The internet is forever:
Things haven’t gone too well for the former CFO who criticized Chick-fil-A in a video he posted on YouTube.
Unable to find lasting work, 37-year-old Adam Smith is living on food stamps with his wife and four kids in the RV they call home, he tells ABC News. “I think people are scared,” Smith says of potential employers. “I think people are scared that it could happen again.”
Back in the summer of 2012, as thousands of people were opposing Chick-fil-A’s stance on gays, Smith rolled into a Chick-fil-A drive-thru for a free glass of water and slammed the female attendant: “Chick-fil-A is a hateful corporation,” Smith told her as the filmed the exchange. “I don’t know how you live with yourself and work here. I don’t understand it.”
Smith posted the video before returning to work at Vante, a Tucson-based medical manufacturer — and the proverbial you-know-what had hit the fan by the time he got there.
The receptionist told him “the voicemail is completely full, and it’s full of bomb threats,” he says. Fired that day, Smith lost his $200,000 salary and more than $1 million in stock options. He and his family moved to Portland, where he got a CFO job, but lost it two weeks later when they realized who he was.
I don’t eat at Chick-fil-A and won’t give them a dime because I agree their owners are hate-filled bigots. But I don’t hold that against the people who work there- they are just doing their job. It would never in a million years occur to me to go drive through a Chick-fil-A and abuse some cashier. It makes no sense and is just a jackass thing to do.
The moral of this story is that people just don’t like jerks who shit on people who are just doing their job. It’s not like someone working at a fast food restaurant has it made for life- they’d probably much rather be doing something else with their time to earn a living. So why give them an earful when you would be better served not shopping there or writing their national hq.
Splitting Image
The boy lacks initiative.
If he recanted his position and filmed himself eating at Chick-Fil-A while screaming about liberal communist hippies coming to take away his guns (and he should carry one over his shoulder), he would have a job waiting for him on Fox.
The only person holding him back is himself.
Just Some Fuckhead
Wow, sounds like Adam Smith is getting the invisible hand, and good.
MBunge
I’m not sure your life should be ruined for one mistake but it’s hard to call what this guy did a mistake.
Mike
Baud
I agree, but it’s still sad to see his family suffer for him holding a decent opinion on the issue, especially when so many haters and grifters are so successful these days.
Roger Moore
I think the big thing is people confusing the actions of the corporate leaders with the people who work there. There are some businesses where the wrong things they’re doing go pretty far down the organization- loan officers involved in redlining are the one that springs immediately to mind- but that doesn’t apply when it’s the owner giving money to a hateful cause.
SiubhanDuinne
I am a very bad person, but this made me laugh. Uproariously.
Pogonip
Has he applied to Chick-Fil-A?
gene108
We need to re-think social media. People really do get screwed up over stupid shit. I guy should not have a career ruined for one jerk-thing he did that got on Youtube, whether through his posting it or someone else posting it.
Baud
@gene108:
Anthony Weiner agrees!
PhoenixRising
I’m…really sad to hear about this. It is just upsetting at so many levels. What did he THINK was likely to happen…but the answer is clearly, Nothing.
Another way to headline this story: 35-Year-Old Man-Child Has Tantrum, Family Made Homeless By 1st Enforced Consequence of His Life.
kc
Am I supposed to be gloating over this?
I guess that guy thought the Internet would reward his dickish behavior, as it so often does.
My only other thought is that I hope Chik Fil A gave that cashier a big fat bonus.
PhoenixRising
@gene108: Do you really think there is NO difference between someone ‘catching’ this behavior and the person thinking that he’s going to be praised for it and posting it online?
The distinction, to me, is that I wouldn’t want this dude working for my firm. IF someone else had posted it & some third party outed him, then the blame goes to social media and I’d counsel him & offer him the chance to apologize to the clerk.
kc
@SiubhanDuinne:
Yeah, bomb threats are hilarious.
jon
@Baud: His family isn’t suffering because he managed to move to a liberal state that has decent social welfare programs. Sure, they do suffer because they have to live with him, but they aren’t starving in the dark.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
This is why, when I’m pissed off at a company, my first action is to say, “Can I speak to your supervisor?” If you want to yell at someone about a product or service, don’t take it out on the poor drone in front of you. Escalate it to the supervisor or manager.
Sometimes telemarketers will try to resist, but robotically repeating the phrase either induces them to do it or gets them to hang up in a panic, so it’s a win-win either way.
gene108
@Baud:
I re-read the link. You know why liberalism fails? Because liberals do not have anyone’s back but their own:
Some right-wing whack-o-loons see the video, then dial up their fucking shock troops and they fill a company’ voicemail with bomb threats…and the villain in this is not these whack-o-loons…
Piss of RWNJ’s, even just a little bit, and your career is fucking over.
Look what happened to ACORN, when edited bullshit videos riled up the right…
I wish some rich liberal (maybe an oxymoron, and that is part of the problem) would give this guy a job, so the crazy as fucking fundies, who threatened people’s lives because they are unhappy with the Chick-Fil-A backlash don’t permanently claim another scalp.
Just think about it.
Post something that pisses off RWNJ’s.
Have the howler monkeys decide to destroy you by finding out who you are in real life, and then call up our place of work with bomb threats and have your career destroyed, with no repercussions for the people making bomb threats.
And we wonder why so few people jump up as out spoken liberals.
Being an outspoken liberal will piss of RWNJ’s, who can kill your career by being bigger assholes than you or your friends can possibly imagine.
WaterGirl
Losing 200k a year salary and over a million dollars in stock options is a big fucking deal.
To completely disregard that and say they are doing just fine because they’re not starving in the dark seems callous to me.
Hal
People have done worse publicly and recovered with a basic sorry if your offended non-apology. You can be racist, sexist, or homophobic but offend a poor chick-fil-a worker and your life is ruined? To me this isn’t about being a shit to a fast food worker, which he was. This seems to fall in line with all those fucks who lined up to support chick-fil-a in the first place. Ostensibly because of free-dumb but in reality because they’re homophobic assholes. This guy is collateral damage.
Mike E
@Baud: Tho, to be fair, Smith’s a novice at posting raging subject matter.
Baud
@jon:
I’m glad they aren’t destitute, but it’s quite a change of fortune.
Baud
@gene108:
Yeah, it’s a tough line between maintaining our own standards and fighting the right as hard as possible.
SiubhanDuinne
@kc:
Bomb threats? I’m not laughing at the bomb threats.
azlib
@WaterGirl:
The $200K job is a big deal. The stock options maybe not so much. Depends on what the strike price is and when they would vest.
The guy does sound like more than a bit of a jerk, but on the other hand so are most of the hosts on Fox News and they seem to be doing fine. I honestly do not think being a jerk is a fireable offense. Of course when you are at the CFO level, you pretty much are working at the whim of the CEO.
Pogonip
Is the Internet forever? I wonder about Amazon’s “Cloud,” where you can store books in the ether if your Kindle is full or you just don’t want to clog it up. What happens to my books in the Cloud if U.S. Internet goes away? Can I drive into Canada and recover them there or are they gone forever. I asked about this and the Amazon serf said it would never happen. What if it does? Does anyone know?
raven
It’s everyone’s fault but the schmuck.
gene108
@PhoenixRising:
I don’t think, what seems like a promising career, should be destroyed over one decision out of work.
If every C-level executive had their career ruined for being a dick to the “help”, you’d have a point, but I’ve been stuck in line behind enough raging assholes in very expensive suits, to believe this is not the case.
Also, how many people follow his YouTube page? Probably not too many.
Outside of friends and family, he probably figured it’d end up with a couple of dozen views. I doubt he’d be the focus of widespread right-wing retribution.
In a nutshell, a guy posts a video of him being a dick, though his heart is in the right place, and this causes right-wing lunatics to call in with enough bomb threats to fill up a modern voice mail system and costs the guy not only a job, but a career, because other employers are scared they’ll be in the RWNJ’s crosshairs.
Fuck the fundies.
I do not want them to win and with this guy’s career destroyed they just won another round.
EDIT: Think about Cliven Bundy. We (as a society) from government to corporation are so scared of RWNJ terrorism, we’d let careers be destroyed and criminals roam free.
Tree With Water
My bet is that guy was on thin ice with his employer to begin with, and when he obliged them with a pretext for termination, they didn’t hesitate… that he essentially wrote them his own $200,000 per year (plus benefits) pink slip and placed it in a stamped, self addressed envelope. If not, then maybe “social media”- a term I really dislike- has grown into a force that I’ve been pretty seriously underestimating.
Baud
@Pogonip:
If the Internet goes away, your Amazon books will be the least of your worries.
PhoenixRising
What some of you don’t seem to understand is that Adam had a responsible position with an investor-funded firm when he voluntarily associated his terrible behavior with his own name and theirs. When he got back from lunch, he had unleashed the whirlwind.
It’s not an obligation of being liberal to lose your business, which supports dozens of other people, over the principle that your CFO (signs reports reviewed by the SEC & investors) has a right to be an abusive dumbass. His actions showed bad judgment, his promotion of them online shows even worse judgment.
I’m sorry for his kids and wife, but not ready to second-guess the family-owned business facing much more existential threats than some flying monkeys screaming into the phone. They could have lost everything by standing by this guy, and he was clearly wrong in a way that goes directly to what you pay him for: honesty and good judgment.
The flying monkeys screaming for his head are irrelevant to that.
max
He did something stupid. He’s paid for it. What’s the point of keeping it up?
max
[‘I’m with Gene108. We’re liberals, not conservatives. What else are you gonna do, give the guy the death penalty?’]
Baud
@gene108:
There was that woman who got caught up making a racist remark on Twitter during her trip to Africa.
raven
So why doesn’t someone who agrees with him hire him?
Amir Khalid
@azlib:
Being a jerk, per se, no. But as Top Gear‘s Jeremy Clarkson found out this past week, a particular act of jerkitude might be heinous enough to do the trick.
Brother Dingaling
@Pogonip: If the U.S. internet goes away you will have much bigger problems than finding copies of your old ebooks.
Elizabelle
Adam Smith and Justine Sacco (going to Africa; hope I don’t get AIDS). Poster children for social media fails.
How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco’s Life
Maybe they too, like dear, shy Monica Lewinsky, will one day be giving TED talks.
PS: I would have assumed “Adam Smith” was a nom de tweet.
gene108
@raven:
True.
In America, every executive who is a raging asshole to retail clerks or customer service people or airline people, when flights get delayed, has their careers destroyed.
Happens everyday in America.
raven
@gene108: Yea, well a dude pulled that shit on a rental car agent when I was in line and he didn’t get away with it.
No one will hire him because employers are interested in judgement. He didn’t fly off the handle, he planned it, bragged about it, did it, filmed it and posted it. You hire him if you want to.
Pogonip
@Brother Dingaling: Such as? I’m so old I know how to write (as opposed to only knowing how to print), I can even make change! My doctor has my old file. My car probably wouldn’t run, but I have feet and could obtain a bicycle. I hope you are not hinting that electricity, water, sewage, all those nifty things are so computerized these days they won’t work without the Internet. Say it ain’t so!
Suzanne
Dude, when I was sixteen and worked at McDonald’s, I had a dude get pissed in my direction and throw all of his food, which included a chocolate milkshake, all over me. I didn’t even get to go home to change my clothes. No one came to ruin the life of that dumbfuck. He probably had a gun in the car, anyway.
Dude threw water on a cashier, that’s not okay, but I hardly think it merits having the dude’s kids live in an RV.
Mike J
@azlib:
Showing poor judgement and bringing negative attention to the company is.
Citizen Alan
Phil Robertson has never and will never pay any meaningful price for the things he has said, most recently his bizarre rant fantasizing about atheists being forced to watch their loved ones tortured to death and it being worse for them because as atheists they lack even the satisfaction of knowing that the torturers will go to hell.
I cannot think of a single example of anyone on the right saying something so disgusting that it resulted in sustained death threats by left wingers. Certainly not to the point that they became unemployable. Most of those SAE frat boys that sang songs about stringing up n*****s from a tree will have six figure salaries within five years.
Belafon
I also don’t understand the death threat thing. The head of BBC is now receiving threats for the firing of Clarkson. Disagree, but, unless they are actually coming at you with weapons, do not make threats on someone’s life.
mai naem
I dunno. I am trying not to go after people on twitter etc. in a nasty way even if they’ve screwed up. Politicians are kind of excluded. This guy was 35 and that’s old enough to know better. I think the firing of the social media person for some congressman who made comments about the Obama kids may have been too harsh – the only reason I can’t decide was that she was the social media person so I feel like she should have known better. Social media just makes it harder to make any mistakes anymore because somebody’s going to get it on some kind of form that can’t be destroyed. If I were this guy, I would seriously think of changing my name and start at the bottom somewhere.
Suzanne
@Mike J: I tend to agree with you on this issue most of the time, because I do think companies should have the right to fire prominent people who do embarrassing things. I am not convinced that this specific thing is that awful in the grand scheme.
Hell, Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson still have jobs.
RSA
Salon today has an interview with Jon Ronson on exactly this kind of social media witch hunt.
aimai
@azlib: But they didn’t fire him because he was a jerk but because of a swarming ragegasm of bomb threats and right wing hate. What he did was stupid and awful but he didn’t threaten anyone with death and he didn’t phone in any bomb threats. Nothing he did reflected at all on the company he worked for and did not sayh anything about his ability to do the job (s) he was hired for. I agree with gene–why are we so quick to abandon a guy who as far as the right wing are concerned is another liberal head on a pike?
PurpleGirl
@raven:
No one will hire him because employers are interested in judgement. He didn’t fly off the handle, he planned it, bragged about it, did it, filmed it and posted it. You hire him if you want to.
Yes. He showed an incredible lack of judgment for someone in as responsible a position as it seems his was. He will have to look for work in an associated field and not at the very high level he was at. He’ll have to show that he has learned to use judgment and to think things through before he gets as high up in an organization again.
I feel sorry for his wife and children having their lives upended by his childish display if pique
gene108
@raven:
Is his career over? Is on welfare?
Or did other people in line tell him to stuff it?
He landed another job in two weeks based on the strength of his resume and ability to manage an interview. He clearly seems to have some skills in his desired field.
I do not think the “lack of judgement” is the reason he can’t get a job.
I think it’s the fear of RWNJ’s hunting him down and threatening to bomb your company that keeps him from being employed.
I’m sure you and no one else on Balloon-Juice has ever demonstrated a “lack of judgement”, and therefore are fit to deny anyone a second chance.
Would if I could.
I’d also fund ACORN to have kept them from folding, but I don’t have the pockets to fight every bit of right-wing ass-hattery.
replicnt6
So let me get this straight: we (many of us here, anyway) are celebrating this guy losing his livelihood because he delivered pretty much the right message to the wrong person? I’m sure the bomb threats all came from right-thinking people horrified that he was mean to a minimum-wage worker. I’m sure this would all have turned out completely differently had he made a video of himself confronting the CEO of Chik-fil-A.
Elizabelle
Adam has a lot of passion, and probably learned his lesson. I hope that he’s volunteering his skills for some non-profits. Build his way back into a career that way. Maybe he should take his family to another country and work there for a few years. **
Agree it was poor judgment; this is an example of liberal epistemic closure, is it not? The community at large did not cheer as he expected his Facebook friends would.
I saw him called Prick Fil A on a news thread.
That said, the Chick Fil A crowd was pretty awful too. Getting away with bomb threats? C’mon.
ETA: ** am thinking he could work in community development or something human rights related …
replicnt6
@Suzanne: Did we watch the same video? I didn’t see him throw water on the cashier.
El Caganer
This guy doesn’t come off as a liberal to me, unless ‘liberal’ means ‘smug, self-important asshole.’ He rolls into Chick-fil-A with his $200K/yr job in his hip pocket, gets a free glass of water from somebody who’s lucky if they’re making minimum wage, gives them some shit, and takes a selfie to demonstrate his righteousness to the world. And the glass of water was the tell. This bozo wasn’t some disgruntled customer; he was there specifically to deliver improving instruction to the great unwashed and make a record of his own awesomeness in doing so.
Yes, the wingnut response was berserk and over the top; yes, being a dick on your own time shouldn’t be cause for termination; but I’m having trouble feeling much sympathy for him. I hope he and his family don’t have to continue living in the car – it’s a terrible indictment our society that people are forced to that extreme or worse.
gene108
It’s interesting that people are blaming Adam Smith for his loss of a job and career.
The reason he lost his job IS NOT BECAUSE HE POSTED THE VIDEO TO YOUTUBE.
It was the RIGHT-WING REACTION TO THE VIDEO and BOMB THREATS AGAINST HIS EMPLOYER that cost him his job.
If no one phoned into his place of business with bomb threats and other threats, he’d still be gainfully employed.
You guys are like blaming a girl for getting raped, cause she wore a short skirt and was out drinking with a bunch of guys. In some circles it would be considered that the girl showed a lack of judgement, first and foremost.
If the phone lines were not flooded with complaints, the guy would still have a job.
RWNJ claim another scalp and it’s the guy, whose career is ruined own damn fault for not anticipating the backlash.
Mike E
@Elizabelle:
Yeah…hell no.
Pogonip
I did a little surfing on the topic of the Internet going away. People who have no cash on hand would be majorly inconvenienced (I’d expect bartering to start up quickly), businesses that hadn’t planned for backup would be in big trouble, and yup, my Cloud books would be gone unless I could get somewhere where the Internet still worked, but none of the articles mentioned disruptions to things like water and electricity, so I hope that means these basic services do have Plan B’s in place.
Just in case–Cole, how about some cute pet video while we can still see it? You never know…
Woodrowfan
he was an asshole. he doesn;t deserve to have his life ruined for it.
Baud
@gene108:
In our circle, that girl did nothing wrong. In our circle, Smith was an ass. The only question worthy of debate is how severe the consequences should be for his assitude.
raven
@gene108: If I gave the impression I didn’t think he should get more chances I was wrong. As far as my situation, I got plenty of second chances.
WereBear
The CEO who mistreated his dog in an elevator deserved it. This guy actually assaulted someone. Yes, it was a cup of water. But it showed terrible judgement.
Of course, I would hope the bomb threats were followed up on. In the age of the Patriot Act, why weren’t they?
El Caganer
@gene108: No, it’s not his fault that he lost his job – that was the USA’s very own fundamentalist terrorists who were responsible for that. I don’t blame him for losing his job, I just think he’s an asshole.
gene108
@Baud:
Being an ass did not cost him his job.
People deciding he must be destroyed for ridiculing their bigotry cost him his job.
You are blaming the wrong person in this story for the end result.
sparrow
@Citizen Alan: That’s because there is a fundamental asymmetry in America — we are not just biased, self-congratulatory liberals. “Liberals” in this country are really just not particularly tribal/authoritarian people (a.k.a “sane”). The Conservatives are fearful, authority-worshiping, tribal, angry, entitled little fucks who will happily join a lynch mob as long as the right other is being lynched. The so-called “far left” doesn’t even come close to matching the insanity of the middle-of-the-road “conservative” these days.
Elizabelle
That is the difference between libtards and the rightwing wurlitzer. We point and laugh at Richard Cohen of the WaPost, and trash talk on these threads, but how many of us actually call the newspaper and spit-scream or issue threats of physical harm?
I have called Fred Hiatt’s voicemail to express displeasure over a column (pleasantly but firmly) and reminded him that stuff like that makes subscribers wonder if they should support the paper.
Fred has never gotten back to me, nor has anyone else from the Post. He’s still employed, too. sigh.
Can’t see Vante cooperating — they want this behind them — but it would be cool for an alternative paper to find out who did call and follow up on how many were local; if it was an organized campaign ….
HR Progressive
So, this guy was one of a growing number of people who say/do something incredibly stupid on The Internet, word of it gets back to their employer, and their employer decides that they no longer want you to be a representative of their organization because they are petrified that what you’ve done will poorly reflect upon them.
Can you argue about whether employers should care and/or not overreact the way they did? Absolutely.
Can you be loathe to the fact that there’s a chance a bunch of RWNJ’s got worked up over, really, nothing, and cost a possibly otherwise decent man to lose his job over something relatively inane? Sure.
Can you feel sorry for the man in question? Can you be livid at the knuckledraggers making terroristic threats and getting away with it? Yes, and hell yes.
But I have to say, it kind of sounds like the guy forgot for just long enough the kind of interconnected world we live in today, and underestimated or totally disregarded the possible consequences of such an action. And it came back to bite him at lightning speed.
“Should” it have? I’d actually say “No, probably not”. But employers at large are terrified of having their brand and value tarnished in a digital world where any Tom/Dick/Harry can see it. I don’t agree with it at all. But I can’t say I am surprised that is their reaction.
gene108
@WereBear:
I watched the video at the top of the post, I did not see him throw water on the lady at the drive thru window.
Did I miss something?
PhoenixRising
@gene108: How do you know?
If it were my similar-sized business, I’d have fired him in a minute. Before the bomb threats ever came in. Because my family-and-friends investors would absolutely flip their lids to have our brand associated with this type of behavior from an officer of the company.
I’ve got a family to support too, and don’t plan to live in my RV for the principle ‘our brand stands for entitled rage’.
But by all means, continue explaining how in the hypothetical case that you had the weight of running an investor-funded enterprise supporting 5 dozen families, you’d respond more forcefully to the flying monkeys because it’s ‘right’ to resist them at any price–even if like a blind pig, they have found an actual acorn.
The ‘if Id’a been there’ is fascinating.
Elizabelle
@WereBear: The bomb threats is the interesting angle, assuming the receptionist did not overstate the case …
raven
@gene108: People are talking over each other.
jeffreyw
@Pogonip: I’m in the midst of reading Coming Home, by Jack McDevitt, where things of this nature are a background to a pretty good detective story. It’s set in a distant future.
raven
@jeffreyw: Oh, not THAT Coming Home.
Cervantes
@SiubhanDuinne:
Really?
Zinsky
I think Splitting Image has a point above. If he wants to feed his family, this handjob just needs to go on FoxNews, say that he was wrong and that he has switched political parties and is now a Republican and the job offers would pour in. Guaranteed.
Baud
@gene108:
The only one to “blame” for the loss of his job is his employer, because that’s the only party with decisionmaking authority here.
If you’re not willing to blame the employer, then you have to allocate responsibility, and Smith isn’t 100% blameless here.
raven
Timely book review
Review: ‘So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed’ Delves Into Infamy in the Age of Social Media
gene108
@PhoenixRising:
From the ABC News link the OP referenced:
Based on the above passage, I assume the reason for his firing was not because he posted something onto his personal YouTube channel, but rather because people called his place of employment to complain.
We are getting only one side of the story here.
Maybe the company has someone scan the social media dabblings of its employees Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, etc. accounts and fires them immediately, when they violate company policy about posting things the employer determined are inappropriate.
I’d personally have better things to do than monitor the on-line activities of my employees that closely, but to each his or her own.
gene108
I think clarifying the “it” in the quote, from the ABC News link, would clarify this debate we are having on what is holding him back.
Elizabelle
Blog on Patheos with long excerpt (from Adam Smith’s book) of aftermath of Smith’s Chick Fil A rant, including statements by his now former employers Vante and the U of Arizona.
A Free Glass of Water at Chick Fil A Cost him a million dollars … and you probably think he deserved it.
Cervantes
@aimai:
And:
@gene108:
Inclined to agree.
ZBIV
I have a real problem with one display of jackassery being all that stands between someone and losing their job. It is one of several reasons that this is the only place I ever express an opinion, so only the blog masters know who I really am (and the NSA, obviously).
What this guy did was over the top. You can see why he was canned, but I don’t think he should be painted with the asshole brush forever.
And when someone says something incredibly stupid and ignorant in public, we shouldn’t force them out of their job, we should educate them as to how ignorant they really are being.
I, as polyannish as it sounds, think Imus might have actually learned something by saying something extremely ignorant and condescending and then, being corrected on it. We all live in some form of insulated bubble, even those of us that do our best not to. Maybe we all should think a little more about our own transparent fragility before we start slinging the boulders….
Elizabelle
@ZBIV: hear, hear. Agree.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@gene108:
I’m really of two minds with this story. On the one hand, I understand your arguments that it’s frustrating that the right wing was allowed to count coup with this guy and that the punishment he suffered was disproportionate to his offense. On the other hand, your argument that other people have gotten away with abusive behavior so he shouldn’t have been punished at all holds no water with me. That’s like arguing we shouldn’t try people for murder anymore because some people get away with it.
Like it or not, we are the side that says people shouldn’t abuse others, especially others who have less power than we do. I’m not willing to say that Smith’s behavior was A-OK just because the right wing swarmed him.
WereBear
@gene108: Picking up on what someone said. Is it not true? Still, berating someone for things they have no control over is wrong.
But really, I have vented at customer service personnel. In a very limited way. Turns out, my attempts to not raise my voice or use bad words apparently makes me sound scary. And I then feel badly about it.
Because these jobs suck enough.
I don’t think he did a good thing, but his retaliators did a far worse thing.
PhoenixRising
@gene108: Dude’s name is literally Adam Smith, so if it was his ‘personal’ YT channel, how did the flying monkeys know where to call ‘before he was back from lunch’? We’re definitely not getting a complete story here.
But we just disagree. You think that the small, family-owned firm where he worked had an obligation to ‘hear him out’ or ‘defend principles’, I think that the principle his boss had to defend was the one that leaves him writing good paychecks next month to all the other people who didn’t get famous on purpose by exercising bad judgment.
Yes, there are tools that monitor social media so you can track your employees’ online actions to avoid this exact type of situation. I don’t use them, we won’t sell them, but they exist and many employment agreements cover their use. Should that be the case in the land of liberty? I don’t think so; again, we won’t sell those tools although they are HUGELY profitable. And this dude’s sad story shows why.
Vante lost out on this, it hurt their acquisition plans & it cost everyone who worked there some money that Adam shot his mouth off and *put it online with their name on it*.
Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937
He lost his job because homophobes phoned in bomb threats and you guys are a-ok with it?
Corner Stone
This is really not surprising for the place that poor shamed Shanesha Taylor.
Ripley
Oops, sorry, I thought I was on Balloon Juice. My bad.
kc
@Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937:
Yep.
Good thing no one here has ever said anything that could get us in hot water irl. That’s we all comment under our real names.
SixStringFanatic
@El Caganer: If you can’t see the connection between “liberal” and “smug, self-important asshole”, you haven’t been reading the Indiana threads this weekend.
WereBear
One thing is for certain: I have a freshly sharpened respect for what celebrities have suffered for years. We are all in the fishbowl now.
Without the off-setting perks of fame and fortune.
It took an aspiring journalist and Carter grandson to find the Romney 47%er video which had been posted and ignored for months. Yet Ms. Sacco had 170 followers when she posted her ill-advised tweet about AIDS in Africa and it managed to go global.
And it no longer matters what you do or whom you work for. What matters is who notices and what they do in return.
Corner Stone
@WereBear:
Companies with public brands are so much more skittish now than they have ever been. Remember the lady who organized a letter writing campaign against (I think) Married with Children?
She got like McDonald’s and a few other Fortune 200 companies to drop their ads from whatever show irked her religious ire at the time.
Nowadays the platforms allow these nutjobs to have an over exaggerated effect due to echo chamber volume.
For fuck’s sake, bomb threats got this guy fired.
Suzanne
@replicnt6: I’m sorry, I was mistaken. I meant to say that I had milkshake thrown on me in full view of a shit-ton of people and all this dude did was get a free cup of water and act like an asshole. That was, like, Tuesday, when I worked fast food.
My allergies and the attendant medication are messing with my ability to be coherent at the moment. Not that I have ever had coherency.
Corner Stone
@kc:
Hmmm, your newsletter. Subscribe to it, I will.
Suzanne
If we are going to destroy the employability of everyone who is ever a douche to a fast-food worker, we will be paying a lot of unemployment. I remember quite a few chumps who did much worse than this tool.
I tend to agree in this specific instance with those who are putting the blame on the assholes making bomb threats.
Jay S
Here’s some background on the aftermath of the video:
http://www.businessinsider.com/former-vante-cfo-adam-smith-apologizes-for-bullying-chick-fil-a-worker-2012-8
From the apology video he claims he didn’t plan the speech.
Read the rest, it was to be part of the free glass of water protest.
Still people proclaiming that he shouldn’t have been fired because other people have behaved badly and not gotten fired are on the wrong page here. There are not heroes in this story, except perhaps for the Rachel.
Mr Stagger Lee
@gene108: I think the sports-talker Jim Rome said it best about Twitter but it would apply to YouTube also.
Mike G
@kc:
He missed an important part of the formula — if he’d gone on a right-wing rant against a clerk at a corporation that donated to Dems, he’d probably have been rewarded. Dickish angry outbursts are heroic behavior in Fox/Limbaugh world.
But he angered the moral cowards of the right-wing, who unleashed their gullible army of violence-prone flying ragemonkeys.
WereBear
They should pay for doing something illegal, certainly.
But if Mr. Smith had told this tale at a party and word got back to his boss? It could have still gotten him fired.
Tree With Water
@El Caganer: Your humorously accurate take on the event is spot on. But I still think the guy was likely walking on thin ice with his employer at that point anyway, and his stupidity finally cracked it and he crashed through. Knowing your job is on the chopping block twists people up. That type stress alone could account for his otherwise unaccountably angry behavior with the cashier.
Corner Stone
@Mike G:
Looks like he angered the bullies on the right and also the moral cowards on the left.
Only one side got him fired, the other side just capitulated.
Corner Stone
@Tree With Water:
This doesn’t make a lot of sense as pure speculation. What do you have to suggest he was destined to be fired and this was the last straw? Or anything else to state he was a below avg employee being paid $200K a year with $1M in stock options waiting to vest?
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone: It would be irresponsible not to speculate.
Corner Stone
@WereBear:
If a friend of a friend had told his boss he criticized CFA and that would be enough to get him fired then IMO he’s better off in the long run.
rk
It’s sad that he got fired and has been reduced to poverty. No one deserves this. This is the downside of social media. He did something stupid and acted like a jerk towards someone. Doesn’t deserve the equivalent of the death penalty for his career.
Kyle
He was fired because of bomb threats — in other words, terrorism. Instead of fighting back by bringing in the massively-expensive law enforcement bureaucracy supposedly built to respond to such actions, his employers capitulated to terrorist threats because the target acted like a jerk on a video.
But it was Good Republican Christians making the threats instead of brown people, so there will be no criminal investigation. Right-wing bigots making threats of lethal violence is just another day in America.
Kay
@Corner Stone:
It is just speculation but I was trying to think if I would fire someone for this (no, I would not) and I was very strong “no” with one employee and waffling a little with the other :)
Corner Stone
Capitalism makes cowards of us all.
Corner Stone
@Kay: At a certain level, I completely understand his company having to react. If something bad had happened to their employees it would have been so awful, on a personal and professional/liability aspect.
And with the fundie assholes, who really knows what merits a casual firebomb in the mail slot?
But at some point you just can’t let this happen. Cooperate with LEO, be honest with your people and push back as strongly as possible. If they were an ongoing concern before this, this isn’t like he roasted a baby in the company cafeteria and then served it to clients in their cupcakes.
They’re always going to win when they celebrate being bullies and we wonder what color panties the “bad guy” was wearing.
Talking shit to an employee is stupid and idiotic, but it does not equal bomb threats against strangers.
Jay S
@gene108:
But you can, he has a book out on Amazon about the experience, which is probably why this 2012 episode is in the news. It might also partly explain why he was living in poverty, at least until now. I doubt the book will change that much.
“Million Dollar Cup of Water: Discovering the Wealth in Authenticity”
Elizabelle
@Corner Stone:
There’s a topic for an essay.
RE the following comment: I get what you’re saying — there should be some pushback against the bullies and the threat-issuers, perhaps even two years out.
Watched the video, and Adam came off as a sanctimonious prick. He went on and on. I realize wingnuts get away with that — in their circles, and amplified by FoxNews world — constantly, but I don’t mind that libtards have to be “Caesar’s wife” and just better people.
I hope that Adam can find a good job and restart his career, even if it takes working under an assumed name or staying way under radar for a long time. It’s wrong to be unemployable because of bullying, which is what’s happening to him.
That Salon interview with Jon Ronson was worth reading. His book sounds good, and fairly thought through. Re the “hope I don’t get AIDS” tweeter (Ronson thinks she meant it ironically; also says Justine had 170 twitter followers, none of whom had ever responded to one of her tweets previously):
You put it very well when you wrote that we have cast ourselves in the role of the ribald onlookers in an old etching of a public execution.
But nobody wants to see themselves like that! They’ve tried to see themselves as Rosa Parks, but they’re not.
Ronson also says this: he’s discussing military types who flamed a health care aide (worked with autistic kids), who posted something that irritated them; the ones he talked with came around and realized that had been taken out of context. but then:
I see that a little bit here, but not with everyone. I think Ronson’s comment is too broad.
Tree With Water
@Corner Stone: Lighten up. I was just spitballing.. Beyond that, and as I indicated upthread, I have doubts that an employer could be stampeded to fire an employee they value by “social media”. Maybe I’m wrong…
Corner Stone
@Tree With Water: Yes, a couple times in this thread.
I don’t think it’s warranted, and I said so. If you have some basis, let us know so we can consider it as well.
angelfoot
This brings to mind the television ad in which Arby’s spokes-caveman Bo Dietl harasses a real Subway drive-thru employee, gets out of his car and wedges a meat slicer into the window. I guess someone at Arby’s found this bullying hilarious and Bo Dietl got a nice fat check for it.
Tree With Water
@Corner Stone: OK. “If my remarks offended anyone or any group of people, I’m sorry”. And I mean it.
wasabi gasp
Sometimes that chicken keeps fucking you.
Another_Bob
The guy was being smug and self-righteous, but honestly, his interaction with the cashier was not that bad. It was awkward and misguided, but doesn’t seem anywhere near bad enough that the poor shmuck and his family should be homeless and unemployed over it. Put it in perspective with Dick Cheney shooting a guy in the face and not even saying “I’m sorry.” Now there’s a real asshole, and that’s about the least of the incidents over which Dick Cheney has never been held accountable.
ochone
I think the guy did two things wrong, firstly the comment about how she could live with herself, which he tried to walk back by saying she deserved better, and secondly, the length of time he spent there, turning it into a harangue. If he was going to do it he could and should have just said one sentence about the company and moved on. More than that is just hassling the employee.
Having said that, it’s absolutely stunning someone could get fired over this, and become persona non grata. That’s the much, much bigger issue.
Freemark
As someone who worked retail for 20 years and at a call center for 3 more this guy wouldn’t even make it onto my top ten asshole list. He wouldn’t even make it onto any of my top ten assholes of the month lists. He gave Rachel a slightly hard time. I guarantee she has dealt with worse on an almost daily basis. I wouldn’t wish these consequences even on the worst assholes I dealt with. I would have been ok with their stuff breaking down a day out of warranty, someone treating them the way they treated me, or just a well-timed spilled coffee but no way would I want that person to be made unemployable. Even his apology seems genuine unlike most assholes who have done far worse and are now gainfully employed. I hope he gets a job and can take care of his family. I also wish anybody who threatened violence would get labeled as a terrorist and investigated by the FBI. Of course since they are right-wingers that will never happen.
Another_Bob
Carly Fiorina terminated almost 30,000 employees at Hewlett-Packard, got a $20 million severance package after nearly destroying the company and now she’s running for president. So IOKIYAAR (the second A is for assh*le).
TriassicSands
@MBunge:
The point is he’s giving a powerless employee shit for working at Chik-Fil-A, when the truth is the employee probably doesn’t have a lot of employment options. There are probably ample good reasons why working for any fast food outlet is objectionable, but at that level of employment, workers have to take what they can get.
What bothered me about the video was just how Chock-Full-of-Himself Adam Smith sounds throughout his voice over. He’s a courageous crusader for right because he can dump on an employee who can’t fight back, since she’d probably get fired if she did anything but mouth the script she’s been given. Nice guys don’t have to tell people they’re nice guys, especially when they’re in the process of doing something that isn’t really very nice.
boatboy_srq
@TriassicSands: @Roger Moore: True. And this is direct evidence of the faults in the objectivist libertarian argument (in this instance, that an employer with execrable policies will be hindered finding either staff or customers and that an employee who disapproves of his/her employer’s behaviors can obtain employment elsewhere and escape those behaviors). The poor clerk in the video was probably relieved she had a job, and probably works for a decent shop (the Chik-fil-a outlets I’ve encountered seem to be relatively decent to their staff – and yes it was a business team thing so I was “strongly encouraged” to go along, and no I wasn’t paying and no I couldn’t persuade the folks going there to find someplace else to patronize). Selection of employment based on less immediate factors than pay and benefits is a luxury only possible under exceedingly low unemployment, and the people who advocate for that selection criterion are often the same ones insisting that unemployment that low is bad for the economy because Inflation. So Smith is at once holding the clerk to a higher standard she almost certainly can’t practically meet, and also holding society to the impossible measure of Randian economics. He’d have done a lot better just driving by and filming the outlet from the street whilst haranguing the camera.
lawguy
@gene108: Yes a million times. They will set out and destroy a career, company or group (remember the Dixie Chicks?) and we liberals just stand around and go gosh too bad. And I do not care if the entity under attack deserves it or not. We are not going to win if we do not get each others backs.
burnspbesq
@Mnemosyne (tablet):
His behavior wasn’t OK. But the fact that the wingnut rage brigade was able to trash his career is even more not OK. And I’m not absolving the CEO, either; he’s a coward, and if his marketing and PR people aren’t competent to fix this, then he needs new marketing and PR people.
If only one side is willing to play dirty, that side will win. The left needs to start taking scalps.
Buddyboy
@MBunge:
I used to work at Burger King when I was a teenager. The number of people who came there with the sole purpose of harassing the teenagers would shock you. They knew we had no way to fight back or stand up for our own dignity without losing our jobs and they took advantage of it.
I have mixed feelings about this. This guy should not suffer for the rest of his life for one moment of being an asshole, but neither is it cool to badger people who are working a shit job for shit wages.
And BTW – I’ll bet many of those people who left bomb threats are exactly the sort of people who eat at fast food restaurants in order to act like preening assholes to the employess.
brantl
@Tree With Water:
This is obviously true, read the story.
brantl
@Suzanne: Dude didn’t throw water on the cashier. Just told her he didn’t know how she could work for that company. And wasn’t really loud about it either, just told her, then left.
Visceral
@WaterGirl: Callous is what rich people deserve.
Rick Taylor
Meanwhile, a minimum wage worker is fired from her job for talking to the Washington Post, and quoting her boss.