25 ms·

Fired comedian ordered to get day job back after jokes ruled 'simply funny'

• cassianoleal 3y ago
  > He was frustrated that, when he was first fired, people thought it was an obvious conclusion for telling jokes while having a day job. > “Like, ‘What do you mean? You’re off hours, you’re having fun with, like, creative expression, of course you should get fired for that,’ ” he said. “But I hate that that’s become normal. And I want to be an example of like, no, your employer doesn’t own you.” This is a terrifying state of affairs. Similar to the whole "all code you write, on or off hours, belongs to us" some tech companies try to pull.
  • diggan 3y ago
    > This is a terrifying state of affairs. Similar to the whole "all code you write, on or off hours, belongs to us" some tech companies try to pull. Just like Tesla was recently caught having their employees in Sweden sign contracts like that, including terms that prohibited employees from talking about anything going on at Tesla, even after the left the company, for life... > Among other things, employees agree to never, ever tell anyone anything about the company. Employees also have to pay a fine if they quit Tesla and take a competing job within six months. https://www.expressen.se/nyheter/sverige/tystnadsplikt-livet-ut-for-svenska-tesla-anstallda/ https://www.expressen.se/nyheter/sverige/tystnadsplikt-livet... Seems like it's a US tactic that now is trying to be spread into other parts of the world. Terrifying indeed.
    • wutwutwat 3y ago
      > prohibited employees from talking about anything going on at Tesla, even after the left the company, for life... Good luck monitoring that enforcing that Also, pretty sure that goes against the 1st amendment and if memory serves right, no contract can change people’s federal rights or change any laws Edit: had a derp moment and totally commented without remembering the “Sweden” key word here. Ignore me, I’m wrong for many reasons
      • diggan 3y ago
        > Tesla was recently caught having their employees in Sweden sign contracts like that >> pretty sure that goes against the 1st amendment Pretty sure the 1st amendment you're talking about doesn't apply in Sweden :)
        • wutwutwat 3y ago
          I read Sweden yet somehow it didn’t register at all when thinking about my reply. Derp.
      • kolanos 3y ago
        The first amendment restricts the government, not the people. If the people want to enter into such an arrangement, that is their right. This is just an NDA without an end.
        • sandworm101 3y ago
          >> NDA without an end There are some legal limits on this. Things like the rule against perpetuities limit any sort of forever construct. The interesting question is whether someone bound by such a contact in life can perhaps speak after death: A book written privately in life but published publicly after death. That might be a case where general legal principals would win out over a corporate NDA.
      • wharvle 3y ago
        > Also, pretty sure that goes against the 1st amendment and if memory serves right, no contract can change people’s federal rights or change any laws The contract does not attempt to modify the protection of your free speech rights from government interference, so no. (“But a government apparatus would enforce the contract, and corporations are chartered by the government, and anyway what good is a system that protects rights from the government if lots of people end up losing them to powerful organizations anyway?” Yes, yep, mmm-hmm. Welcome to left-libertarianism.) (And, as the other poster noted, this is Sweden anyway, so the US constitution and bill of rights is irrelevant anyway)
      • 3y ago
  • shadowgovt 3y ago
    But look at it from the organization's side. WHYY will lose listener-ship over his standup, whether or not that's fair. They'll be held accountable to the actions of the people they employ, whether or not that's fair. Take the ability to control who they associate with out of the hands of a media company and you doom them to being burned by the court of public opinion. Reputation is all a news outlet has. (It is, perhaps, worth noting that the arbiter didn't disagree with this line of reasoning. Return to employment was conditional on Jad deleting the offending material, so he's not to the place he wants to be regarding the eating of his cake and the having of his cake. It may still be the case that his two desired activities are incompatible with each other).
    • rmbyrro 3y ago
      I think they'll gain more audience now - through this reinstated reporter - than they out to lose. They'll lose close minded people and gain a lot of open minded ones. The open minded tend to have a healthier mental state, have higher income, and attract more ad revenue. And I don't think it's likely that the firing was motivated by the fear of bad financial results, but ideologically driven.
      • ithkuil 3y ago
        But to make that work out they first had to fire him! 4d chess ...
        • rmbyrro 3y ago
          It was all planned!
      • shadowgovt 3y ago
        This is WHYY we're talking about, not a small-time small-town public media station. They already have all the listeners of that category that they're going to have.
        • neon_electro 3y ago
  • ghaff 3y ago
    The two cases seem pretty dissimilar. One is primarily companies not wanting to take any risk that IP could walk out the door through off hours work. The other is that for sufficiently visible and controversial off hours activities, it’s hard to divorce the person 100% from their employer and that’s a PR problem and a distraction many employers are quick to remedy. When I was an industry analyst, anything I said related to the industry even on a personal blog or Twitter account was (somewhat reasonably) taken as my professional opinion not really separable from what I wrote as part of my job.
    • janalsncm 3y ago
      > sufficiently visible and controversial off hours activities The point is that it doesn’t have to be controversial at all. They can fire you for whatever reason they want. He didn’t cross any lines because there was never any line to begin with. His healthcare is at the mercy of a dictatorship.
    • loup-vaillant 3y ago
      Both cases seem to be mostly a US thing. Here in France, whatever I do outside my job is my own business: I write code on my own time, it's mine. I publish articles on my web site, they do not represent my company. I've heard a story about someone from Europe travelling to the US to work for IBM. He was in the process of choosing a house, and was told that it was too modest. That is, "not the kind of house expected of an IBM engineer". Clearly in the US the line between your job and personal life is so blurry it's often hard to even see. From my perspective this looks like a problem in and of itself, but it gets magnified tenfold when coupled with "at will" employment and work-tied health insurance: it means your employer owns you, 24/7. Isn't slavery supposed to be abolished? Then there are the obvious Free Speech implications. The US has supposedly freer speech than Europe, but how free is your speech really is if your employer can fire you and terminate your health insurance the instant your boss stumbles upon something you said he didn't like?
      • beardedwizard 3y ago
        > That is, "not the kind of house expected of an IBM engineer". Clearly in the US the line between your job and personal life is so blurry it's often hard to even see. Hmm really? Citation needed.
• rswerve 3y ago
  The arbitrator sounds like a really decent dude.
  • shadowgovt 3y ago
    The advantage and disadvantage of arbitration is that both sides appeal to the reasonableness of an individual, instead of twelve individuals and a judge.
• dvngnt_ 3y ago
  the key point is without the union he would have had no recourse
  • gosub100 3y ago
    [flagged]
    • itsdrewmiller 3y ago
      It only failed because he had a right to arbitration under his collective bargaining agreement, as well as I assume a "just cause" termination standard. He would not win a wrongful termination lawsuit for this in his state.
    • dbingham 3y ago
      It only failed because he had protection of the union. Also, both liberals and conservatives have aggressively attempted to get people fired for political views.
      • skrebbel 3y ago
        I recognize that in the context of threads like these "liberal" just means "Democrat" but as a non-American, it still reads funny to me. I mean you can't properly call yourself a liberal by any textbook definition of liberalism and be in ok with firing people for their political views. This is the kind of stuff ACLU fights against, right? It's a bit like saying "socialists have aggressively attempted to take away people's unemployment benefits".
        • vinay427 3y ago
          > I mean you can't properly call yourself a liberal by any textbook definition of liberalism and be in ok with firing people for their political views. Isn't this usage (not being okay with firing people arbitrarily) more compatible with the US/North American sense of 'liberal' than the modern non-Anglo European sense of 'liberal'? Specifically, the emphasis on individual liberties over government regulation, which the US sense of 'liberal' eschewed while keeping the social liberalism dimension. 'Liberal' parties at least in German-speaking countries tend to be very approximately (European) center-right, for instance.
• throwawaaarrgh 3y ago
  [flagged]
  • unsupp0rted 3y ago
    I downvote almost all humor here, unlike Reddit where I go out of my way to upvote even unfunny but worthwhile attempts. HN is a high-effort place, relatively speaking. The trick with humor in a comments section is that it’s almost always low effort. > lol I misread the post title as being about boobs > lol I bet his mouth wasn’t the only place they found one > lol Russia > lol North Korea Comments like this are pervasive on Reddit. I’m glad on HN they’re not. When a joke on HN is clever or unique, then I upvote. This happens maybe 3 times a year.
  • progre 3y ago
    Humor is not banned and nor should it be. But maybe, to avoid confusion we could make humourus posts have a * or someting? And maybe humor can live in a separate section of the site so it doesn't mix with the other content. But if it still doesn't work I think we all know of a final solution for humor.
    • kbaker 3y ago
      Maybe we could have a different upvote system, like marking a post +1 Funny vs +1 Insightful. Then users could adjust their own personal scoring if they don't want to see humorous posts. Ahh, maybe too complicated. (/s)
  • ithkuil 3y ago
    The point is not that you should be able to ban humor in one place or another. The point is that you should be free to perform humor in another place and not have that bleed over in the place where it is banned and have repercussions there. It's the same reason why so many authors since time immemorial wrote pseudonymously
• lazyasciiart 3y ago
  If I am interpreting the article correctly, the arbitrator found that the videos did fail to meet the social media policy, but the company didn’t follow due process in firing him? I wonder if they are allowed to keep the videos listed as a warning or something in his personnel record. Hopefully there is a silver lining, where he (and other radio people) has learned that he manages his portfolio, and needs to have his own copies of any work clips he wants to use!
  • dylan604 3y ago
    If he was to attempt to use NPR on his resume and then provide samples of his work there, there's no way to verify/validate them. They removed all of his work. So even if he kept copies of the work in his self-managed portfolio, there's no proof it was ever actually accepted/published.
    • lazyasciiart 3y ago
      I expect that references to his work exist elsewhere, and NPR is still going to acknowledge a request to know if he worked there, or if a particular piece of work was played by them. You do not need your work to remain publicly available online for people to accept that it was performed.
• willcipriano 3y ago
  what is > misogynistic information stuff like "the vast majority of workplace deaths are men" and "women in fact aren't the primary victims of war"?
  • moduspol 3y ago
    ! Who is your employer?!
  • ithkuil 3y ago
    I think we all have to find a better way to distinguish the things that are being said from the message that you want to convey. As long as we keep reacting to the thing being said immediately giving for granted that the other person actually wanted to say something else (even when that's true) we fall in that trap and communication is impossible. It would be much more productive to just defuse all those superficial shibboleth traps and just agree on the obvious superficial facts and encourage the interlocutor to actually get to the bottom of their argument and spell it out what they actually want to say. "Do you want to say that women are playing the victim too much because men are dying more on the workplace? Do you want women to get back in the kitchen as they used to be? Then, just say it". If they're not saying that, who cares if they are "dog whistling" those ideas. The dog whistle works only if we all allow it to work by feeding the trolls.
    • willcipriano 3y ago
      The argument that reality is misogynistic and thus information (IE. accurate observations of that reality) should not be uttered and those who sin in that way should be unemployed is misandry. Misinformation was one thing, they are complaining about regular old information now.
      • em-bee 3y ago
        the question is whether someone approves of that reality or criticizes it. i think it is reasonable to expect that certain realities (like racism) need to be criticized and not approved, and if you can't make that distinction clear then i can see that could be a problem.
• aestetix 3y ago
  > while the bits posted to social media could be interpreted as “inflammatory,” Did anyone actually find them inflammatory, or was the justification that "someone" "might" find them inflammatory? If some individual raised a complaint that's one thing, but sounds like a massive overreaction.
  • gotoeleven 3y ago
    [flagged]
    • aestetix 3y ago
      The distinction matters because it is the difference between random hypotheticals and real world events. To draw an analogy: should the TSA assume everyone might have a weapon and do a "special" search on every airline passenger, or wait until there is evidence that someone has a weapon (such as using an x-ray) and then escalate? I'm sure you could potentially find someone to be offended by even the most tame Dad joke, but that doesn't mean you should stop telling Dad jokes.
      • krsrhe 3y ago
        The term "dad joke" is already promoting a stereotype.
        • praptak 3y ago
          Is it a harmful stereotype though?
    • danmur 3y ago
      I remember having to rename all our branches but when I asked whether the term 'master data' should also be retired there were crickets. No that one's different
      • pydry 3y ago
        Microsoft pulled that branch bullshit to deflect from the flak it got for wanting to keep ICE as a customer from its employees. Ever since then Ive kind of considered renaming master to main to be a symbol not of one's sensitivity to "problematic language" but of trying to be "woke" while refusing to boycott concentration camps.
• mannykannot 3y ago
  To be clear, the arbitrator's decision is not based on whether or not the reporter's jokes were funny, but whether they were, to any significant extent, inflammatory (together with the fact that they were made in the performance in his side gig or hobby as a stand-up comedian.)
  • ttyprintk 3y ago
    This is important: you can’t troll and then hide behind comedy. The arbitrator applied a reasonable person standard to the audince and found an attempt at comedy. Not just some asshole trolling and then saying “I was only kidding, it’s your fault you couldn’t tell because you unreasonable people can’t recognize a joke”.
• unsupp0rted 3y ago
  There’s no penalty to employers for erring on the side of “just fire people for things they do on the weekend”. In fact, the employer still wins: > As part of the decision, Sleiman was to delete the nine videos cited. He was also asked to delete any “offensive post-discharge” posts where he disparaged the company for his firing.
  • pnt12 3y ago
    This is why firing without cause should never be accepted - the result is straight out of 1984 where people get scared about expressing their thoughts , as they can lose their jobs and health insurance for any reason. It's much safer to lay low and don't say anything too provokative, but that's a danger to a healthy democracy.
  • Sharlin 3y ago
    No penalty, of course, except in all the reasonable parts of the world where "fire-at-will" is not a legal thing.
• 8f2ab37a-ed6c 3y ago
  Or you can write an NPR Best Book of the Year bestseller in your spare time, and still get fired from Apple because your fictional writing "makes people feel unsafe". Sadly no reinstating there.
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  • leksak 3y ago
    What's the story there?
    • formerly_proven 3y ago
      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_García_Martínez_(author) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_García_Martínez_(aut...
    • quesera 3y ago
      A decent summary: https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/12/22432909/apple-petition-hiring-antonio-garcia-martinez-chaos-monkeys-facebook https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/12/22432909/apple-petition-h... If it's an autobiography, I can see how he'd be difficult to work with. The problem with people who think they are writing in Hunter Thompson / Gonzo Journalism mode, is that most of them are bad at it, and none of them are Hunter Thompson. Hunter Thompson never sought out a straight job.
    • hasmolo 3y ago
      to make it really clear: a leader wrote a book esposing ideals that were dated and frankly ‘designed to upset’ to quote: “” soft and weak, cosseted and naive despite their claims of worldliness, and generally full of shit. “” if you had a boss that calimed all people that looked like you were shit, how would you feel reporting to them?
• mellosouls 3y ago
  Sleiman...argued in arbitration his stand-up routines stem from his experiences as an Arab American raised in a Muslim family... Probably a wise strategy - and a useful background to have when fighting the sort of people who sack others for jokes on contentious subjects.
• gadders 3y ago
  [flagged]
• jvanderbot 3y ago
  I recommend reading the article. It's funny in a very intentionally ironically dry way > The arbitrator was not a fan across the board. They found that one joke was “insightful, principled and serious, but not very funny.” Sleiman said he was disappointed by this review.
  • wharvle 3y ago
    That’s making it into a bit, for sure. Or on a promotional poster: “Not very funny. — Arbitrator [name]”
    • mannykannot 3y ago
      I suppose he could now promote his act as SFW.
      • figassis 3y ago
        Only comedian on the planet that has certified SFW content.
  • Rebelgecko 3y ago
    The paperwork (here: https://indigo-sula-41.tiiny.site/ https://indigo-sula-41.tiiny.site/) includes transcripts of the jokes and more context. My favorite part is probably when the arbiter explains how "the use of the word “fuckable” when applied to elderly women approaching their grave can be interpreted as mildly inflammatory"
    • washadjeffmad 3y ago
      Link is dead. Did you happen to save a copy?
      • onoyoudont 3y ago
        Even the snapshots at archive.org are blank I hope someone here has a valid link...
• asylteltine 3y ago
  [flagged]
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  • prpl 3y ago
    not sure if you are missing a /s or not, or even read the article
    • asylteltine 3y ago
      Which part of my comment is factually incorrect?
      • swells34 3y ago
        The question you asked was answered by the article. By asking it, you signal that you have not read the article, else you would know the answer to your question. Please RTFA.
      • deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      • profsummergig 3y ago
        I'm genuinely interested in learning about how you concluded that he "hates Israel". I didn't see that in the article. Please elaborate. (And no, I don't "hate Israel" because I asked this question.)
        • profsummergig 3y ago
          continued... If anything, I saw a good use of humor in his reference to Israel. From the article (I haven't watched any of his material), I got the impression that he actually likes/respects Israel (as do I).
  • Zak 3y ago
• Magi604 3y ago
  An old co-worker of mine used to do "racy" pinup photos on the side under his own name. He was told to remove it by our employer (didn't fit our company image) which he complied. If he had used a different name or a pen name for his photography, he probably would have continued doing it. I guess you can't really do that with standup comedy since your face and voice are clearly visible and audible.
  • codetrotter 3y ago
    > If he had used a different name or a pen name for his photography, he probably would have continued doing it. I mean. Maybe he did, and he wisened up this time and didn't tell anyone about it after he picked a new name to continue doing it under.
  • chongli 3y ago
    You can do comedy under different faces and voices. Put on a mask or clown makeup and make wacky voices. Some voice actors and impressionists are so good they can do completely different voices from their own. You’d never be able to tell!
    • hgomersall 3y ago
      I've seen one guy do two different routines, once dressed in ski gear (goggles and all), the other dressed as an iguana (if I recall correctly). I'm either case he was unrecognisable, though I suspect his voice was the same.
    • ben_w 3y ago
      Yes, Randy Feltface comes to mind, but that's an extra skill in addition to needing to be good at comedy.
    • alamortsubite 3y ago
      See also Murray Langston, who kept his identity a secret for a long time on the Gong Show as The Unknown Comic. He was a hit, too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unknown_Comic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unknown_Comic
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• sparrish 3y ago
  [flagged]
  • piva00 3y ago
    Depends on what kind of freedom you are talking about, is it "freedom of" or "freedom from"?
    • boringuser2 3y ago
      How about the basic freedom of and from not having your life arbitrarily ruined by a company that has very specific incentives that often involve the destruction of the environment, social health, individual health, the economy, etc. We've already put a straightjacket on corporations because everybody has accepted that their incentives lead them to cause untold damage when unleashed. Simply allowing them to harm individuals is the worst kind of "compromise".
      • piva00 3y ago
        I'm totally with you, I do want freedom from corporations deciding to disrupt lives as powerless employees simply because they don't want to hurt shareholders after taking bad decisions (usually without input from said employees). I'm absolutely against this phase of neoliberal capitalism (nothing new nor liberal) shoving down our throats that finance knows best and markets should control every economic interaction in society.
  • iamflimflam1 3y ago
    Ok, so you leave your current job, work for a couple of years fulfilling your side of the contract and then - on a whim - maybe: They don't like your political views? The color of your hair? The way you walk? Or they want to hire one of their relatives/friends They fire you. That's completely fine in your world?
    • Zpalmtree 3y ago
      yes
• RcouF1uZ4gsC 3y ago
  I wish work would become more professionalized and focused more on behavior while at work. I want it so one person could go to a pro-Israel rally and the other person to a pro-Palestinian rally and then come in to work and work side by side on a project with the utmost professionalism. We need neutral zones in society otherwise our society will tear itself apart, as each side aims for a complete suppression of the other side.
  • plussed_reader 3y ago
    How can you be neutral with someone who repeatedly demonstrates via voting they would prefer a world where some of your loved ones, friends, and acquaintances live a diminished life for simply being? How do you try to weave a social fabric with that?
    • wtcactus 3y ago
      What is interesting about this comment, is that - unlike what is clearly the poster intent - it can be equally applied to Democrats or Republicans. That's the real problem we are facing. Too many people believing they represent the "morally correct" side due to the impact of social networks.
      • colinmorelli 3y ago
        I might argue that the real problem we're facing is we continue to perpetuate the idea that the totality of issues facing a nation of 330 million people can be lumped into "republican" or "democrat" and this binary view of the world invariably fosters extremism. If you eliminate terms like "medicare for all" or "socialized medicine" and just ask people if they believe someone's access to care should be limited based on their financial situation, most people would say no. We often agree on the crux of the issue, but disagree on the mechanics of how to get there. But when we try to force people into binary solutions it's either "the people for socialized medicine" or "the people against socialized medicine" and that's a guaranteed downward spiral.
        • 3y ago
• honeybadger1 3y ago
  It's amazing to me that people are 'for' employers controlling every aspect of their lives.
  • avalys 3y ago
    Give me a break. This guy is a reporter, so his public persona is an integral part of his job. And not "every aspect", only aspects in which he's performing in public.
    • boringuser2 3y ago
      His opinions as a private citizen do not in any way reflect on the quality or content of his work as a reporter, which his employer took 0 issue with prior to learning about his personal life. There's a pretty easy correlate for this to understand why it's bad: Let's say a company discovers that you are gay, and fires you based on some sort of "morality" clause. Cool? Why not? From many common perspectives globally, being gay is far more morally incorrect than making a joke about "wokeness". Many organized religious and even non-religious worldviews have strict strictures against being a homosexual, all over the world. Conversely, the morality that someone shouldn't say anything at any time ever that isn't completely neutral is siloed to a small band of weirdos.
      • NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
        A salient detail that seems to be overlooked by most in this thread is that this putative comedian was making direct and personal references to coworkers and/or authorities working for his self-same employer. So not only was he making bigoted and tasteless jokes, but some of them were revealing private business that should've been kept as internal matters. He betrayed the trust and confidentiality of his employer and his coworkers. That in itself is reprehensible, racism or not. Certainly, any employer who takes action against that sort of betrayal can be justified.
        • boringuser2 3y ago
• ITB 3y ago
  There’s two sides to freedom. Freedom of individuals to express themselves, and freedom of companies, which are also made of individuals, to want to work with each other. I personally think all employment should be truly at will on both sides.
  • ITB 3y ago
    My personal opinion is that it’s fine for an employee of my company to do comedy on the side, by the way. So it’s not about this case. It’s the principle that I’m highlighting
    • aspenmayer 3y ago
      How do you feel about employers willingly entering into a union contract with an employee?
  • boringuser2 3y ago
    Companies aren't people my friend. Someone isn't fired via democratic fiat of the entire "company" organism.
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  • icehawk 3y ago
    They company had the freedom to enter into a contract that restricted their ability to fire employees, and they did so.
  • swells34 3y ago
    That freedom exists. Anyone who didn't want to work with this person was free to quit at any time. We use a bit of asymmetrical freedom here in the US; we don't FORCE anyone to stay, but we don't allow you to bar people from being present without a good reason. And in general, "at will" employment is the norm and this is a special case; it's only when a company shows that it is incapable of being reasonable when stuff like this happens. They forfeited the control over their employment by being irresponsible, by being incredibly unprofessional, by holding employees to personal standards outside of professional bounds. They stopped acting like an employer, so they lost the benefits that come with that status.
• aaron695 3y ago
  [dead]
• pxc 3y ago
  > “They cut off my health insurance same day, despite the fact that they know I have multiple sclerosis and rely on very expensive drugs to walk,” Sleiman told Motherboard on Wednesday. “They also went and deleted all my work from the site, every single possible clip I could try to use to get a job.” Sounds straightforwardly punitive and cruel behavior to me, not just cowardly, overzealous CYA stuff.
  • subarctic 3y ago
    It's so weird how in the US, health insurance is tied to your job, so if you lose your job you lose access to health care.
    • bjornsing 3y ago
      Didn’t Obamacare fix that?
      • db48x 3y ago
        No, because health insurance has always been available to individuals (and families). We've never needed to go through our employers to get it. But back before WWII health insurance was pretty much not used at all; health care was so cheap that it cost less than food or clothes. During WWII Congress passed laws that fixed the price of goods, services, and wages. This started to lead to shortages. Combined with the draft, many industries were competing over fewer and fewer employees, but legally they could not raise wages. Instead they started offering perks such as tips from the customers or “free” health insurance. Even companies that don’t offer free insurance usually split the cost with their employees, and often they do get a slightly lower rate because all their employees are shopping from the same company. And it’s not like you can raise your salary by negotiating out of the insurance; the employer likely pays the same amount to the insurance company regardless. The insurance lowers our salaries no matter what we do; might as well take it. Gradually these perks started to become as important of a consideration as the salary itself. Unfortunately health insurance is easily misused. We started relying on it to pay for all health care, rather than to actually mitigate the risk of a sudden medical bill. The result has been a rapid and continual increase in the price of health care over the last 70–80 years caused directly by the fact that nobody pays for the services they use, but instead pays into insurance plans that then pay for the care. In fact, I think this guy overstated the risk to his health. If you get fired you don’t actually lose your insurance. You sign up for continuation of coverage from COBRA, taking over payments for the insurance from your employer, and then purchase an individual or family insurance plan of your own before COBRA runs out. Or get hired somewhere else and sign on to one of their insurance plans. Either way you’ve lost nothing, at least in terms of health care.
• scrps 3y ago
  My personal policy at work is a super strict seperation, I simply share as little as possible, standard small talk but I keep it extremely generic. Say too little people get curious, say too much people draw conclusions or feel the emergence of a relationship. Be just uninteresting enough to be overlooked in social contexts. Not sure it would have helped in his case as both his job and hobby are public. But it has kept drama at bay in my case and has served me well but ymmv.
  • trinsic2 3y ago
    What a sad world we live in...
    • Gigachad 3y ago
      That’s the world they live in. Personally I’m fine to share basically everything with coworkers. Australia has much better legal protections for workers though.
      • School-Cotton 3y ago
        I live in the US and I have normal social interactions with my coworkers, not really trying to hide my real personality. That poster is exaggerating the danger, IMO.
        • lacrimacida 3y ago
          It depends on what you need to hide. I’m an introvert and not a neurotypical and struggle wearing a mask at work for extended periods of time. I’ve adapted to display what is expected of me in those settings but it’s tiring to not be able to be onself…
      • LouisSayers 3y ago
        Not just that but totally different culture. I also find that lunch and coffee are great ice breakers - otherwise an office can feel quite sterile and disconnected.
• trinsic2 3y ago
  Whats the point of going back if he has to delete his social media posts. If a company can silence who you are when you are not a work, you loose, even if you win.
  • AussieWog93 3y ago
    It means he can now get health insurance again, which means access to Multiple Sclerosis drugs he requires to walk. He is also able to afford rent and food.
    • actionfromafar 3y ago
      It’s the American Dream!
    • ttyprintk 3y ago
      He is a veteran, so if he was deployed then it’s probable that anything insurance covered would continue under the VA.
  • michaelt 3y ago
    Going back sounds like a bad idea, but it also sounds like a potential comedy-and-social-commentary goldmine. I mean, you've got social commentary about "the court said this was a solution, let's see how it goes" and "everyone says getting the courts to order your employer to give you your job back is a pyrrhic victory, but what happens when you do it?" and you've got the cringe angle of the awkward interactions with HR and the bosses who fired you, and the justice porn angle of bullying a bad employer. Plus if he decides he doesn't want the job any more, he can always put the posts back up and see what happens.
    • op00to 3y ago
      Why? As long as you work to the book, you are essentially untouchable for non-cause reasons. They’re not gonna fuck with him again.
      • 3y ago
• krsrhe 3y ago
  [dead]
• urbandw311er 3y ago
  Well done him for not taking it lying down. But what happens now? Won’t he just hate his job because he’s working in a place where he has made himself deeply unpopular? I’m intrigued how the situation is ordinarily resolved. Does he tough it out? Do the managers get fired? Does the company settle privately to make it all go away?
  • hutzlibu 3y ago
    Well his response to this: "They tried their best. They called me every name in the book. They cut off my health insurance. They deleted all of my fucking stories, which like, what the fuck? And then they still lost. People keep asking, ‘Is it going to be weird going back?’ I’m like, yeah, for them.”" I rather think it will be super weird for everyone. Also the original joke, that was likely the one triggering the firing, was about his workplace: “I work at one of these places that’s so woke it’s kinda racist,” the joke reads in part. “Like this lady asked my boss, she’s like ‘Yo, does Jad consider himself a person of color?’ because she was making a list of us. Fucking hell? Sick, alright. I get to be in this lady’s brown dude Pokédex.”
    • Shorel 3y ago
      Someone needs to take a stand, so not all work places end up being so woke they are racist. Bring back common sense.
      • ben_w 3y ago
        "Common sense" is how this mess, and the preceding messes that made people want this particular mess, happened in the first place. Aim for uncommon sense instead.
        • pnt12 3y ago
          That will be uncommon.
      • Dalewyn 3y ago
        It truly is impressive that we went from Martin Luther King to a world where a term like "person of color" is not racist. Incidentally, if anyone dares to call me that (I'm Japanese), I sincerely will not consider him a man of good character.
• imadierich 3y ago
  [dead]
• op00to 3y ago
  Oh man: will it be awkward going back to work after all that bullshit? Comedian: yeah for them Made me laugh out loud. Wish I had that kind of confidence!
  • sph 3y ago
    Limmy has a sketch about a comedian going back to a real job: https://youtu.be/nSSV2SY3iu4?si=h0mANwVpxim2aMgh https://youtu.be/nSSV2SY3iu4?si=h0mANwVpxim2aMgh Of course, tinged with his Scottish brand of existential dread.
    • swozey 3y ago
      For the probably 95% of us who don't know Scottish comedy I've surmised by painfully watching this for the last 5 minutes that Limmy is evidently some popular Scottish comedian. Knowing this will help you get the "joke" that lasts about 1:30min too long where you (you being a non-Scot) has no idea what the 2nd character is attempting to say until about 2 minutes in where the joke is then dragged out for a painfully long-feeling amount of time when it's only 3 minutes. I get the joke but that execution was .. awful. Must be a Scotch delicacy sort of thing and I'm just not used to the flavor. No American would stand there for 2 minutes asking the same person "Where's the printer?" over and over again. It might've been funny if he walked around the office asking other "Limmys" where the printer was and got all sorts of different reactions from them, but he half-assed it and made it a tiresome joke by sticking with that one tiring interaction.
      • idk1 3y ago
        It had the opposite effect on me, the repetition was like joke compound interest getting funnier the more it was drawn out, and on a 2nd layer also it's sort of meta-funny because he's getting away with sticking with it too. Also I think the joke is Scottish agnostic, it would have worked for me in an accent, if I'd have seen an American doing it, and insisting to stick with it, it would still be funny. Wouldn't feel out of place on "I think you should leave right now".
      • prolapso 3y ago
• nemo44x 3y ago
  It’s one thing if it’s your own musings. But moonlighting as a comedian is completely different. A comedian is playing a character - it’s an act. They may or may not believe what they say and it doesn’t matter because the point is to get a laugh. It would be like firing a person because outside of work they act and played a particularly nasty character in some production.
  • ttyprintk 3y ago
    I wonder if things would be different if someone else posts these depictions on social media—-if the arbitrator saw that a comedy or acting routine was posted anonymously.
• seaourfreed 3y ago
  I thought that that only happens at union based Comedy clubs.
  • croon 3y ago
    > Pennsylvania is an at-will state, so they could have just fired me and that would have been the end of it. The fact that it’s a union shop is actually the whole reason I was able to fight back at all.
• wredue 3y ago
  >Couple that with ever widening definitions of racist, sexist, whatever and you have an atmosphere where you’re always at work, which is a place you can say less and less I don’t agree with a company firing you for having a side job, nor do I currently believe that this guys jokes are coming from an actual place of racism, but it’s pretty clear from the arbitrators statement that they’re one of “those” people. The definitions of racism and sexism are not expanding.
  • mschuster91 3y ago
    > The definitions of racism and sexism are not expanding. Half-agree. Society at large's tolerance for racism and sexism has gone way down, particularly among young people, which is what most "older" people experience as "expanding definitions" - the 1945-born generations for example grew up in a time where it was completely normal to openly discriminate against Black people [1] or women [2], so they see that change as a threat to how they grew up, they see the criticism from young people as a direct offense against them. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosa_Parks#Parks_arrest_and_bus_boycott https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosa_Parks#Parks_arrest_and_bu... [2] https://www.forbes.com/advisor/banking/when-could-women-open-a-bank-account/ https://www.forbes.com/advisor/banking/when-could-women-open...
    • wredue 3y ago
      Okay. But the tolerance of sexism and racism shrinking doesn’t “expand their definitions”, unless you’re a snowflake.
      • mschuster91 3y ago
        That depends on your point of view, that was my entire point. For your average 80 year old, in their experience the definitions have expanded because stuff that wasn't even considered racist, sexist or otherwise discriminatory back when they grew up can go as far as land you in prison these days (say, groping your secretary's butt when she comes by your desk).
  • stevehawk 3y ago
• bjourne 3y ago
  Where are all free speech absolutists hiding? Those who were up in arms over the firing of James Damore. What's the difference here I wonder...
  • r3trohack3r 3y ago
    If you lump everyone who checks a box into a group, and apply a bunch of labels to that group by default, you’re going to find it hard to see the diversity and nuance of people. It’s also a pretty unkind thing to do in general. As for whether this take is true, I’d check to see if FIRE already has this case on their radar. It’s my understanding that, as a free speech absolutionist organization, they frequently represent cases like these.
  • nkurz 3y ago
    I don't follow. Is your belief that "free speech absolutists" wouldn't support this reporter because he's a disabled union member Arab-American Marine veteran? Do you have any evidence for that? To my eye, the majority of the comments here side with the reporter, and quite possibly some of them are from "free speech absolutists". One would hardly qualify as an absolutist if one believed that freedom of speech depends on the the speaker. I'd guess that the majority of people here aren't absolutists, though, just people who understand that there are tradeoffs but still place a high value on freedom of speech.
• bentt 3y ago
  I want a job as a comedy arbitrator.
• jmkni 3y ago
  Aside from the article, that website is a nightmare on mobile with no Adblocker. It seems fine initially and the more you scroll the more you get bombarded with irrelevant ads and videos you can’t close.
• karaterobot 3y ago
  In situations like these, in which someone is nominally fired for how their behavior affects the reputation of the company, and then that firing itself rebounds—with either legal ramifications or "merely" bad press—I wonder why the person who ordered the firing never seems to get fired for the same offense. In this case, the justification for firing him was specifically for posting on social media, but surely the reason for that clause in the code of conduct could be applied to any reputationally damaging behavior on the part of managers, lawyers, or whomever was involved, regardless of where it took place. I mean, is posting on social media worse than getting taken to court and negatively covered by the press? Certainly a tricky situation, but it seems like a double standard sometimes.
  • notatoad 3y ago
    I'd guess that they probably do see the consequences, but we don't. The one thing that a company in this situation really doesn't want is more attention. So they make the problem go away as quietly as possible, and if they're going to fire anybody for it it happens months later.
    • karaterobot 3y ago
      That's the double standard I was referring to—they didn't fire the plaintiff in this case quietly, months later, and he was only accused (incorrectly) of damaging the company. They fired him immediately, visibly, punitively. But they'll possibly lay off the actual cause of their problems quietly, later. I suppose that, as you say, they are worried about adding fuel to the fire by firing the parties who were actually at fault. Personally, I doubt it would. What's most likely to happen is that they get it wrong in both cases: first, damaging their reputation by firing someone who didn't do anything, and then later not firing someone who did damage their reputation, thus damaging their public reputation (perhaps) and hurting their internal reputation and morale (one would assume).
      • alephnerd 3y ago
        > Personally, I doubt it would. It will. In this example, publicly firing the guy who ordered Sleiman's termination can be construed as "American firing Hamas Sympathizer fired and sympathizer reinstated" A culture war is a two way street. No reason to further fan the flames.
• bragr 3y ago
  Based on their quoted response at the bottom, I'll be striking all WHYY's podcasts off my donations list. Is it really that hard to eat some crow?
• tptacek 3y ago
  If you read the arbitration decision, it sounds a lot like the termination had not as much to do with the substance of the comedy routines, and more to do with Brad Laszewski, WHYY's VP of Admin Services (which is what WHYY calls HR), getting a bug up their ass about Jad Grievant getting to work from home. There's several pages of this guy going up and down the chain (including to the CEO) pointing out that Grievant had the temerity to do stand-up while on a WFH doctor's note for MS. In context, the complaints about the material itself seem pretty pretextual. Edit A frustrating detail here, just in the sense that it's petty turtles all the way down here: the arbitrator found that WHYY's social media policy, which prohibits "inflammatory" speech without qualification, was in fact binding and did provide WHYY with cause to terminate (the arbitrary was vocal about how stupid they felt this policy was). The reason Grievant got the reinstatement order was that WHYY's HR fucked up their own process and committed to the termination procedure without including Grievant's direct manager in that process. A pure technicality.
  • jacobolus 3y ago
    I wonder if there was some other personal conflict involved (maybe the Manager of Risk Management, Director of Facilities, or VP of Admin Services got hilariously teased by the comedian and found it publicly humiliating or something). Seems like too dramatic a grudge to be just based on ticking some procedural boxes. In any event, good work by the SAG AFTRA legal team, and it's nice to have the arbitrator overturn this kind of petty bullshit.
  • lacrimacida 3y ago
    https://www.phillymag.com/news/2024/01/03/jad-sleiman-whyy-fired-comedian/ https://www.phillymag.com/news/2024/01/03/jad-sleiman-whyy-f...
    • tptacek 3y ago
      Yeah, I think it's saying the same thing. And, I mean, as an example of how pretextual the content analysis is here, WHYY's HR complained that "the mere mention of 9/11" was disrespectful to those who died that day. It's pretty unserious. It reads to me like HR at WHYY picked a turf fight and, in losing it, cost WHYY a quarter million dollars. The original HR instigator appears to have been promoted.
• iainctduncan 3y ago
  Not only did he get his job back, but he got a gold mine of new material! :-0 Also, this guys is a good comedian. I've done stand up (and even killed before) and that shit is HARD.
  • SkipperCat 3y ago
    True that, stand up is hard. I did a little bit and it would take me several hours to just get 1 or 2 minutes of content. And it was still hit or miss. Plus, when a good idea popped into my head, I felt like only had about 10 minutes to write it down or else I would just forget it. Add to that the discipline of delivering the lines with the right timing, tone and pace. Stand up comedians are some of the smartest people I've come across. Also, they're some of the most f'd up people i've met too. Its a weird combo, but I like them a lot.
• bertil 3y ago
  > “We are evaluating the decision, any appeal options and next steps. While we do not agree with all of the arbitrator’s conclusions, (…)” Wait—you can do that!? I thought the whole point of arbitration was that you committed to the arbiter's decisions, no matter what, to lower legal costs.
• sputr 3y ago
  So the person with MS had special treatment. And was offended by that that. They should just tell the offended individual that if they get MS or a different serious disease (and, with MS, usually disability) they get to have special treatment. Until then: STFU. People are assholes.
• ETH_start 3y ago
  The fact that journalists are so dependent on their union is going to be a major conflict of interest when they cover politically relevant news. They should disclose their union affiliation when reporting on such news. >>asked whether he believed he would have gotten his job back without SAG-AFTRA involvement, Sleiman said, “No. No, I would have been screwed completely, because Pennsylvania is an at-will state, so they could have just fired me and that would have been the end of it. The fact that it’s a union shop is actually the whole reason I was able to fight back at all.”