NATURAL SELECTION WORKS: Did This Employee Mocking The Unknown Soldier Wave Her Right to Separation of Work/Private Life?
November 30, 2012
Hey! Let's roll out the tried and true fun topic of the rights of your employees to avoid accountability at work for anything they do in their personal life that's not work related!
Bonus! Weave social media into it. Look at the picture below and let's talk after the jump...
Wow. Indeed. Check it - From Gawker:
The 30-year-old Massachusetts native, who gained overnight infamy for posting a Facebook photo of herself mock-disrespecting the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier while on a work-related trip to Arlington National Cemetery, was unceremoniously fired by her employer yesterday after it was reportedly inundated with angry emails and calls.
LIFE (Living Independent Forever), a Cape Cod-based nonprofit organization that assists adults with learning disabilities, released the following statement on its own Facebook page:
We wish to announce that the two employees recently involved in the Arlington Cemetery incident are no longer employees of LIFE. Again, we deeply regret any disrespect to members of the military and their families. The incident and publicity has been very upsetting to the learning disabled population we serve. To protect our residents, any comments, however well-intentioned, will be deleted. We appreciate your concern and understanding as we focus on the care of our community.
Speaking with a local Fox affiliate, LIFE director Diane Enochs said Stone had been with the group for 18 months, and was a "good employee."
Did this employee need to be fired? Should the employer have defended her right to free speech/expression in her personal life?
Funny thing about free speech - people mistake it for the following - "you should be allowed to say anything you want without retribution via the concept of free speech."
YOUR ARGUMENT IS INVALID - The right to free speech just means we aren't going to throw you in the pokey for this photo. Everything thing else is up to the market to decide. Ask the Dixie Chicks how that works...
For me, I think this is natural selection at its best. Every once in awhile, there's an antelope that for whatever reason, doesn't stay with the herd. That's what lions and tigers are for - to thin the herd of the weak ones, ensuring that the gene pool remains as strong as possible.
The decision to do this at Arlington and post on social? That's just a human equivalent of a crazy antelope lingering at the waterhole while the herd drifted away. If your employee displays this judgment, do you trust them with a customer? I think not. Natural selection ensues.
Enter the lion.