Best UPF in a while. Sometimes it feels like they are just going through the motions but there was a lot of energy in this one. Rorie v. Ben is one of the best things this site has going for it. Love Rorie!
I want Vinny to get deep into modern board games and talk about his experiences every week! I have over 200 games at this point (I have a problem) and have been really excited to hear him mention them on recent podcasts. Some coworkers and I are playing Roll Player, Stone Age, and Five Tribes tomorrow.
I don't get this argument around empathy. I can empathize with how frustrating it is when people tell you how to do your job, I can empathize with the desire to lash out against people. I can empathize with losing a job.
I cannot sympathize with her response at all. Every single job I ever had, if I lashed out like that I would lose that job or be on very thin ice. Rightly so I think. Escalation is not the right response in such situations, either professionally or from a point of decency.
That's how I feel.
They started talking about unions and I chuckled. I've been a due paying worker in one of the countries largest unions (1.4 million workers) for 15 years. I can guarantee you that I am getting fired if I call a customer a "rando asshat" or talk down to them. And there is no way I'm winning arbitration. I'm allowed to hang up the phone, walk away, or pass the customer off to a manager if they are being rude, vulgar, or otherwise abusive. Unions aren't a shield from ever facing punishment or being fired.
But would you be fired if you said the same thing to a customer on Twitter outside of company time? I think you're missing the point here about unions. You're right they aren't meant to protect you from things that would get you fired they are there to ensure the worker has certain protections and argue on your behalf in situations where undue firing is on the table. Whether or not you agree that she should have been fired, if there was a union there would at least be a conversation.
To try to put myself in her shoes as much as possible, if I was talking publicly about an aspect of my job and someone offered a suggestion as to why I was wrong about it and I immediately suggested they were bigoted in some way and called them an "asshat", I do think that I would be fired. Especially if it blew up in this same fashion. It's hard to argue you are not a representative of your employer if you are out there publicly talking about your job. whether you are on the clock or not, your words and actions will effect them.
In dealings between the union and coworkers in my building, you are typically fired and have to go through 3rd party arbitration to get your job back. There isn't really a discussion before your fired. One coworker was fired for 3 months before getting his job back, another for a few weeks. Most just never come back. He didn't get any pay for those 3 months and had to pay his own way to an out of state arbiter and he was not reimbursed. It was a very costly mistake on his part. He wanted me to come with him to "testify"on his behalf but I couldn't afford it. Best I could do was write a letter for him to read at his meeting. I didn't even think his firing was unjust, but I had worked with him for many years and stood by him regardless.
I'd like to add that in the Bombcast comment section about this I said that I personally would probably have not fired her. If she demonstrated that she didn't think she was at all wrong, I would have let her go to avoid future problems. I don't understand why Fries was fired though.
I don't get this argument around empathy. I can empathize with how frustrating it is when people tell you how to do your job, I can empathize with the desire to lash out against people. I can empathize with losing a job.
I cannot sympathize with her response at all. Every single job I ever had, if I lashed out like that I would lose that job or be on very thin ice. Rightly so I think. Escalation is not the right response in such situations, either professionally or from a point of decency.
That's how I feel.
They started talking about unions and I chuckled. I've been a due paying worker in one of the countries largest unions (1.4 million workers) for 15 years. I can guarantee you that I am getting fired if I call a customer a "rando asshat" or talk down to them. And there is no way I'm winning arbitration. I'm allowed to hang up the phone, walk away, or pass the customer off to a manager if they are being rude, vulgar, or otherwise abusive. Unions aren't a shield from ever facing punishment or being fired.
WesleyWyndam's comments