Great roundup of reactions here.
Snarky headline out of the way, this is in fact not an easy question with an easy answer, when we think about it.
We all agree that we should be allowed to do on our own time and dime what we want (as long as it’s legal) without risking termination, right? And we’ve all heard examples over the years of people being fired for Being Conservative in Public over the years, right? So why shouldn’t the same standard apply in the case of Adam Douchebag Smith?
The way His Imperial Majesty sees it in this particular case is that Adam the Douche committed two additional stupidities here (other than being a bullying douche), and those are:
1) Filming his recognizable visage while being a douche and inserting it into one of the biggest stories of the month, if not the year so far, which means that his assholery was almost certain to be seen by clients of his employers and
2) Tagging his triumphant video of himself bullying little girls with his title and the name of the company he worked for.
Is there any conceivable way that this could not have hurt his employer and, followup question: Doesn’t his employer have a right to limit the damage done to their brand by one of their employees? Or is it a “violation of his rights” to terminate him when he, in effect, stands up in the middle of a crowded plaza wearing his company’s logo and behaves like a complete and utter fucknozzled asshat with a doucheberry on top?
We can all agree, we should hope, that the checkout girl in the video isn’t responsible for anything her CEO says, that’s part of why Smith is such an inexcusable running sore on the arse of mankind, but shouldn’t corporations have a reasonable expectation of not being associated with the disgusting private behavior of their employees and, once the damage is done, a right to limit the damage by ending that association?
Discuss.