Well, that’s depressing.
Where is this weird US custom coming from that an employer is somehow responsible for it’s employees private life?
US companies apparently are allowed to enforce rules regulating the private life of their employees- religious affiliation, dating behavior, sex life etc. Here we see Person X concerned about Person Ys behavior suspecting criminal activity contacting person Xs employer instead of law enforcement… Weird.
During their very short but ultimately doomed intermezzo in Germany Walmart tried to enforce US-style work regulations like a no-dating-policy. They got laughed out of court by judges and unions …
Two things at work here:
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Most US jobs are “at will” employment, meaning that there are policies that are not law but can be used to influence behavior at work. For example, if you show up late you can be let go even if you “make up the time” and your job is not time-critical (showing up late doesn’t impact anyone else).
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For employees that are highly visible, such as spokespeople, bad behavior reflects on their employer due to the idea that the employer is complicit in the bad behavior, by enabling, encouraging, or ignoring it. For example, during Fogle’s tenure as a Subway PR rep, did he use his status to engage in this unlawful behavior? If so, did Subway know about something going on, but didn’t say anything?
This is obviously more critical for public figures, since their private lives are less private due to their public life.
The primary difference in this case is Fogle was promoted as a celebrity spokesperson for the company - the literal “face” of Subway and a living representative of healthy eating and implicit wholesomeness. The minute he signed up for this level of exposure, his personal life became intertwined with his employer.
Now that he’s been exposed as a pedophile, the company is correct to distance themselves as far and quickly as possible.
It’s an interesting (to me) side to see how a dude, who seriously changed his life and dropped all that weight and kept it off for – what? – 15 years, is immediately caking it right back on now that he’s under serious stress. The human body seemingly wants to be a certain weight and unless you are freaking on it all the time, it’ll get back to what it wants.
Also, fuck this dude. I hope he rots.
Interesting you would take that stand about an admitted pedophile. Seems like something the US is getting right compared Germany in this case.
What’s very weird about this story is that the news articles focus on intercepted text messages between Jared and his then-girlfriend, a woman of legal age, and his requests that she advertise herself on Craigslist – which, while skeevy, is in no way pedophilia.
It also focuses on his alleged tryst with a 16-year-old hooker, which, again, while gross and illegal and wrong, is apparently not legally pedophilia in his state.
So there’s two stories here: Jared’s possession of child porn and his creepy and gross but of-legal-age (but not at all legal because, well, prostitution) shenanigans. It’s weird that they mix those up, since they’re very different things.
I’m not sure about that - another employer might have tried to brush this under the carpet in order to protect their image. I’d say something like this should go straight to the authorities and companies should stay out of people’s personal life, healthcare and handling any criminal acts (other than reporting them, of course).
Or was it something else in his comment you were objecting to?
His “private life” was the reason he was hired as a spokesperson in the first place. Subway wanted to associate their brand with his personal story of weight loss. Is it even the tiniest bit surprising that they are less enthusiastic about associating their brand with a known Paedophile?
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