Sourced from an anonymous contributor…
Earlier this week racist nut-job Pauline Marois was elected as premier of Quebec, with the current national government’s apparent inability to run a province leaving its residents so disillusioned that they would rather move toward sovereign government. Fair enough; the people have spoken… even if it is in a minority.
However, to make things worse another nut-job decided to shoot up the victory party – fatally killing a member of the audience there.
Something Arcadian Rhythms appreciates is that there will always be trolls; people who really shouldn’t be allowed to tap out comments on any sort of social forum let alone Facebook:
You just can’t find good assassins these days!
I give this bitch a month before someone with better aim comes forth and does what must be done
Congratulations Blake Marsh, those are some wonderfully stupid comments to make. Especially when they get you fired from your place of work in the Eidos of Montreal offices.
But wait, although these are horrible things to say, was he posting these comments during work hours or using company property? Apparently not. This makes Eidos’ Stephane D’Astous’s extreme response perhaps controversial. Certainly it is true that an employee making such inflammatory remarks would not be protected by freedom of speech if they were doing so amongst co-workers who took offence. And personally, if Mr. Marsh had been applying for a job at another establishment I would have taken a similarly negative view on hiring him based on these remarks.
However, is D’Astous’s action legal – stupid comment of the month or not? Are Eidos to be praised or condemned? And is making this choice not also divisive?
Thoughts below.
Comments
7 responses to “Stupid Comment of the Month #5”
Funny thing is, his wish doesn't even take into account how things happened: what he should have wished for isn't someone with better aim (the guy shot 2 individuals with 1 bullet); more like, someone with a better GUN (I read the guy's gun jammed after the first shot was fired).
BUT INACCURACIES OF STATEMENTS ASIDE, I agree with D'Astous's action. Though I wouldn't say his actions are to be praised, let's say I would have condemned inaction in that case. I ask you, how are his actions illegal? Given the situation we have in Quebec in light of the tragic event, isn't a public support of such a ''terrorist act'' something that BEGS to be condemned by all means necessary? You could say ''those are just words he wrote'', but those are damn harsh ones. I can hardly blame the Sûreté du Québec for cracking on the guy's case.
I agree with D'Astous's stance, those kinds of comments are unforgivable and deserve to be punished for their stupidity and insensitivity.
At the same time, I am not sure as to the legality of it.
I seem to recall a few of my previous co-workers have some pretty extreme attitudes in terms of personal politics but what they said outside of work stayed outside of work and for that reason they were untouchable. For example: one guy talked about how Kimveer Gill had the right idea:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kimveer_Gill
He said it sincerely and in an offensive manner. People had to work with him after that but there was little HR could do as it was outside work.
But if a social media reaches people inside of work since, while it is said outside of work, it is RECEIVED (and, most importantly, allowed to be received by the one sending the message) inside of work… doesn't that make it a little more of an issue?
It's like shouting ''I HATE YOU [insert corporation's name here], DIE IN A FIRE'' in a megaphone… 300m away from said corporation's building. Might be outside of work, but I'd be damned if that go unnoticed inside the building. I think this new form of grey area may lead the law to have it's right to intervene.
That is hate directed at the corporation itself and is very much different to what occurred.
Corporations and government should be separate and a person's political beliefs and activities should not affect their comportment at work unless these are extolled at work or using work premises/equipment.
Again, I agree with the guy getting fired for it, but I can't honestly pretend I haven't said stupid things during a debate or in semi-public forums that could potentially have led to me getting fired. I said them outside of work though, so I would expect to not be called on about this.
Unlike the guy who used to blog about his job, while at work. Do remember that guy?
Yeeaaah, I see what you mean. Though in this case, we can't let the following detail slide by: that this isn't the only thing the guy did which lead him to get fired. It should be seen for what it is, that being ''the last straw''.
While corporations and government should be separate, if one murders a member of a government, should their file stay clean ''internally'' as part of a corporation if they show and state they have no ill desires towards anyone in said corporation? Or am I pushing it a little here?
More realistically, you could say that if a corporation partially depends on a government to get financing, well, an open attack on that government is one against the corporation. Might seem a bit far-fetched still. Assuming I'm, say, an outsourcing company in the video-game industry. I wouldn't let an employee get away with bitching at another company which happens to be a client. Even if that employee would say nothing but great things of the company he works IN, flaming the other company isn't really helping the guy keep his job. Especially if it's hard to tell if he's trolling or really meaning those death threats/wishes.
I think that is my point about corporations and government being separate. At any point as an employee, if you start bad mouthing a client then you are making yourself liable for any fall out your company might receive.
The governement is not techincally Eidos' client, certainly there are subsidies that they get but that should be seen as a symbiotic relationship. Eidos gets funding, creates jobs and that money is re-invested into the province. Obviously this means that Eidos must meet certain conditions like making sure to hire locally and adhering to language laws, etc. I just don't know if it legally extends to this scenario. I don't feel that this is a 'last straw' that they can use.
This firing then looks like a political statement as it stands, marking Eidos (originally a British company http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eidos_Interactive) as potentially pro-PQ as a result.
This kind of thing makes me uncomfortable. Especially as D'Astous really shouldn't have made an official statement as this only gives it more of a political charge.
Come to think of it, that's what it seems to come down to. Now it's turning a corporation into a ''weak political party''. If it's aligned with the party in power, all is good. If anyone says anything against the party in power, the ''let's crackdown on that shit'' approach is taken. Still, I find that given the threat issued, ''nothing'' wouldn't have been a good thing to do either.
The problem with legally ambiguous scenarios like that one is that, unless the victim has the will to (and CAN) fight against it, any actions – illegal as they may be – can and will go unnoticed or accepted by the system as valid ones. Same goes for anything that could appear legal in the first place but, with enough lawyers (read: money), can be flipped to something ''blatantly unacceptable''. Ah, but such is the system we have. Incidentally, if anyone would take D'Astous's action and play Devil's advocate, HE could probably could get in trouble legally for HIS political stance/corporate decision on the matter. But that might not happen since ''no one is inclined, for the sake of their own image, to side with the terrorist'' when something as fresh as the assassination attempt has happened beforehand.
I remember getting ''slightly'' in trouble at a job the early 2000s once for showing up with a shirt that had George W. Bush's picture in a red frame that said ''INTERNATIONAL TERRORIST''. That didn't mean I was siding with Al-Qaeda, but my opinion shown on that shirt just meant to state ''that guy's no better, READ: PROBABLY WORST''. Still, I bet the trouble I got wasn't even for the picture, how I flagged Bush or even the political statement I tried to make at the time. Probably just because it had the word TERRORIST on it, and it was on a shirt I was wearing, hence the quickest judgment you can make at first glance might have been ''he is labelling himself as a terrorist''. Since ya know, back in the days the word Terrorist was ''the T-word'' as much as the word bomb was ''the B-word''. Point is, I didn't lose my job, I ended up just being asked to not wear such shirts anymore and I complied.
… then again, I don't know if that's because I also happened to have a clean record at said company and I don't know if they wouldn't have been legally allowed to fire me should I happen to have had a shitty record and use that as ''the last straw''.