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by breppp 82 days ago
Is it really surprising she was fired?

It's completely okay to say whatever you want and stand up for yourself, but you are not a child, own the consequences rather than whine

11 comments

No using the legal process if you think your company is violating the law is also part of "stand up for yourself".

If a rich guy can't take some minor criticism maybe he's the whiner.

This assumes that you think people operate on principles. As the years go on, it feels that people in the top seem to mostly operate on money.

The CEO has money and the power to fire that person if the employee is disliked. Maybe that shouldn't be a thing, maybe it should be illegal, but they'll find a way around it. Just because they can means that they will.

I wish it wasn't like that but that's how I see things are happening these days, save for perhaps a few nuances here and there.

Every CEO technically has the power to fire anyone they dislike. I assume they usually don't out of some form of noblesse oblige, and aversion to PR problems. But mostly just because they're too busy to get involved in minor, petty shit like this.

For most normal CEOs criticism from a low-level employee would just not be worth thinking about.

No, it assumes that people should operate on principles. You're falling into the "you're naive, just accept that things are bad" philosophy, which is self-fulfilling over time.

It's ok to be angry at people for behaving in a way that is unsurprising. Otherwise, there's no room for the word "immoral".

If I had to distill the social status & commensurate behaviour described in your in two words, it might sound suspiciously familiar.
The NLRB alleges that “the consequences” she faced are illegal under Federal law.
That doesn't mean they are, in fact, illegal. The NLRB alleges a lot of things - the courts will decide.
You sure seem to hate workers
It would be equally ridiculous to say "the nlrb hates the rule of law" since they make lots of allegations that end up getting ruled against in court
I saw GP as an argument that they shouldn't be illegal.
I don't know if they are legal or not. But assuming you don't want to leave a company, there is minimal tact of what to say when.

You have a choice not to use said tact, but this entire "employee goes on moral crusade, gets fired, goes on moral crusade about firing", is a feature of a kind of employee that is even for other employees not amazing to be around

There’s enough of a difference, IMO, between campaigning against your organization’s plans and venting to your coworkers about the way in which the CEO delivered said plans.
Surprised? I don’t think anyone is surprised but I, personally, am grossed out by it, it lowers my opinion of Atlassian and makes me less likely to select their products in the future.
Who is surprised by this? Surely you don't imagine a woman who dared to call her boss a rich jerk was surprised when he retaliated! US women are taught very young how powerful men act when their egos are threatened.

As for "the consequences", those are what are at stake now. They are what the courts & to some extent the people of the USA get to decide.

Man, you really need to take care of that tongue, CEO boots are getting spikier and spikier.
Being an adult is realizing you shouldn't fire people for saying you made a poor decision
Wouldn't she have the excuse of truth as defense?
It’s simply satire, not “truth”.

The statement doesn’t claim any fact: it’s a hypotheical not unlike a “based on real events” movie/book/etc that never quotes or attributes specific actions to a subject.

And that’s why Atlassian is very likely to lose over and over as they appeal (but never say never these days in the US).

Was the CEO dialing in from the headquarters of an NBA team they owned? Yes.

Were they calling to aggressively dismiss employee claims (without video I cannot prove "yelling", but that is a way that word is used in common parlance)? Yes.

Does downleveling employees have a significant negative impact on their careers? Yes.

This wasn't satire, it was truth.

The company isn’t suing her for defamation.
That’s a good point. If that was the only thing she said, it’s hard not to see it as a statement of fact (Although I’m sure lawyers could argue about pummeled):

> “What’s up Outragers, just dialing in from my NBA team’s headquarters to yell at the people whose careers I’ve just pummeled,”

"Why are you surprised" is such a common format of weasel-phrase, which is mysterious because it's so plainly fallacious. Just because something is predictable doesn't mean it's acceptable.
Frankly, it's still surprising to see this tip-toeing around given how much the mask has been ripped off recently.
I love the argument "freedom of speech doesn't imply freedom after speech"
For a light insult at an executive of a company at a company with a "no bullshit" culture? Absolutely!
I'm waiting for the Europeans to wake up and tell us about labor laws.
seems redundant given that the c̶o̶u̶r̶t̶ NLRB siding with the employee suggests that even in the US employees are likely protected in this case, but interestingly i feel this one is undecided, because insults are taken quite seriously in some european countries.

from germany i know that whether an insult is grounds for firing someone depends on the regular interaction the two people have, so if you take a company of rednecks (to employ a stereotype), a redneck employee calling their redneck boss some typical redneck insult would be interpreted as acceptable, and make any firing based on that illegal. but if the same insult is used by a lawyer in a law firm from a big city, then suddenly that same insult is a valid reason to get fired.

(edit: rephrase and replace court with NLRB)

The court has not sided with anyone yet. The NLRB sided with the employee and has argued her case in court.
oops, sloppy reading of the article on my part, corrected.