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Cyclist Lost Her Job After Raising Middle Finger at Trump’s Motorcade
- sidlls 9y agoHR is not your friend. One of her mistakes was going to them first. HR exists to protect the company. Employees are liabilities in many respects from their point of view.
- burntrelish1273 9y agoYes^2. Protesting has inconsistent, disproportionate costs to the "tall blade of grass." Regardless of customer image issues making her radioactive to government contractors, from a management perspective, her behaviors signaled impulsivity, pettiness and naïveté. They fired her for all these reasons and more perhaps. I hope she uses this wake-up call to self-select a more ethical line of work that isn't contingent on the government-industrial complex.
- equalunique 9y agoShe worked for Akima - another company that does much business around the Washington DC area. Companies in that area never want to seem too anti-establishment.
- ggg9990 9y agoIf Brendan Eich lost his job for supporting Prop 8, and James Damore lost his job for writing his famous memo, of course a company can fire someone who flips off the President. For better or worse (my opinion is worse), Internet activists have created strong precedents for private companies to terminate employees who aggrieve the Internet with their off-duty activities.
- chasing 9y agoI won't speak to Damore's essay except to say that I thought it revealed Damore to be somewhat intellectually immature. But Eich supported something that actively aimed to rob people of the right to pursue their own happiness through marriage. That's a big step beyond giving the bird to one of the richest and most powerful men in the world because he's doing a shitty job as a public servant.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- ludston 9y ago> I won't speak to Damore's essay except to say that I thought it revealed Damore to be somewhat intellectually immature. I won't pretend to know what essay you're talking about - this is just ad hominem.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- vixen99 9y agoOr in street parlance, name calling.
- tailrecursion 9y agoSomehow I don't think Eich and supporters of Prop 8 would characterize it that way. You believe that Eich is evil but it is possible that he is on the correct side of the issue and you are on the incorrect side. In any case he was participating in politics just like everybody does and should. He was fired for disagreeing. The bicyclist was fired because she worked for a government contractor that felt it necessary to do its own kind of virtue signalling, to ward off the potential for lost business.
- ggg9990 9y agoI think that the idea that there is a "correct" and "incorrect" side is a cognitive trap. If we try to break free of this trap, even for the things where there seems so clearly to be a correct side, we can better understand and talk to each other.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- chasing 9y agoI never called him evil. I doubt he is, but I don't know him personally. What he did, though, is he supported something specifically aimed at curtailing someone else's freedoms for no good reason. It's weird that people on Hacker News seem so okay with this, given how angry people seem to get about the abrogation of freedoms in the world of tech and business. Imagine Eich supported a law that specifically barred you from marrying the person you loved. And by "supported" I mean "financially supported to the tune of $1000." Would you be so easy-going about it? Should gay people be so easy-going about someone who wishes to rob them of freedoms the rest of us enjoy? I don't think they should be.
- f4rker 9y agoTitle is incorrect. She lost her job because she outed her self on a controversial image that went viral. She then shared that image on her own social media. tl;dr - she played herself
- csours 9y agoAgreed. From the article: > Ms. Briskman said she became aware of the photograph the next day, when Indivisible Loudoun ACTION, an anti-Trump Facebook group, posted Mr. Herman’s tweet and asked, “Who is this?” Ms. Briskman replied in the comments section that she was the cyclist.
- thrden 9y agoWhile I understand that people are frustrated by this outcome, she worked as a federal government contractor. This is akin to being fired for flipping of the chairman of the board of directors in a company. I understand that there are issues of free speech that can certainly be discussed, but the outcome was anything but surprising given her position.
- Twirrim 9y agoYou have the right to free speech. You don't have the right to freedom from the consequences of exercising your right to free speech.
- sjg007 9y agoWell you can't be persecuted, prosecuted or retaliated against necessarily by a state or Federal government (subject to reason.. e.g. don't yell fire in a theater).. even if they employ you.. but with private employers all bets are off... except not sure what happens if you are a government contractor.. my guess is yes* which is why they asked her to resign. My guess is flipping off the President is free speech. *http://www.nytimes.com/1996/06/29/us/the-supreme-court-free-speech-government-contractors-get-first-amendment-shield.html http://www.nytimes.com/1996/06/29/us/the-supreme-court-free-...
- Fjolsvith 9y agoNah, I bet asking her to resign was for not having to give severance pay or UI benefits.
- sliverstorm 9y agoExactly. If the government arrests you for your speech, that's just the consequences of exercising your free speech.
- freespeech12 9y agoThis trope is so bereft of legitimate legal analysis and knowledge. Although I’d say that flipping off the president is political speech, which is protected. Given that she was a federal contractor, she might actually have a case.
- draw_down 9y agoI expect there will be no outpouring of sympathy from the “free speech” folks for this person.
- Boothroid 9y agoFree speech doesn't mean freedom from consequence. As this case proves. I feel bad for this woman but it was entirely of her own making.
- freespeech12 9y agoYeah, let’s go evict some Jews because of their first amendment religious rights. I mean, freedom of religion doesn’t mean freedom from the consequences of your religion, right?
- KGIII 9y agoHeh... I stand up for the rights of Nazis to speak freely. Standing up for her isn't even going to get me bitched at. However, free speech has consequences. This probably isn't a Constitutional matter, but she absolutely has the right to do this. They absolutely have the right (I'm pretty sure) to fire her. So, I'm sympathetic but not surprised. Freedom of expression should be more than a part of the Constitution, it should be a societal goal. I'd much prefer a world where off-duty expression doesn't risk your employment but that's not up to me. Err... Who are these 'free speech folks' that you're thinking of? We used to just call those people by the name, 'Americans.' The liberty of free speech applies to all, or none.
- cosmiccartel 9y agoI can guess your meaning of "free speech folks", and I'm one of them. I don't think she should have lost her job. All along, our central argument has been that the pendulum swings both ways. The same means which are used to silence the one side will work just as well against the other. That is free speech's raison d'être.
- tailrecursion 9y agoMy impression is that the free speech folks want principles such as free speech to be applied equally to all sides. Unfortunately many of the hate speech crowd are so weak and disoriented that they can't grasp the disadvantages of their dogma, until their own rules are applied to them.
- eplanit 9y agoThis reminds me of the rodeo clown who lost his job after he mocked Obama: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/other/rodeo-clown-who-mocked-obama-missouri-state-fair-banned-performing-f6C10901988 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/other/rodeo-clown-who-mocked-ob...
- Boothroid 9y agoIt seems like a series of unfortunate or possibly rash choices on her part: the first flipping off, the second when she caught up with the motorcade again, deciding to use the picture as her profile pic, and then going to HR to forewarn them. I'd like to think that even if tempted to do the first of these actions I would have stopped there and kept quiet until it had all blown over, not kept upping the ante.
- Overtonwindow 9y agoI didn't see that she was identified anywhere in the media. It wasn't until she made it her profile photo on Facebook that her employer found out. Does anyone know if this is accurate?
- RickJWag 9y agoSo glad she's fired. Civility and decency must again become the norm. People should not live like animals.
- no29 9y agomust've missed the chapter on schadenfreude in civics and ethics.
- ankushnarula 9y agoI would also fire my employee if she flipped the bird at the CEO of my top customer - in view of the press no less.
- pulisse 9y agoThe president is not a CEO.
- hungerstrike 9y agoOk, but he is kind of like a CEO. At the very least...you can see the analogy right?
- toomanybeersies 9y agoHe is the chief of the executive branch, and the commander in chief of the US military, so arguably he is a CEO.
- xxxdarrenxxx 9y agoShe should have bankrupted her former company, tends to look good on your resume if you apply for president. Don't ask me why
- tailrecursion 9y agoExactly, if you're a business in a political climate of any kind you have to keep up appearances regardless of your private beliefs.
- drivingmenuts 9y agoShe was employed in a state where the employer does not need a reason to dismiss. They could have fired her because "Hey, you're an employee and that starts with 'e'". Not a sensible reason, but that's not a legal requirement there.
- hackeraccount 9y agoAt will employment means you can be fired for no reason but not any reason. That is still my favorite HR joke.
- JCharante 9y agoWho goes to HR to brag about flipping off the head of state when your company relies on business from the government?
- RestlessMind 9y agoWould it be okay if a cyclist had raised her middle finger at Pres. Obama? If we want to restore civility to our politics, we need to hold everyone to high standards. No matter what you think of Trump, he holds the Office of the President and that Office should be respected. If you are angry with him for whatever reason, then the most effective way to channelize your anger is every subsequent election where he or his supporters are on ballot.