I don't know what you're TRYING to do, but you're GOING to get yourself fired.

People who voluntarily quit are ineligible for unemployment 100% of the time. People who do stupid shit to get fired and claim ignorance afterward might qualify for unemployment… hmmm… 5-10% of the time? It was likely a calculated gamble on her part.

Call Center I worked in, loud profanity on the floor would be a ‘Straight to Final Warning’. If they really really liked you and you apologized and were contrite, you might get off with a Written.

Get mouthy with your boss’s boss when being told to knock it off? Straight out the door, fired ‘for cause’ (which means no unemployment unless you’re lucky and get it on appeal).

Of course, this was predicated on the client not actually listening in to any of the calls on which you can be heard. If they were, they’d be calling the site VP and telling them to get rid of you. In the 3.5 years I was there, a couple of people got fired because the client said so, for various reasons.

As for Ahstrippa Tano, maybe she just wanted the summer off and figured that she could make up some BS excuse for why she was fired when she decided to look for work again.

I think FMF got the best of both worlds, in a good way. Hopefully he can use his week off to deal with whatever issues are bothering him away from the stress of the office, then return to work a happier and more productive fella.

If you have a job, you are supposed to do what your boss tells you. That’s how it works. The boss can be wrong or stupid but he’s still the boss. If you don’t like having that boss, you quit. Otherwise you are being paid to do what you are directed to do. If you refuse do what you are told, then you become useless to that company. There is no morality involved whatsoever.

(Insubordination in the military is the same principle except there it can get people killed, and you can be punished for it. They don’t just fire you in the military.)

Heck, I will wear a suite and tie to wash your car and work all the overtime you can assign. Seriously. There’s a huge crowd of displaced workers out here with real skills who don’t play on their phone all day and WANT to work.

Morality was/is not the issue in insubordination, and I don’t think that anybody has addressed it as such in this thread.

Thanks. There’s way more compassion in Canada. Way more.

That is the “dream world” I live in, apparently.

I don’t know how many other people work in that office with the swearing guy. But how would it be a moral victory if all of them had to be exposed to his bad behavior and he didn’t face any consequences for that behavior? That would reward the worst individual in the room and punish everyone else.

One basic principle I learned as a manager (and which I taught the new managers who worked for me) is that you have to consider what’s best for everyone and not just the person you’re dealing with at the moment.

I’ll wash your car, and then sweep, swab and wax your parking spot.

Though to tell the truth, I don’t think I could last more than one day in a call centre…

Look, the guy has a meltdown and everyone is calling for his head. Suddenly it’s revealed that he’s undergoing “severe” personal issues, and evveryone is still calling for his head? Fuck that. Have some coompassion.

I’ve been undergoing severe personal issues for the last couple years and would fully expect to be fired on the spot for that sort of behavior.

He got promoted out of the quarry right after they threw the last “g” in.

The strong feelings evoked by the tone of the posts I’m responding to would seem to be explicable only in the context of a discussion on moral principles.

People upthread seem positively incensed at the idea of someone not seeing things this way. This reaction marks the issue as involving some kind of deep seated moral belief or attitude.

I certainly don’t see it the way you framed it. A single failure does not constitute uselessness. Certainly the company (outside a union context) has a right to fire a person on the basis of a single failure (or on no basis at all). But them having this right doesn’t make it a good idea. If someone reads what I just said and has feelings about it, and thinks I’m being too soft or compassionate or something, then for that person it would appear this is indeed a moral issue of some kind.

I would have higher morale if I thought I worked in a place where a single bad day won’t cost you your job.

This in itself doesn’t mean the guy shouldn’t be fired, but I’m pointing out that the issue can be complicated. It depends on the situation.

So I made it to the latest update. If idiot #2 was going to get the company sued, eventually, idiot #1 was going to sue the company herself. Glad for you she let herself out with another incident.

As far as idiot #2, I can understand posters calling for his head, but good workers are hard to find; if he’s already trained, meeting targets, and has an excuse, I agree with giving him another chance.

I’ve worked in a call center for over 4 years now, and I’ve had a number of bad days. On a bad day I might cry once or twice, take longer breaks, and spend excessive amounts of time in “after call” mode so I get fewer calls. I’ve even had a couple of truly horrible days at work, where I felt suicidal by the end of my shift. At no time did I yell or scream or hurl invectives at the nearest warm body.

There’s a difference between having a bad day and screeching verbal abuse without regard for your company, nearby coworkers, and your professional reputation. So yeah, I negatively judge that stupid fuck. A guy who loses that much control of himself at any time in a public place has serious anger issues. A guy who loses that much control of himself AT WORK? He is not suited to work in a professional environment anymore. If I ever worked with someone so lacking in self-control (and thank the stars I haven’t), I would be legitimately afraid he’d come in and shoot up the place. Fuck him roundly.

He didn’t get fired. He was suspended for a week.

I’ve said there should be consequences for what he did and the problem needed to be fixed. I also say it didn’t necessarily require firing the guy (or the woman).

I haven’t said anything critical about the actual outcome. I have been talking about certain reactions to the original scenario that I saw in this thread.

ETA I see your comment I was responding to was referencing the actual outcome, answering Leaffan’s charge that the suspension lacked compassion. Let me be clear that to me the suspension sounded somewhat compassionate, though to further clarify I haven’t advocated for thinking very specifically about compassion in situations like this.