Slashdot Mirror
Fired for Solitare At Work
schlick writes "The Associated Press is carrying a story about a NYC employee fired after Mayor Michael Bloomberg noticed a game of solitare on the employee's desktop at work." From the article: "Greenwood, who earned $27,000 a year and had worked in the office for six years, said in a telephone interview that he limited his play time to his one-hour lunch or during quick breaks when he needed a moment of distraction. 'It wasn't like I spent hours and hours a day playing, because I had plenty to do,' Greenwood said. 'If I had been working at something exhaustively for two hours, I might get a cup of coffee and play for a minute but then go right back to my work.'"
If they enforced this I think about 99% of the slashdotters would be fire. I know I'd be 0wned
I got you an Andes mint, but it melted in my pocket
Topic hitting close to home - or am I really first?
The only question I have about the story is what kind of crappy job is there in the Mayor's office - that pays less than 30k a year - IN FRIGGING MANHATTAN? I guess he'll have to change jobs - and get to STOP EATING TOP-RAMEN.
... must be a Freecell fan.
We were in the process of replacing our beloved VAXstations with high-end (60 MHz!) Pentium PCs running Windows 3.1. One of the big wigs was walking through the data center, and noticed a programmer playing Solotaire. He asks, "What is she doing?". A co-worker in the neighboring cube notices the situation and defuses the crisis by spewing a load of BS: "She's doing mouse calibration; they have you use this program, so the pointer on the screen can be aligned with the roller ball inside the mouse. It only takes a few minutes and it lines up the pointer for you."
I worked in a call center for more time than I would like to admit, and every month or so a new policy like this would come down the pipe.
As an act of civil disobedience I made solitare my wall paper, and removed all my icons.
It is better to be the hammer than the anvil.
Fired For Reading Slashdot Article About Worker Who Was Fired For Solitaire At Work
Trust not a man who's rich in flax / His morals may be sadly lax
> Can we all agree that this guy is lying.
You mean "assume", right? Perhaps it's `creative dismissal`. If I'd been fired for playing a game at lunchtime you can bet I'd be hiring a solicitor right now. Well, as soon as I finish this level...
Back in 1998 I was working in a helpdesk and a user who was known to be a chronic complainer called saying that she couldn't do her work as there was something wrong with MS Word. We were able to remote control workstations without users having to give permission so I connected to her workstation and what did I see?? Solitaire. Rather than let her know I could see what she was doing I kept asking her about her screen and what she could see on it - all she was doing was giving me ficticious error messages and she was actually continuing her game while she was talking to me. How I resolved the problem was to move her cards around for her and then open MS Office. Once it was open I asked her if there were any other problems she wanted to talk about. After a long silence she said "No- thank you for helping me" and hung up the phone. Needless to say we didn't hear anything from her for a while.
That sounds like a variant of a similar joke:
A new manager is hired to bring an underproducing office up to speed. He decides that he must fire somebody on the first day to show that he means business. While walking through the office, he spots a man leaning against the wall, not doing anything. He is in a room full of workers and so decides that this is the perfect way to start.
"You! How much do you make a week?", he bellowed at the slacker.
"About $300," came the reply.
The manager pulls out his wallet, peels off three hundred dollar bills, and throws them at the man.
"Here's your money. Now get out and don't come back!"
Feeling pretty good about the firing, he glared around room. "What was this man's job?", he asked.
From the back of the room came the reply: "Pizza delivery man"
Though I don't encourage anyone to take up smoking, it can make for a good bonding experience with upper management.
Yeah, you might both end up in the same hospital ward coughing your lungs up. That's a fantastic bonding experience.
Ob. Bill Hicks Quote:
'Hicks, how come you're not working.'
I'd go, 'There's nothing to do.'
'Well, you pretend like you're working.'
'Well, why don't you pretend I'm working? Yeah, you get paid more than me, you fantasise. Pretend I'm mopping. Knock yourself out. I'll pretend they're buying stuff; we can close up. I'm the boss now, you're fired. How's that? I'm on a fucking roll. We're all millionaires and you're dick. I'm pretending shit, I'm wacky, I can't be stopped.'
I don't know if I have the right attitude for the workplace.
It's "Sieg heil".
Regards,
Spelling nazi