion or simply extracting revenge for some real or imagined slight, the ‘rat’ has clearly won this round of Machiavellian manoeuvring. Bravo rat! Knowing when to slip the knife into the back or the poison into the cup or the whisper into the boss’s ear is an important talent. You have learned an important life lesson that will see you go far in most workplaces. You are destined to ‘win the game’.
Condolences are in order for the fired employee. You have been victimized, no doubt about it. Most employers prefer ass-kissing over dissent and will expend significant effort to root out even closet dissenters, although in this case the job was made easier through the services of the ‘rat’ and your slip up on facebook. You, too, have learned a few important life lessons. Never trust coworkers with private opinions about the small size of your boss’s brain or the objectionable odour that pours forth every time your boss’s mouth opens or your attitudes towards unpaid overtime or other ‘thought crimes against the company’. These are matters which you should never discuss with coworkers – unless you are the member of a union.
But the most important lesson you have learned is this: facebook is not the same thing as a private diary kept in your underwear drawer. This social networking site is fast becoming the most important tool at an employer’s disposal when it comes to snooping on employees and whether that seems fair to you or not, this is how the world currently works.
The only other thing I would point out is that, unless they are being kept as pets, rats generally are a nuisance. I killed four of them in my garden two weeks ago for the crime of snacking on my tomatoes. I felt some pangs of guilt. In years gone by my kids had kept rats as pets and I have to admit they are cute and smart and much friendlier than those vicious hamsters. But the tomato thieves had to go and so they did – one of them in a particularly gruesome manner. I won’t go into the details except to say that, in that one case, it was body parts rather than a carcass that went into the trash.
I seem to have wandered off the subject of this bitch so I think I’ll stop right there.
Victimized? You can’t be fucking serious! This person did something stupid and has to suffer the consequences as a result.
Only an idiot (and there are many out there) would put every detail of their lives online. Then they wonder why things go to ratshit. Use some fucking common sense (I know, some people don’t know what that is) and stop posting things that will come back and bite you in the ass.
As for the idiot who posted his complaints on FB, exactly what would you think if one of your (I know a fantasy) employees shit on your company?
PK,
We’ve only been told the general nature of the complaint that was posted on facebook.
It could have been something as innocent as
Numbnuts “wishes his work hours hadn’t been cut”
to something more abusive like
Numbnuts “thinks his boss is an asshole for cutting his work hours”
to the slanderous
Numbnuts “had his work hours cut at the Harbour Rat Restaurant in Halifax because Chef Angus McAssLick is a choirboy diddling poofter”.
I’ll reserve judgment on how stupid the fired employee was until I know what was posted.
Would you be as comfortable in your condemnation of the fired employee if he had been terminated by a homophobic employer for posting pictures of himself attending the annual Pride Parade? Just how careful are we supposed to be as we go about living our lives so as not to run afoul of the people who employ us and just what constitutes reasonable grounds for dismissal when the activity takes place outside the workplace? These are important considerations.
According to the original bitch, the fired employee was ‘ratted’ out by a coworker. In my book, the fired employee was victimized by the coworker. How the coworker discovered the fired employee’s facebook status update is an open question, but the information was used to get this guy fired. These are the actions of a ‘rat’ or ‘snitch’.
As I indicated above, we can’t afford to look the other way when rats have a negative impact on our livelihood. Our options are limited in the case of the two legged variety. Social ostracism or verbal condemnation is about all I can suggest.
In the case of the four legged veggie stealing variety, there is no reasonable alternative to “exterminating with extreme prejudice”.
A good reason not to add your employment life to your personal life on facebook.
CE: you can’t really call him a victim, then, can you, given your explaination if we don’t know the exact circumstances 🙂
I need more info. The employee sounds pretty dramatic if he was screaming on the waterfront that he had been let go and the reasons for his dismissal. I’m sure his FB post was probably just as informative so he probably deserved to be let go based on the fact that he’s publicly slandering his employer.
PK
Okay fine.
But can I still call the coworker a rat? There is ample evidence for that and it was my favourite part and I’d hate to see it all count for nothing.
Crack heads are their own biggest enemy.
Face crack users are exactly the same , I say good on the guy who fired the crackhead. You got a problem at work…deal with it AT WORK.
Going off to a webstie & screaming your displeasure ,where the party your complaining about has no recourse. I can see it pissing them off.
But seriously…. do you really want to work at a place with a ‘Rat’ working alongside you ? Eventually I’d end up in jail for murdering the bastard !
What constitutes a ‘rat’ anyways? I can understand in the sense of prison culture or mafia culture even but this?
I mean I was once threatened physically via email by someone and I replied stating that their letter earned a print-job and fax to my lawyer’s office to see if charges could and should be laid. According to that moron I was a ‘rat’ too.
“i’m sure they’d think again if they had a friend like ben”
Didn’t someone on another bitch complain about a certain establishment, name it, talk about the owner and refer to a FB page?
Related perhaps?
it was the ‘i hope others notice too’ re: employees treating their staff like shite. nice avatar hugo…cackle
Thanks paingirl, cute kid wasn’t I.
“i myself am strange and unusual”
hey fool, if you go shooting your mouth off about your employer, he has every right to can your ass. don’t you read the news, people getting sacked for bitching about their employers every day, and now you come here and bitch too. serves you and them fucking right to lose your jobs.if it was me, i would have charged you with slander, think on that one.
dont think you are going to win a case for slander if the claim is actually true. I think thats reserved for when the claims vs someone are fictitious. If the employee called the chef a butt pirate and the chef denied it but three dudes came fwd and stated the chef had bent them over the port side rail, then he has no case for slander.
slander is the spoken word, libel is the written, methinks
CE: sure 😉
For those wondering. No slander was made. I know the guy. It was a post from a week ago. Turns out that he has tried talking to his boss several times to no avail. He got frustrated and according to him posted that he didn’t understand why he was down to 3 shifts when his coworker who is a terrible worker is getting 6. To add to that he told me that he has an apartment to pay for and is in university, where as the individual getting all the hours has no bills in the slightest. He did make the mistake of typing F&$K you (employer)! People get angry. In my opinion it is no different than walking down the street in public and talking to a friend about how you’re losing hours to a coworker who doesn’t need them. I also forgot to mention that the individual recieving 6 shifts didn’t want to work that much and asked him to go home multiple times. He was too afraid to lose his job to ask for reduced hours so he only complained to my friend who worked with him. He told me the Chef was rude and verbally abusive and made false accusations about him missing time at work (he’d asked for a couple days off only so he could study for tests). Also to top all of this nonsense off the Sous Chef clocked out and wanted to start a fight. My friend is trying to get a Canada Pardon and can’t afford to get into a violent confrontation and told the Sous Chef he wouldn’t sink to the level of Violence and walked away. Yes, screaming was involved but the screaming started on the part of the Chef and Sous Chef. He knows not to add friends from work or post things about work on facebook now anyway. He assumed facebook to be a place where freedom of speech still existed. I suppose that not the case anymore…
It’s one thing to bitch to a friend, quite another to send it out to cyberspace where anyone can see. If you think you have privacy on FB, think again. If a boss doesn’t ant to give more hours, sobeit, it is his or her business. If your friend didn’t like the hours, he should have found another job.
Hey you’re free to say whatever you want, but be ready for any consequences. Free speech does not mean there are no consequences, good or bad.
Freedom of speech protects your rights to say things, yes, as long as it’s not classified as harmful/hateful wtf/e. It doesn’t protect you from the consequences of saying something stupid in a public forum. For example, what’s happening right here.
NGF…I responded to you…but for some reason it didn’t get posted or got deleted.
A Rat is someone who will curry favor by doing something THEY KNOW will harm you & that helps them get brownie points.
What you did wasn’t what a Rat would do. Unless you had done something to justify this persons going off on you in the first place… aka- ratted him out to your boss because of his face book page rant for example. ~;)
it is not a good idea to burn your bridges in the duchy of fenwick
Two wrongs may make right but there was a third one in here which made it wrong again. Don’t put negative stuff about your work on facebook. Don’t add co-workers and bosses if you ever talk about your work stuff on facebook. Free speech means you are free to express your opinion. It does not mean you will not have to pay for the consequence of it.
He has all his privacy settings enabled. Only people in his friend list can see anything… It’s not as though his facebook was viewable by the general public… only by a few people. So again, it’s no different than walking down the road and talking to some friends in public. Why all the hate? people make mistakes. He isn’t a slacker. I’ve worked with him. He works his ass off and it’s very rare for him to miss a shift. He never starts arguments in the work place, just goes about his tasks. I’m convinced that you are all hateful people with nothing better to do than put down a hard working honest person. What he posted was not at all libel, it wasn’t insulting to the company. He’s not an immature highschool kid either. He’s a mature adult attending university trying to better his life unlike most people in this city who sit around on Welfare or EI having their money handed to them. He was working 30 hours a week while going to university full time. So calm down people and stop this immature bashing of a hard working individual who was wrongfully fired by his employer. We get it, he shouldn’t have posted it, the employer has a right to be upset yes, but no warning was given, no talk was had, and when he tried to discuss the issues of reduced hours he was treated like dirt by the Chef and told too bad while his coworker was getting hours he didn’t want and didn’t need…
If you believe the stuff you put on FB is secure, I have a couple of bridges for sale. Also in order for a secret to become public, you just have to tell one person. For example, you his friend, plastering all this on LTWWB.
If a friend of his was connected to the co-worker, a friend commenting on his status means the co-worker will see it too. I constantly see pictures and posts made by strangers on my facebook wall just because my friends commented on them. I understand your need to defend your friend, but I think your friend would be better off find a better job elsewhere anyway, because the chef sounds like a jerk anyway, and your friend will not make the mistake of blurting out his frustration on facebook about his job in the future. There is no hate here, just common sense and friendly advice. Besides, when you say F you to someone, you think that’s not insulting? I’d be insulted if my name was next to the F word on a facebook board somewhere.
No one commented on the status or clicked like to it
Well, the end result is the same. From your post, somehow the co-worker got hold of your friend’s bitching and snitched on him. All we have been saying is, no post (or PM or anything) made about the work situation, then no problem. Besides, I am quite sure there are more ways someone can get a hold of someone’s facebook message than the ones I have noted. I just wanted to point out that facebook is nowhere as private as people think they are. I mean…security setting sometimes get mysteriously “reset” or changed when they do updates…and they don’t really announce it to everyone either.
I think he is the same person who posted on another thread the name of the restaurant and complained about how he got fired over complaining about not enough hours. From what I see, it is obvious he does not understand what is NOT a good idea to post on the internet. I’m sorry but the more you try to defend him, the more you make him sound like an idiot. It is okay to make a mistake, yes. But I don’t see any point in trying to argue who was “right” when everyone involved seemed to have made some kind of bad decision or another in this case anyway.
It is seriously not at all hard to get another cooking job in Halifax. Just walk into the restaurant next door, tell them you’re willing to work the pit for a few months until a cooking position is available and BAM just like that, hired, start tomorrow.
Lesson learned for next time: when you’re pissed about work, rather than posting it on Facebook, post it anonymously on LTWWB!
Thanks for the replies. I’ve talked to him about this. He admitted to me that it was stupid to do. In fact he’d forgotten about the message because he just typed it spontaneously. I’m sure he’ll be careful about what he posts in the future.
It takes a few jobs to notice the majority of the people you work with are NOT your friends despite daily accolades, greetings and (uninterested) questions about your weekend. Just leave the job and then you’ll see what I mean. As for losing your job over your FB status, it’s really no different than being overheard while slaggin’ your boss to a co-worker. Bottom line, pick your friends better.
Damn Bro Tim…I’ve been attempting to move those bridges myself ~;)
So ‘Snow369’ has he found a job next door yet ?
Slander v. libel: So speaketh J. Jonah Jameson
Serves them right for using Facebook and badmouthing their employer.
I dunno, it all seems really, really juvenile to me. FB and the office should never mix. Ashley C Davidson posted already on another thread, and it was a ridiculous childish rant. If you aren’t happy at your work, find a new one. If you feel it’s necessary to post your displeasure publicly, then you will have to suck up the repercussions. The right way to handle things was NOT as you’ve done, because now you’re stuck with no hours (not even th 18 you were getting before), no job and no reference. Congratulations.
“Bottom line, pick your friends better.”
Or take some personal responsibility and watch what you say or write in public. You don’t have friends yourself, kay.
Thanks for the clarification, More. No, I did not “rat” on the guy for anything but instead called him a moron or wigger on another forum which lead to him sending a PM threatening to split my head open with a 2×4 or something.
Dude is a wigger though and his mentality proves that. One time on the same forum we used to post on he said he used to pocket batteries at grocery stores because he simply didn’t like paying for them. When others wrote that he’s basically a petty thief he attempted to justify his actions claiming that grocers are nothing but faceless corporations and that anybody’s logic that differed from his was wrong.
Funny Kay should mention ” (uninterested) questions” … how about uninteresting statements! I don’t want to hear about your pussy on the 365, how your boyfriend hurts you so bad, or what bar you fell out of this weekend, or how your baby mama is a biatch. Let’s keep the convo. topical, let’s badmouth the boss. FB is not the place.
I am somewhat amazed that a certain person bothered returning to LTWWB after humiliating themselves so thoroughly with the pathetically sad bitch about their oh so ‘successful’ spouse and said spouse’s lackings in vocational, financial, parenting, relationship and sexual abilities.
Welcome back Kay.
She never left, Real Chick ;D
unfortunately.
Whoa so Kay did write that bitch?
it seems to be the general consensus…
grrrrr
ANYONE who thinks that setting your privacy settings on facebook means it’s inaccessable to the general public is DUMB.
Emails, text messages, MSN messages EVERYTHING you think is “secure” isn’t. And once it’s out there, it’s out there FOREVER.
The internet never forgets and is serious business. Your friend should know better. If he didn’t write what he wrote he’d have a job now and that’s all it comes down to. But, typical millennial — everything is everyone else’s fault.
Nice cover up Kay. You wrote that bitch. We all know it. You even admitted to it prior to getting mod to take it down to hide the evidence. I take the “welcome back” -BACK. I truly felt sorry for you but You are not human and the reason your life is the way it is – is because you get what you put out there… and you have nothing but negative coming out of you…..thus coming right back at you. I HATE THE “C” WORD!!!!!
RC- I really like you.
Oh snap! I think someone just got told.
You got knocked the fuck out…. biaaatch!
Somebody used the C word? I musta missed it, and here I thought usage of that word was banned at The Coast.
nothing to see here ma’am, carry on^^
love ya paingirl! 🙂
je suis honore selon votre declaration d’amour…crazy legs rawk
it’s so totally not banned anymore….
it’s just not slagged about as often because of the ‘rule’.
They do creep by though, mod can’t be everywhere.
🙂
she’s really only there from a LTWWB perspective so that the inmates aren’t completely running the asylum.
as long as it doesn’t become like the snake pit, i don’t wanna be olivia
Enough.
alarm alarm screee
LOL Ivan…
Ivan… AGREED!!!!
kay… TARDED!
Why are you so alarmed pain-sis? Do tell…
Someone chose to revisit an old battlefield for one last Parthian Shot.
just looking out for les famille^^
From this I gather that someone levelled an attack? Let me try and guess where that might have come from:S
A rerun of a not terribly memorable episode. Screeee!
Hey now Kay-y-jelly be nice to oceanbabe.
les demons existent vraiment
Question for you, painey. Could you not also be “bread” girl?? teehee.
well actually i am both…i was a chef/cook for 25 yrs, love to stir my cauldron. cackle
Got any ingredients for your cauldron that cause les imbeciles to remove their heads from their c-words, pain-sis?
haha, no just me corbies. they’re only good for short distances…rawk