17 ms·

An employee whose job was to be sacked (2010)

243 points by hodder 9y ago

cyberferret 9y ago
Not surprising that large companies would have 'stooge' employees in place for just this sort of thing. I have heard of it happening in at least one major store chain here many years ago. Kind of reminiscent of one of the first episodes in the series 'Suits' where Louis Litt is interviewing a new junior employee for the firm, and he pulls in another junior mid-interview to dress him down and dismiss him in front of the new employee, just to put the fear of his authority and power into the newbie. The 'fired' employee then just goes back to the bull pen to await being called in for the next new recruit interview so he can walk past and be 'randomly' called in.
- whoisjuan 9y ago
  I also heard the story of a digital agency that rented a huge space, painted the walls with bright colors and hired a bunch of actors to pose as employees. The idea was to deceive and close a deal with a potential big client that insisted in visiting their offices.
  - shubb 9y ago
    As a student I was hired as a temp for a 1 day contract. When I arrived they were just setting up the open plan office. We were asked to bring laptops and given stacks of paper and a phone, and told to work though the files, calling the numbers. It was weird to recieve little training for what seemed to be an investigator type role. Mid way though the day a bunch of suits arrived, toured the office, and went into a meeting. Later they left and we were told to go home. Clearly we were faking something, maybe an inflated company sale or a bid for a contract. The wierd thing was, the stacks of paper were real classified police files, with genuine contents (we were phoning people).
    - zaroth 9y ago
      It's like reddit writing prompts is leaking!
  - cyberferret 9y ago
    Uh, a good friend of mine did that a couple of years ago when he started a new design agency. He was going for a large government contract and they insisted on an in-house meeting as part of the pre-tender process. He had a large office space already, in preparation for growth, but only 1 employee at that stage, so he got his high school aged daughter in, as well as some of her friends to sit in the empty desks and pretend to work. A couple of the PC's at the back facing away from the meeting room weren't even plugged in, and were just screens on the desk and keyboards attached to nothing. It worked - he got the contract, and as a result, now has REAL employees at those stations, and in fact has to look at a bigger space to expand into.
    - pimlottc 9y ago
      > pre-tender process If that wasn't intentional, it should have been.
    - chrisweekly 9y ago
      "Fake it till you make it", huh.
  - notahacker 9y ago
    Back when his agency was a one man band, a friend pointed out that one advantage of a trendy shared workspace is that nobody ever asked how many of the people they saw in 'his' corner actually worked for him. I've also met people who've earned temp "work" in China being nothing more than white faces in the background to make the company look international to visitors
    - OkGoDoIt 9y ago
      I keep hearing this about Chinese companies but I've never actually met someone who has done this or have any concrete example beyond "oh I've heard that people do that", and I've talked to a lot of white expats in China. You've actually met these people? Did they explain any other details?
      - EliRivers 9y ago
        I ran into an old friend at my brother's wedding who was recently back from Beijing. He studied there and was put onto the rowing team without much active choice on his part. He took occasional jobs for a few hours as the western guy. He'd get picked up and given a briefcase to hold. Sometimes he'd be taken on a tour of a factory. Sometimes it was his job to take something out of the briefcase and give it to someone. At least once his employer was a local police officer. He said that the impression he had was that he was evidence of working with some overseas company.
  - hodl 9y ago
    Sounds like Saatchi & Saatchi
  - tzs 9y ago
    That reminds me of a 19th century con man I read about in the wonderful book "Bloodletters and Badmen: A Narrative Encyclopedia of American Criminals from the Pilgrims to the Present" [1]. He came to some big city posing as a successful businessman seeking investors for some new enterprise. He would give as a reference the president of a local bank located on the other side of town. When the potential investors went to that bank to check out the reference, they found a busy, well equipped, and well furnished bank, full of well dressed obviously upper class clients conducting business. When they spoke to the President and other officers all they heard was praise for the honesty and business skills of the con man. The marks would then make a large investment. When the con man left town with their money and they realized something was wrong, and then went to the bank to try to find out what was going on, they found an empty building with a "for lease" sign, and many of the people they had seen as customers and employees in the bank were now seen to be beggars, prostitutes, and such from the neighborhood that the con man had hired to play customers and employees. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Bloodletters-Badmen-Narrative-Encyclopedia-Criminals/dp/087131777X https://www.amazon.com/Bloodletters-Badmen-Narrative-Encyclo...
    - chris11 9y ago
      That sounds like something out of Hustle a TV show the BBC produced about a group of contract artists.
      - kthejoker2 9y ago
        It is essentially the plot of 1973's Best Picture The Sting, if you sub a horseracing OTB for the bank.
        teddyh 9y ago
        It’s a well-known confidence trick called “The Big Store”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_confidence_tricks#Big_Store https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_confidence_tricks#Big_...
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
  - DrScump 9y ago
    This is, more or less, the premise of the film "The Sting": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sting
  - Maxious 9y ago
    Villain du jour, Cambridge Analytica changed their name and rented a office in Cambridge filled with London based employees to win over the intellectual Steve Bannon https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/17/data-war-whistleblower-christopher-wylie-faceook-nix-bannon-trump https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/17/data-war-whistl...
    - gowld 9y ago
      Is intellectual a euphemism for Anglophile now?
    - markvdb 9y ago
      > the intellectual Steve Bannon Even within this well-educated microclimate, the irony in that statement might not be clear enough to everyone. May I suggest either crystal clear irony ("the most eminent intellectual of our times Steve Bannon") or a more accurate description ("the racist firebrand Steve Bannon")?
- divbit 9y ago
  I wouldn't be suprised if entire countries raised similar 'scape-goat types as sort of 'bat-man' practice for rich aholes with nothing to do.
- louisswiss 9y ago
  The 'fired' employee in this case is actually a janitor, IIRC.
- gaius 9y ago
  I once worked with a guy who would literally “do voices” on the phone to pretend to callers that he managed a whole team of people.
  - Jetroid 9y ago
    I knew a guy who ran a business which designed and sold PCBs. He'd make up different names to stamp on PCBs. Designed by Joe Bloggs, Code by Derek Smarts, Layout by Jamie Simple, etc. He wanted the business to seem bigger than it actually was.
epx 9y ago
I had a boss that used to scold me in front of others to show that he was tough and impartial. It took two or three times to see the pattern (he expected me to see by myself). Too good I didn't overreact...
- tyingq 9y ago
  Urgh. That's such a basic leadership thing (scold in private) that it just infruiates me that someone wouldn't get that. Hopefully your boss figured that out or was moved out of a leadership position. It's roughly the equivalent of a developer that writes shit code with concurrency issues, basic code smells, etc...that would be drummed out in short order. For some reason, we don't hold leaders to the same standard.
  - sametmax 9y ago
    Well, they are leaders. They define the standard.
  - jacob019 9y ago
    It's shocking how many people with poor leadership skills end up in positions of power.
    - tyingq 9y ago
      It is. As a leader myself, it's honestly embarrassing for my profession. I really don't get why it happens. Personally, that kind of basic shit is dealt with swiftly in my company. Leadership isn't rocket science.
    - AnIdiotOnTheNet 9y ago
      It's because positions of power attract people who desire power, not people who have leadership skills, and there aren't good metrics for what makes someone a good leader that you can use to filter out the bad ones. See: Politics throughout the entirety of human history.
  - hermitdev 9y ago
dictum 9y ago
A pipe-smoking ficticious entry. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fictitious_entry https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fictitious_entry
- gberger 9y ago
  I don't see the connection?
notahacker 9y ago
I imagine that in companies imposing the requirement that managers periodically purge the "bottom" x% of their workforce, "to be sacked" accurately describes the real purpose of many of the new roles hired for.
Consultant32452 9y ago
This reminds me of the jobs in China where you can get paid literally walk around being white. For example, being a white guy who cuts the ribbon of a factory opening and walks around shaking hands can make $1k/wk. http://www.chinawhisper.com/the-5-weirdest-but-best-jobs-for-foreigners-in-china/ http://www.chinawhisper.com/the-5-weirdest-but-best-jobs-for...
- monocasa 9y ago
  Apparently that's going to be a lot harder as the Party starts looking a lot closer at foreign work visas over the next few years.
  - Consultant32452 9y ago
    Maybe we should revisit our immigration policy that punishes China for having "too many" immigrants to the US and also our University policies which racially discriminate against the Chinese for being over-represented. If this trade/economic war is going to keep heating up, we might as well try to steal as many of their best and brightest as possible.
    - Retric 9y ago
      I do think we get their best and brightest. Gaming credentials is an art form in China and can't be taken at face value.
      - Consultant32452 9y ago
        East Asians have some of the best outcomes of any demographic: higher income, more educated, lower criminality, lower divorce rate, etc. In a country that is arguably designed to maximally benefit whites, they are beating white people at basically everything. This goes far beyond gaming credentials, it's real world outcomes. We could stand to lower our bar with them a little and still get ahead.
        9y ago
DoreenMichele 9y ago
This works as long as he doesn't get fired twice in front of the same customer.
- AdmiralAsshat 9y ago
  We gave him a second chance and he ruined the customer's merchandise again!?! Fire him for good, this time!
- squiggleblaz 9y ago
  The point is to discourage the customer from complaining because of the harsh treatment the customer will receive. Therefore yes, if it comes to that, it has failed.
  - Moru 9y ago
    Some people complain just so they can watch the boss chew out some employee. That's satisfaction for being badly treated/buying something that was faulty.
    - DoreenMichele 9y ago
      It's also satisfaction because you failed to get laid, you are going through a divorce, your own job is a shit experience or your life otherwise sucks in some fashion and you are the kind of asshole who enjoys taking your crap out on other people.
- peterburkimsher 9y ago
  What if you want to fire him for real?
sametmax 9y ago
That's the beginning of the excellent book "au bonheur des ogres", where you learn that the hero's karma is to be a scapegoat. It's his job. It's his relationships. Also when a bomb explodes, of course, all evidences point toward him even though is the very definition of innocence. Wonderful work from the great Daniel Pennac, which can stand on it's own, but has follow up tomes that are just as nice. And I just looked it up, it's been translated to english. The title, is, well, "The scapegoat".
- chepaslaaa 9y ago
  Daniel Pennac certainly stands among the many great french writers.
- mlok 9y ago
  I loved the book, and that part has stuck through the years. (amongst other remarkable parts of this book) Now I wonder if Pennac had heard about this story and if he was inspired by it. It always made me think of L'Arrache-Coeur by Boris Vian, where we can find "La Gloïre", this old man whose job was to literally swallow the shame of everybody else.
wolfspider 9y ago
Yes, while working a telemarketing job for quick cash secretly I encountered just this sort of thing. I had spent all of my graduation gift money meant for my first apartment right after high school and had to take a night shift somewhere. I found this telemarketing place and they had a dead simple test they used for prospective hires. My friends told me they would hire anyone no matter what. Surprisingly, someone failed the test and left angrily. Later I found out that they hired someone specifically to stage this event night after night. The reason was because if a group of people witnesses somebody fail it makes them feel they need to hold onto the opportunity. I saw this work time and time again- every single person who showed up for the job took that job and didn't question it. They also did this because they cashed every last check of every employee that left and there were a lot of those. It was grueling and I would even leave on a bike and ride through the woods to get there just so my family wouldn't notice. Made my money back and then some then quit all in time for college. You see, I learned that fake employees are just a part of growing up and growing wiser.
- jacobush 9y ago
  And you made your money back! You really took responsibility for your mistakes. Great Scott I need to get my act together. :)
- jstanley 9y ago
  Sorry if this should be obvious, I've read it 3 times and still don't understand this bit: > They also did this because they cashed every last check of every employee that left and there were a lot of those. "They also did this" - Who also did what? The candidates accepted the job? The company hired the fake guy to get sacked? And who cashed whose checks? Did they cash them before or after they left? And why does that mean the first set of people did the first thing?
  - PMan74 9y ago
    This is also confusing. > Made my money back and then some Made what money back? My guess is that this is some sort of a shady company where 1. Employees pay something for e.g. training ("check of every employee") 2. Employees make it back over time on commission 3. If an employee quits early the employee's check is cashed by the company. ("they cashed every last check of every employee that left") A guess however, difficult to understand what is doing on.
discoursism 9y ago
No less an authority than Danny Baker . . . the comedy writer, born in '57? Or else who? How would he know about this?
- exelius 9y ago
  I think that’s the authors way of saying the story is unverifiable in any way.
potta_coffee 9y ago
Sometimes it feels like I also have this job. Except for some reason, my employers only sack me once, and for real.
bradknowles 9y ago
Isn't that kind of what a Chief Compliance Officer is there for? So that if something goes so badly wrong that the CEO would otherwise be the one put in jail, in this case the CCO goes instead?
SteveGerencser 9y ago
Many years ago I delivered pizza while in college. When it was time to move on my manager and I decided to have some fun. For the last three days I was there I delivered to every terrible customer we had, then had a little fun at their expense. Like the guy that routinely refused to tip a single penny and said 10 pennies make a dime. I handed him a dime and told him now he didn't have to wait for 9 more pizzas. It was terrible, but fun at the same time. Every call back to the store was greeted with an "Oh that's terrible", "we've had a few other complaints about him" and "I promise he won't be here tomorrow".
- ajeet_dhaliwal 9y ago
  Every employee who has given their notice should be used for this purpose!
- jstanley 9y ago
  I understand that it's a bit impolite not to tip, but surely it's much more impolite to hold a grudge against someone for not tipping. If you want more money, put your prices up.
  - wccrawford 9y ago
    I think there's a difference between not-tipping and telling the employee you're not going to tip them, especially by some stupid "10 pennies make a dime!" saying, as if the employee wasn't smart enough to know that or save money.
    - jstanley 9y ago
      My reading was that that only came up after the employee explicitly asked for a tip. Otherwise how has he refused to tip "even a single penny"? He's merely failed to do so.
      - psychometry 9y ago
        It's a figure of speech. Don't be so obtuse.
ars 9y ago
Is there some reason this worker can't actually also work? Presumably in the backroom, where customers will never see him.
godelski 9y ago
Ticketmaster the employee There's actually a good Freakanomics episode on this[1]. How tickets are undervalued and part of Ticketmaster's value is that they take blame for the high prices. [1] http://freakonomics.com/podcast/live-event-ticket-market-screwed/ http://freakonomics.com/podcast/live-event-ticket-market-scr...
- cornholio 9y ago
  Thank you, this led me to an excelent piece of research by one of the economists invited, Eric Budish, on market design and how current continuous trade architectures of most financial markets strongly favor the negative aspects of HFT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvNJID_7iHI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvNJID_7iHI
- KozmoNau7 9y ago
  There are a lot of assumptions in that piece, especially regarding the motives of artists and the fan/idol relationship. It is absolutely not a normal type market, and it shouldn't be treated like one. The way forward is not to inflate ticket prices, ensuring only the richest fans can afford to go to concerts, and screwing over the ordinary people. The way forward is to make it illegal to resell tickets at higher than face value. That was implemented some years ago here, and scalping is a minor issue now. Fans are generally very good at self-policing and reporting price-gouging scalpers. Ticket prices did increase slightly over time, but certainly not on the level of $50 becoming $500, as posited in the article. They do touch on that, but I don't think the solution is to completely stop resale. Just limit it to face value or less. If artists were only interested in short-term profit, they would jack up the prices and only sell to their richest fans. But most of them look at the long perspective, the fact that there's a lot more to be gained in the long run by having a loyal fanbase that doesn't feel exploited. For the fans who were complaining that they couldn't get tickets for low-seating high-interest events, well that's just too bad. You had the same chance as everyone else. I've sat in ticket queues (offline and online), I've furiously refreshed ticket pages for events with room for less than 100 people just to be sure to get a ticket, 5+ months in advance. I really like the system we have here, where a big wallet is not some kind of guarantee that you'll get a ticket. If events get sold out, the onus is on the organizers and artists to either book additional shows, or come back again in 6 months or a year, possibly at a bigger venue. If someone is a true fan, they'll be bummed about missing out, but also adamant to not miss out next time. And they certainly don't fly across the Atlantic for a Broadway show without having somehow secured a ticket beforehand. That's just silly.
vortico 9y ago
Why don't they have a normal employee play the "be fired" role? Unless he gets fired 8 times a day, I don't see why he's idle...
- megablast 9y ago
  It is a bit embarrassing when they keep shopping and see the guy that was fired working in the store, or see them the next day or the next week. They might just catch on.
  - vortico 9y ago
    Ah, I was imagining a sales warehouse, where the customers typically only talk to the sales employees by phone.
banned1 9y ago
I worked at a startup where we had a floor of empty offices. We sometimes would paid people to walk around the office floor and sit in offices when major customers wanted to come and visit. When the customer was in the boss' office discussing the deal, one of the "employees" would always stick his head in the office and say "Hey, I needed to ask you a question. Should I come back?" and the boss would be like "yeah, why don't you come back in an hour after I am done with John here."
oaiey 9y ago
Does anyone remember P.L.E.A.S.E.
- mcphage 9y ago
  I do! Provide Legal Exculpation And Sign Everything
racl101 9y ago
Now that's funny.
jtwaleson 9y ago
From the title I expected a procedure to test if management & HR will act on unacceptable behavior. The story makes more sense, but could still be a good idea, seeing as how many underperformers and bad apples there are in some companies.
m1sta_ 9y ago
I thought this might be about a company testing whether it was any good at getting rid of bad employees.
golergka 9y ago
I'm pretty sure I saw Friends episode with almost exactly the same premise.
- jaclaz 9y ago
  Yep: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0583611/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0583611/ "In order for her kitchen staff to acknowledge her authority, Monica hires Joey so she can fire him in front of them."
seekler 9y ago
This job exists today and it is called CISO (Chief Information Security Officer) or other variants :D
- gaius 9y ago
  You need to be highly qualified for that job
  - royroyroys 9y ago
    OP is jokingly referring to the FB/Cambridge Analytica scandal
    - gaius 9y ago
      Or Equifax
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
- philbarr 9y ago
  Full Stack DevOps Blockchain-enabled Machine Learning Data Scientist Engineer
bryanrasmussen 9y ago
what happens the next time lady ponsonby waffles has a complaint?
- VLM 9y ago
  That's why in the real world you fake fire the next guy going to lunch, so his reward for being yelled at a bit and fired was an extra long lunch hour. Also when I worked retail back when high school kids held the minimum wage jobs, annual retail turnover often exceeded 100%, so if lady waffles is having multiple problems in a couple months, your store has a problem far beyond angry waffles. The American version at the store I worked at both as a labor drone and eventually as a night shift manager while in school, was to send coworkers to the office to be yelled at. The store was urban and near the bar district so at night, customers were generally drunk and guilty until proven innocent. Drunk people usually don't want to draw attention to themselves, mostly, so we had few complaints. Its a mid to high skilled workplace thing to assume employees are yelled at. For manual labor work, the cost of replacement, either of the job or the employee, is very low, and most firing offenses had legal involvement (stealing cash or product from the store, for example) so discipline never went much beyond asking someone "WTF?".
clueless123 9y ago
If I made a penny for every time I accepted blame for a managers dumb mess-up..... (As an over paid IT contractor) Oh! now that I think about it.. guess who always gets called back by those managers for new projects! :)
dmckeon 9y ago
Sounds a bit like: "Send this jerk the bedbug letter!" https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-bedbug-letter/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-bedbug-letter/

243 points by hodder 9y ago

Not surprising that large companies would have 'stooge' employees in place for just this sort of thing. I have heard of it happening in at least one major store chain here many years ago. Kind of reminiscent of one of the first episodes in the series 'Suits' where Louis Litt is interviewing a new junior employee for the firm, and he pulls in another junior mid-interview to dress him down and dismiss him in front of the new employee, just to put the fear of his authority and power into the newbie. The 'fired' employee then just goes back to the bull pen to await being called in for the next new recruit interview so he can walk past and be 'randomly' called in.

whoisjuan 9y ago
I also heard the story of a digital agency that rented a huge space, painted the walls with bright colors and hired a bunch of actors to pose as employees. The idea was to deceive and close a deal with a potential big client that insisted in visiting their offices.
- shubb 9y ago
  As a student I was hired as a temp for a 1 day contract. When I arrived they were just setting up the open plan office. We were asked to bring laptops and given stacks of paper and a phone, and told to work though the files, calling the numbers. It was weird to recieve little training for what seemed to be an investigator type role. Mid way though the day a bunch of suits arrived, toured the office, and went into a meeting. Later they left and we were told to go home. Clearly we were faking something, maybe an inflated company sale or a bid for a contract. The wierd thing was, the stacks of paper were real classified police files, with genuine contents (we were phoning people).
  - zaroth 9y ago
    It's like reddit writing prompts is leaking!
- cyberferret 9y ago
  Uh, a good friend of mine did that a couple of years ago when he started a new design agency. He was going for a large government contract and they insisted on an in-house meeting as part of the pre-tender process. He had a large office space already, in preparation for growth, but only 1 employee at that stage, so he got his high school aged daughter in, as well as some of her friends to sit in the empty desks and pretend to work. A couple of the PC's at the back facing away from the meeting room weren't even plugged in, and were just screens on the desk and keyboards attached to nothing. It worked - he got the contract, and as a result, now has REAL employees at those stations, and in fact has to look at a bigger space to expand into.
  - pimlottc 9y ago
    > pre-tender process If that wasn't intentional, it should have been.
  - chrisweekly 9y ago
    "Fake it till you make it", huh.
- notahacker 9y ago
  Back when his agency was a one man band, a friend pointed out that one advantage of a trendy shared workspace is that nobody ever asked how many of the people they saw in 'his' corner actually worked for him. I've also met people who've earned temp "work" in China being nothing more than white faces in the background to make the company look international to visitors
  - OkGoDoIt 9y ago
    I keep hearing this about Chinese companies but I've never actually met someone who has done this or have any concrete example beyond "oh I've heard that people do that", and I've talked to a lot of white expats in China. You've actually met these people? Did they explain any other details?
    - EliRivers 9y ago
      I ran into an old friend at my brother's wedding who was recently back from Beijing. He studied there and was put onto the rowing team without much active choice on his part. He took occasional jobs for a few hours as the western guy. He'd get picked up and given a briefcase to hold. Sometimes he'd be taken on a tour of a factory. Sometimes it was his job to take something out of the briefcase and give it to someone. At least once his employer was a local police officer. He said that the impression he had was that he was evidence of working with some overseas company.
- hodl 9y ago
  Sounds like Saatchi & Saatchi
- tzs 9y ago
  That reminds me of a 19th century con man I read about in the wonderful book "Bloodletters and Badmen: A Narrative Encyclopedia of American Criminals from the Pilgrims to the Present" [1]. He came to some big city posing as a successful businessman seeking investors for some new enterprise. He would give as a reference the president of a local bank located on the other side of town. When the potential investors went to that bank to check out the reference, they found a busy, well equipped, and well furnished bank, full of well dressed obviously upper class clients conducting business. When they spoke to the President and other officers all they heard was praise for the honesty and business skills of the con man. The marks would then make a large investment. When the con man left town with their money and they realized something was wrong, and then went to the bank to try to find out what was going on, they found an empty building with a "for lease" sign, and many of the people they had seen as customers and employees in the bank were now seen to be beggars, prostitutes, and such from the neighborhood that the con man had hired to play customers and employees. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Bloodletters-Badmen-Narrative-Encyclopedia-Criminals/dp/087131777X https://www.amazon.com/Bloodletters-Badmen-Narrative-Encyclo...
  - chris11 9y ago
    That sounds like something out of Hustle a TV show the BBC produced about a group of contract artists.
    - kthejoker2 9y ago
      It is essentially the plot of 1973's Best Picture The Sting, if you sub a horseracing OTB for the bank.
      - teddyh 9y ago
        It’s a well-known confidence trick called “The Big Store”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_confidence_tricks#Big_Store https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_confidence_tricks#Big_...
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
- DrScump 9y ago
  This is, more or less, the premise of the film "The Sting": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sting
- Maxious 9y ago
  Villain du jour, Cambridge Analytica changed their name and rented a office in Cambridge filled with London based employees to win over the intellectual Steve Bannon https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/17/data-war-whistleblower-christopher-wylie-faceook-nix-bannon-trump https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/17/data-war-whistl...
  - gowld 9y ago
    Is intellectual a euphemism for Anglophile now?
  - markvdb 9y ago
    > the intellectual Steve Bannon Even within this well-educated microclimate, the irony in that statement might not be clear enough to everyone. May I suggest either crystal clear irony ("the most eminent intellectual of our times Steve Bannon") or a more accurate description ("the racist firebrand Steve Bannon")?
divbit 9y ago
I wouldn't be suprised if entire countries raised similar 'scape-goat types as sort of 'bat-man' practice for rich aholes with nothing to do.
louisswiss 9y ago
The 'fired' employee in this case is actually a janitor, IIRC.
gaius 9y ago
I once worked with a guy who would literally “do voices” on the phone to pretend to callers that he managed a whole team of people.
- Jetroid 9y ago
  I knew a guy who ran a business which designed and sold PCBs. He'd make up different names to stamp on PCBs. Designed by Joe Bloggs, Code by Derek Smarts, Layout by Jamie Simple, etc. He wanted the business to seem bigger than it actually was.

epx 9y ago

I had a boss that used to scold me in front of others to show that he was tough and impartial. It took two or three times to see the pattern (he expected me to see by myself). Too good I didn't overreact...

tyingq 9y ago
Urgh. That's such a basic leadership thing (scold in private) that it just infruiates me that someone wouldn't get that. Hopefully your boss figured that out or was moved out of a leadership position. It's roughly the equivalent of a developer that writes shit code with concurrency issues, basic code smells, etc...that would be drummed out in short order. For some reason, we don't hold leaders to the same standard.
- sametmax 9y ago
  Well, they are leaders. They define the standard.
- jacob019 9y ago
  It's shocking how many people with poor leadership skills end up in positions of power.
  - tyingq 9y ago
    It is. As a leader myself, it's honestly embarrassing for my profession. I really don't get why it happens. Personally, that kind of basic shit is dealt with swiftly in my company. Leadership isn't rocket science.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 9y ago
    It's because positions of power attract people who desire power, not people who have leadership skills, and there aren't good metrics for what makes someone a good leader that you can use to filter out the bad ones. See: Politics throughout the entirety of human history.
- hermitdev 9y ago

dictum 9y ago

A pipe-smoking ficticious entry. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fictitious_entry https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fictitious_entry

gberger 9y ago
I don't see the connection?

notahacker 9y ago

I imagine that in companies imposing the requirement that managers periodically purge the "bottom" x% of their workforce, "to be sacked" accurately describes the real purpose of many of the new roles hired for.

Consultant32452 9y ago

This reminds me of the jobs in China where you can get paid literally walk around being white. For example, being a white guy who cuts the ribbon of a factory opening and walks around shaking hands can make $1k/wk. http://www.chinawhisper.com/the-5-weirdest-but-best-jobs-for-foreigners-in-china/ http://www.chinawhisper.com/the-5-weirdest-but-best-jobs-for...

monocasa 9y ago
Apparently that's going to be a lot harder as the Party starts looking a lot closer at foreign work visas over the next few years.
- Consultant32452 9y ago
  Maybe we should revisit our immigration policy that punishes China for having "too many" immigrants to the US and also our University policies which racially discriminate against the Chinese for being over-represented. If this trade/economic war is going to keep heating up, we might as well try to steal as many of their best and brightest as possible.
  - Retric 9y ago
    I do think we get their best and brightest. Gaming credentials is an art form in China and can't be taken at face value.
    - Consultant32452 9y ago
      East Asians have some of the best outcomes of any demographic: higher income, more educated, lower criminality, lower divorce rate, etc. In a country that is arguably designed to maximally benefit whites, they are beating white people at basically everything. This goes far beyond gaming credentials, it's real world outcomes. We could stand to lower our bar with them a little and still get ahead.
      - 9y ago

DoreenMichele 9y ago

This works as long as he doesn't get fired twice in front of the same customer.

AdmiralAsshat 9y ago
We gave him a second chance and he ruined the customer's merchandise again!?! Fire him for good, this time!
squiggleblaz 9y ago
The point is to discourage the customer from complaining because of the harsh treatment the customer will receive. Therefore yes, if it comes to that, it has failed.
- Moru 9y ago
  Some people complain just so they can watch the boss chew out some employee. That's satisfaction for being badly treated/buying something that was faulty.
  - DoreenMichele 9y ago
    It's also satisfaction because you failed to get laid, you are going through a divorce, your own job is a shit experience or your life otherwise sucks in some fashion and you are the kind of asshole who enjoys taking your crap out on other people.
peterburkimsher 9y ago
What if you want to fire him for real?

sametmax 9y ago

That's the beginning of the excellent book "au bonheur des ogres", where you learn that the hero's karma is to be a scapegoat. It's his job. It's his relationships. Also when a bomb explodes, of course, all evidences point toward him even though is the very definition of innocence. Wonderful work from the great Daniel Pennac, which can stand on it's own, but has follow up tomes that are just as nice. And I just looked it up, it's been translated to english. The title, is, well, "The scapegoat".

chepaslaaa 9y ago
Daniel Pennac certainly stands among the many great french writers.
mlok 9y ago
I loved the book, and that part has stuck through the years. (amongst other remarkable parts of this book) Now I wonder if Pennac had heard about this story and if he was inspired by it. It always made me think of L'Arrache-Coeur by Boris Vian, where we can find "La Gloïre", this old man whose job was to literally swallow the shame of everybody else.

wolfspider 9y ago

Yes, while working a telemarketing job for quick cash secretly I encountered just this sort of thing. I had spent all of my graduation gift money meant for my first apartment right after high school and had to take a night shift somewhere. I found this telemarketing place and they had a dead simple test they used for prospective hires. My friends told me they would hire anyone no matter what. Surprisingly, someone failed the test and left angrily. Later I found out that they hired someone specifically to stage this event night after night. The reason was because if a group of people witnesses somebody fail it makes them feel they need to hold onto the opportunity. I saw this work time and time again- every single person who showed up for the job took that job and didn't question it. They also did this because they cashed every last check of every employee that left and there were a lot of those. It was grueling and I would even leave on a bike and ride through the woods to get there just so my family wouldn't notice. Made my money back and then some then quit all in time for college. You see, I learned that fake employees are just a part of growing up and growing wiser.

jacobush 9y ago
And you made your money back! You really took responsibility for your mistakes. Great Scott I need to get my act together. :)
jstanley 9y ago
Sorry if this should be obvious, I've read it 3 times and still don't understand this bit: > They also did this because they cashed every last check of every employee that left and there were a lot of those. "They also did this" - Who also did what? The candidates accepted the job? The company hired the fake guy to get sacked? And who cashed whose checks? Did they cash them before or after they left? And why does that mean the first set of people did the first thing?
- PMan74 9y ago
  This is also confusing. > Made my money back and then some Made what money back? My guess is that this is some sort of a shady company where 1. Employees pay something for e.g. training ("check of every employee") 2. Employees make it back over time on commission 3. If an employee quits early the employee's check is cashed by the company. ("they cashed every last check of every employee that left") A guess however, difficult to understand what is doing on.

discoursism 9y ago

No less an authority than Danny Baker . . . the comedy writer, born in '57? Or else who? How would he know about this?

exelius 9y ago
I think that’s the authors way of saying the story is unverifiable in any way.

potta_coffee 9y ago

Sometimes it feels like I also have this job. Except for some reason, my employers only sack me once, and for real.

bradknowles 9y ago

Isn't that kind of what a Chief Compliance Officer is there for? So that if something goes so badly wrong that the CEO would otherwise be the one put in jail, in this case the CCO goes instead?

SteveGerencser 9y ago

Many years ago I delivered pizza while in college. When it was time to move on my manager and I decided to have some fun. For the last three days I was there I delivered to every terrible customer we had, then had a little fun at their expense. Like the guy that routinely refused to tip a single penny and said 10 pennies make a dime. I handed him a dime and told him now he didn't have to wait for 9 more pizzas. It was terrible, but fun at the same time. Every call back to the store was greeted with an "Oh that's terrible", "we've had a few other complaints about him" and "I promise he won't be here tomorrow".

ajeet_dhaliwal 9y ago
Every employee who has given their notice should be used for this purpose!
jstanley 9y ago
I understand that it's a bit impolite not to tip, but surely it's much more impolite to hold a grudge against someone for not tipping. If you want more money, put your prices up.
- wccrawford 9y ago
  I think there's a difference between not-tipping and telling the employee you're not going to tip them, especially by some stupid "10 pennies make a dime!" saying, as if the employee wasn't smart enough to know that or save money.
  - jstanley 9y ago
    My reading was that that only came up after the employee explicitly asked for a tip. Otherwise how has he refused to tip "even a single penny"? He's merely failed to do so.
    - psychometry 9y ago
      It's a figure of speech. Don't be so obtuse.

ars 9y ago

Is there some reason this worker can't actually also work? Presumably in the backroom, where customers will never see him.

godelski 9y ago

Ticketmaster the employee There's actually a good Freakanomics episode on this[1]. How tickets are undervalued and part of Ticketmaster's value is that they take blame for the high prices. [1] http://freakonomics.com/podcast/live-event-ticket-market-screwed/ http://freakonomics.com/podcast/live-event-ticket-market-scr...

cornholio 9y ago
Thank you, this led me to an excelent piece of research by one of the economists invited, Eric Budish, on market design and how current continuous trade architectures of most financial markets strongly favor the negative aspects of HFT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvNJID_7iHI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvNJID_7iHI
KozmoNau7 9y ago
There are a lot of assumptions in that piece, especially regarding the motives of artists and the fan/idol relationship. It is absolutely not a normal type market, and it shouldn't be treated like one. The way forward is not to inflate ticket prices, ensuring only the richest fans can afford to go to concerts, and screwing over the ordinary people. The way forward is to make it illegal to resell tickets at higher than face value. That was implemented some years ago here, and scalping is a minor issue now. Fans are generally very good at self-policing and reporting price-gouging scalpers. Ticket prices did increase slightly over time, but certainly not on the level of $50 becoming $500, as posited in the article. They do touch on that, but I don't think the solution is to completely stop resale. Just limit it to face value or less. If artists were only interested in short-term profit, they would jack up the prices and only sell to their richest fans. But most of them look at the long perspective, the fact that there's a lot more to be gained in the long run by having a loyal fanbase that doesn't feel exploited. For the fans who were complaining that they couldn't get tickets for low-seating high-interest events, well that's just too bad. You had the same chance as everyone else. I've sat in ticket queues (offline and online), I've furiously refreshed ticket pages for events with room for less than 100 people just to be sure to get a ticket, 5+ months in advance. I really like the system we have here, where a big wallet is not some kind of guarantee that you'll get a ticket. If events get sold out, the onus is on the organizers and artists to either book additional shows, or come back again in 6 months or a year, possibly at a bigger venue. If someone is a true fan, they'll be bummed about missing out, but also adamant to not miss out next time. And they certainly don't fly across the Atlantic for a Broadway show without having somehow secured a ticket beforehand. That's just silly.

vortico 9y ago

Why don't they have a normal employee play the "be fired" role? Unless he gets fired 8 times a day, I don't see why he's idle...

megablast 9y ago
It is a bit embarrassing when they keep shopping and see the guy that was fired working in the store, or see them the next day or the next week. They might just catch on.
- vortico 9y ago
  Ah, I was imagining a sales warehouse, where the customers typically only talk to the sales employees by phone.

banned1 9y ago

I worked at a startup where we had a floor of empty offices. We sometimes would paid people to walk around the office floor and sit in offices when major customers wanted to come and visit. When the customer was in the boss' office discussing the deal, one of the "employees" would always stick his head in the office and say "Hey, I needed to ask you a question. Should I come back?" and the boss would be like "yeah, why don't you come back in an hour after I am done with John here."

oaiey 9y ago

Does anyone remember P.L.E.A.S.E.

mcphage 9y ago
I do! Provide Legal Exculpation And Sign Everything

racl101 9y ago

Now that's funny.

jtwaleson 9y ago

From the title I expected a procedure to test if management & HR will act on unacceptable behavior. The story makes more sense, but could still be a good idea, seeing as how many underperformers and bad apples there are in some companies.

m1sta_ 9y ago

I thought this might be about a company testing whether it was any good at getting rid of bad employees.

golergka 9y ago

I'm pretty sure I saw Friends episode with almost exactly the same premise.

jaclaz 9y ago
Yep: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0583611/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0583611/ "In order for her kitchen staff to acknowledge her authority, Monica hires Joey so she can fire him in front of them."

seekler 9y ago

This job exists today and it is called CISO (Chief Information Security Officer) or other variants :D

gaius 9y ago
You need to be highly qualified for that job
- royroyroys 9y ago
  OP is jokingly referring to the FB/Cambridge Analytica scandal
  - gaius 9y ago
    Or Equifax
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
philbarr 9y ago
Full Stack DevOps Blockchain-enabled Machine Learning Data Scientist Engineer

bryanrasmussen 9y ago

what happens the next time lady ponsonby waffles has a complaint?

VLM 9y ago
That's why in the real world you fake fire the next guy going to lunch, so his reward for being yelled at a bit and fired was an extra long lunch hour. Also when I worked retail back when high school kids held the minimum wage jobs, annual retail turnover often exceeded 100%, so if lady waffles is having multiple problems in a couple months, your store has a problem far beyond angry waffles. The American version at the store I worked at both as a labor drone and eventually as a night shift manager while in school, was to send coworkers to the office to be yelled at. The store was urban and near the bar district so at night, customers were generally drunk and guilty until proven innocent. Drunk people usually don't want to draw attention to themselves, mostly, so we had few complaints. Its a mid to high skilled workplace thing to assume employees are yelled at. For manual labor work, the cost of replacement, either of the job or the employee, is very low, and most firing offenses had legal involvement (stealing cash or product from the store, for example) so discipline never went much beyond asking someone "WTF?".

clueless123 9y ago

If I made a penny for every time I accepted blame for a managers dumb mess-up..... (As an over paid IT contractor) Oh! now that I think about it.. guess who always gets called back by those managers for new projects! :)

dmckeon 9y ago

Sounds a bit like: "Send this jerk the bedbug letter!" https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-bedbug-letter/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-bedbug-letter/