Anytime!
By the way, the whole ‘Google search terms’ bit is actually a pretty nifty strategy (it’s more complex than that). I could see getting some interesting data tying that methodology to a few other sorts of secondary data points. It’d make for a really fun meta-study!
Edit: Ooh! Woo and Homeopathy! Tied to market saturation and health outcomes! Fun!
It is. Most states are. With certain exceptions.
http://www.paywizard.org/main/labor-law/dismissal/states-with-exceptions-to-employment-at-will
But its not OK to do it in private either, is it?
I’m not saying he shouldn’t get punished, I’m saying that rule of law is eroded when employers have discretion to punish citizens without oversight,
I’ll also advance that if people were able to shut off being stupid I wouldn’t bother replying.
I’ll follow up by saying that whats popular or arseholish can change too quickly to be of any use in measuring the value of a person throughout their lifetime.
I’ll finish up by saying that ultimately, you will likely be proved right, in this era of all encompassing surveillance we need to watch what we say, I wish we were better people so this wouldn’t be a problem, as it is, we’ll likely go mad trying to survive so much scrutiny.
If his employer have some role in fracking projects, his comments could be perceived as reflective on his former employer. Their name is suggestive.
This is where certain states have “exceptions” added to at will language. CA, as you can imagine is one of the toughest places to fire someone “at will” and most companies go through a lot of hoops to get rid of someone that they don’t want around.
FWIW, I’ve been in the working world for 30 years at a lot of companies (15 in a union job, 15 not) here in CA and have never seen anyone just canned for reasons not related to their job, and even in those the employer makes sure they dot every i and cross every t to make sure they are not open to getting sued. Which is how I think it should be.
I totally get what you are saying. Our first reaction to this kind of thing is, of course “fuck that guy”.
Edit - I should add that for people working as a “contractor” (temp, whatever you want to call it now) that it’s generally the case that you can be booted from your position with ease and instantly. THAT I have seen and it’s happened to me. The real reason for me was because as an IT contractor working one job, there was a seriously unhinged person who was an employee of the company where I was placed that didn’t like me (everyone else did) and told the boss to can me. Which he did. And he admitted to me outside after he walked me out that I was his best employee, most technical, etc… but sorry.
I didn’t hold it against him. It was bad enough to have to deal with that person every day of his life. And I found a better job for more money in a week. I looked on Linkedin, they still work at the same place (after a buy out) doing the same thing and I probably make 30 or 40K more than they do at this point, so I can laugh about it now. 
Yeah; where I live, if the employer found out I thought that this guy was a racist piece of shit and my employer was one of those, “white people is the REAL oppressed group,” types, he could find any reason, or no reason at all, to fire me.
I agree, but I feel like as many brownie points as you have in this community, you’re probably making someone eye the banhammer for saying so.
That’s exactly the point - should we worry about our jobs or accounts just for not being sufficiently close to the One Approved Opinion?
According to that standard, the speech in the Eastern Bloc was free. Just don’t say what the Party doesn’t consider “wrong”, and have a fairly plushy life.
The outliers like this guy are the canaries.
Well, it’s not a standard. Or even a rule. If the question at hand is “how do you protect the right of individuals to do what they want on their own time without their employer punishing them,” there are a number of ways to do it. Unionization is one. Something like the civil service where very defined rules is another. Laws prohibiting it are another, though that gets really messy (let’s say you own the shop where the guy who hold a neonazi demonstration every Saturday afternoon works… messy).
I actually think the guy spending his free time harrassing people is a bigger issue than the racism. He appears to be a loose, rage-filled cannon. After seeing that, regardless of what his issue was, I’m not sure I’d want him working for me simply because of the lack of self-control he was showing.
Workable rules for this stuff are hard to come by. Generally they wind up in courts.
Yeah, heaven forbid we should live in a society where we’re expected to behave like civilized adults and not harass people.
That’d be awful.
Meh. Half of us here argue all the time. Ask @Mister44 or @anon61221983. We’re adults and the BBS isn’t run by @Falcor’s fascist minions yet.
But then, shouldn’t this landscaping company already be on the hook even if they have fired him?
By what method did they ensure the a-hole in question was not a bigot who would one day go on to express his views publically? Its not like he’s just one of a few bad apples, there’s a lot of them out here.
What sort of policies are in place to ensure that the employee doesn’t act out in and outside of the workplace?
Do they incentivize employees to be moral people?
What’s the compensation like for being a “voice of the company”, or is serfdom expected of any and all employees?
If the company doesn’t do its due dilligence in keeping its employees in line in and outside the workplace, then its already sending potential bigots out to clients homes. Did “Don’t ask, don’t tell” get rid of homosexuality?
I get it, they could lose business, but then this argument also serves to defend businesses that cater to racist people.
Your old CEO is a terrible example, because this is not just “a job.” Part of what a CEO does is act as the public face of the company, and if the CEO is doing things that are severely out of step with the company’s (and the public’s) values, it should come as no big surprise when said CEO gets canned. The higher up the food chain you are, the cushier things are, but you also can be fired for practically anything.
Sure and that’s a rational argument. The point being that he was hounded out in an Internet outrage witchhunt though because of a political donation, not because of anything he’d ever done at work. Hell, a bunch of our LGBT people came out in his support saying they’d never felt anything but respected by him.
My point is still that while people can feel all smug that this shithead lost his job, the next time it may not be a shithead who “deserves” it but someone who expresses an unpopular opinion that outrages a bunch of folks outside of work.
I guess it is just “Welcome to the Fucking Panopticon.”
I don’t see how. In this case, once the company’s management and owners became aware of Mr. Pisone’s behavior and opinions, they determined he was not behaving in accordance with their core values, he was a liability, he jeopardized their business, and they took immediate and decisive action.
Or, once they realized that they’d get negative press that could potentially damage their profits, they took the “safe” step of dumping him, whether they actually gave a shit about his opinions or not.
I know which one of these is more likely to be true given what I’ve seen off work environments over the past few decades.
If you work in a place with more than a dozen people, you’re probably working with a hardcore racist or two (at least). This guy’s mistake from the eyes of his masters was letting the world see it and then letting them figure out who he was and where he worked. I’m sure lots of folks are gloating about him being fired (wait…I just need to scroll up to see that). Hope he’s not supporting a family or something.
There’s an important distinction here between a guy who outs himself as a raging racist vs a guy who outs himself as gay: continuing to employ someone who is gay won’t lead to a viable lawsuit when he has a sour interaction with your other employees. “What’s that, you say? You had no idea he was a racist jerk who might create a hostile environment for your other employees? Well, according to a popular Youtube video that garnered national attention…”
If the now-famous ass were allowed continued employment, your company is directly in the crosshairs of legal action that will not work out for you.
The same would go for someone who was, say, sexist: if someone gains attention for behavior that would be actionable (in that it would create a hostile environment), they’ve gotta GO, for the good of your company if nothing else.
And you know what? I’m okay with that.
Gay is a bad example now since being gay puts you in a protected class, at least where I work. It didn’t used to and people used to get fired for being moral degenerates when people found out. That’s part of why people of my previously mentioned friend’s generations led double lives.
There’s a lot of armchair lawyers and HR experts in this thread, I see. I’ve seen no evidence that it would actually work this way legally.
You’re not obligated to fire someone for non-work life if there has never been a workplace complaint or issues raised.
“Are you now or have you ever been a Muslim?”
Let’s hope, right? One John Pisone is bad enough, let alone a family of lazy parasite Pisones milking our tax dollars by collecting unemployment.
Oh, that’s just wonderful: pose a question that invites discussion; then disparage the contributions of those who make reasonable arguments if they lack footnotes.
Further discussion is pointless; so by all means carry on. I promise not to tell your employee, so you won’t be subject to wildly hypothetical consequence that CLEARLY have no basis in reality.
(Note: this is NOT intended to be any kind of veiled doxing threat. Seriously.)
