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Fired Via Instant Message
JThaddeus writes "Yahoo! news reports that South Korea's third-largest credit card issuer, KEB Credit Service, fired 161 people--a quarter of its workforce--via mobile phone text messages. Hey, at least they got told, right? Afterall, they could have been like Milton."
I'm trying to figure out which is worse: getting fired by IM or getting dumped by IM.
I do have to hand it to then for sheer cold-blooded brutality. The little devil guy that pops up over my right shoulder really got a kick out of this one!
Send whiskey and fresh horses!
The last I heard of him is that he was on his way to the probation department after his criminal conviction.
Fight Spammers!
In Saudi Arabia and many other muslim countries, you can get divorced by text message!
To be fair, it's not text messaging that is the issue. In many muslim countries saying, "I divorce you" three times is enough for divorce. SMS is just the medium for carrying the divorce messages.
Very true, in places in Europe most often Texting is so much cheaper than voice communication, so people become very fast at it. Becoming efficient with the T9 feature on phones is very important. I can send quick messages while I drive without even looking at my phone. Different phones have different methods of how you compose, read and send messages. Most new model phones come with T9(R) Predictive Text - when you start entering a word, you only have to press the key once for each letter and the phone will anticipate what word you are typing. T9(R) Predictive Text provides: Easy and fast text entry - just one key press per letter Nearly twice as fast as "multi-tap" text entry Ability to add custom words to your T9 dictionary Full punctuation and symbol capabilities Available in all major languages
I was working field service for a minicomputer company. I was beeped on my pager then when I called in, I was told I was laid off.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
Fired by crappest, most rip-off messaging system known to man with a 160 character limit, phone companies that think its fine to charge you extortionate fees to route something the size of the meta data thats sent when you initiate a call (for free) and then dont bother to deliver it for 3 hours on occaision and the most annoying input method ever invented.
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I remember this. The sacked staff went on a looting spree of their
:D
offices as I recall. It was hillarious seeng all these middle class
lawyer types lugging chairs and stuff out of the building.
The company director did a runner to Spain I think.
siggy played guitar
Well, they were a little bit off in their prediction of the ubiquity of fax machines and stuff - nobody thought computers, email and wireless devices would be quite what they are now.
I guess they need 11 more years to finish up the flying cars and Mr. Fusion retrofit kits... they can keep the double neckties and other fashion faux pases (like the sunglasses - ugh!)
I don't know what are the job laws in South-Korea. But in most of European countries, theses SMS have probably no legal binding between employer and employees. The company still have to send some kind of registered letter "snail mail". Even if people are in strike and difficult to reach, I see no company advantage to send SMS to warn employees they are fired, they still need to send letters. And there effective dismissal starts when they receive there registered letter.
There's also an issue about SMS authentication, do you think these 161 recipients know their HR manager GSM number and are able to verify the author of the message ? Could be anyone sending you that message : "you are fired. signed J.M. KEB Credit Service HR Manager"
At a PPOE, we came in one day to find out about 1/3 of the office
couldn't get e-mail. Since corporate HQ was in another time zone, we
had to wait a couple of hours until the IT guys got in. The IT guys
passed the buck for a while until finally we were told that the folks who
couldn't get their e-mail were laid off.
sometime you can just send an email which can be recieved on your cellphone. In that case, it might be cheaper or i say free.
I could change the world, but GOD won't give me the source code
The union doesn't benefit from the destruction of the employer.
I disagree. Other companies will pick up the slack caused by the downsizing / folding of this company, resulting in new jobs - which the fired employees will probably snap up. Those other companies will make damn sure they are a little nicer to the union than the dead company was.
Sure, it's temporary hardship for this group of employees, but the whole workforce benefits in the long run.
The AC is obviously someone who either owns a business or is a professional who sees himself as part of management rather than as part of the work force. I'm reminded of Howard Stern, who was a fan of George W Bush until George's FCC chairman got him knocked off the air in six markets. Sorry for the bluntness but it has to be said: Being an ass-kisser doesn't guarantee you won't be dumped on. It just makes it taste worse.
"Is this Winkhorst a nova criminal?" "No just a technical sergeant wanted for interrogation."
Not to mention the fact that this company isn't winding down its operations at all.
Now, to be fair, if I go on strike I would feel the company totally justified in letting me go after three days for job abandonment (in California, job abandonment is defined as failure to report in for three consecutive days without leave), so a notice of any kind to striking workers seems entirely unnecessary. But contracts and foreign law probably place entirely different requirements on this particular circumstance.
I don't know about the pizza, but the hoverboard is right here.
Lately I've been thinking that we should extend antitrust legislation to unions. If there were multiple unions in each field, they could compete for contracts from companies needing labor. This provides more incentive for the union to ensure the competence of its workers.
I believe that unions are neccessary in order to give workers a voice. However, as you said unions have their problems and I think this would help with many of them.
You don't quite get it. The fallacy of a "living wage" is that each increase in its minimum requirement is totally of a short-term benefit. The wage increases get passed right back to customers (e.g., the wage-earners themselves), so the minimum wage is nothing more than a feel-good Democrat vote-getter.
You use the word "suddenly." This is also a major huge problem with politics. People want immediate solutions, and they simply don't care about whether they are fucked five years down the road.
This is what Bush did with this tax cuts, this is what Kerry will do with health care. Politicians necessarily have foresight that lasts only a few years into the future, which is why they are so dangerous to citizens and why citizens should never put much faith in the government.
Regardless, if a person is homeless, $20 in a week provides: a nicer box, soap, a new t-shirt, and one good meal. This is pretty good for someone who otherwise sifts through trashcans for food.
Vote in November. You won't regret it.
No, I get it and I've spent quite some time studying economics in order to "get it."
The problem is sustainability. You cannot sustain an economy where people are paid less than it costs to survive. The result is usually revolution. There's more at stake here than whether or not you spend $1.50 or $5.00 on your hamburger. If you can't see that, there's no argument that will convince you.
espo
In my dotcom job (only 4 people), I had recommended a close friend for the 3rd position. Person #1 notified me, person #2, on Friday morning of the company closing down. I assumed he would notify person #3 also on Friday. On Monday morning, I asked person #3 (via ICQ) if he had gotten the news, which he hadn't. Put me in the awkward position of telling him (via ICQ) to expect a phone call.
Person #1 was a total asshole. Not for letting me go, but for putting off person #3 like that and not telling me.
I knew one guy who got fired over email. His boss called him up and just said "Check your email" and then hung up. In his email was a message that he was fired. The guy did then call his boss and make him explain it though.
To this day, the phrase "Check your email" has had a whole new meaning to me and others who worked there.
What are you talking about? Nobody is "bagging" on capitalism, that's the way capitalism is supposed to work. Capitalist employers try to minimize costs at the expense of workers, and capitalist workers try to maximize wages and benefits at the expense of employers. This conflict of interest results in an equilibrium point where neither side can force a change in their favor. That's the "fair market value." Of course, if one side has too much power relative to the other, the fair market value will result in that side being completely screwed. But artificial restrictions to prevent that would be socialistic. The US is where it is because it found a balance between capitalism and socialism (tilted decidedly towards capitalism) that works pretty well.
Given resources, the system will sort itself out or die.
That, in a nutshell, is the entire point. It is not desirable to just let the system die. Even a free-marketeer like Hayek conceeds that you'd have to be a fool to not have central control of the money supply. Milton Friedman may have come up with such stinging soundbytes like "the minimum wage is the most anti-black law on the books," but as you point out, some statements are more about politics than economics and the obvious implication is that blacks will (or should) be paid less than whites on a slippery slope down to a reinstitution of slavery. On the contrary, Hayek, a fellow monetarist, believed quite strongly in minimum standards of income, despite otherwise being one of the most stalwart defenders of the free market.
For all the criticism of minimum wage laws, take a look at places without them. Sure, people have work, but go spend a week in Burma working in a Disney sweatshop at $192 per year and come back and let us all know how wonderful abolishing the minimum wage laws would be.