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IBM Sued for Firing Alleged Internet Addict
globring sent us a link to a CNN article covering a trial with a unique defense. James Pacenza, a 58 year old Alabama man, has been fired from his position at IBM for visiting adult sites during working hours. The man is now suing the company for $5 Million, alleging that he is an internet addict. The plaintiff claims he visits these sites as a way of dealing with traumatic stress incurred in the Vietnam War. He claims that while he is addicted to sex and the internet, he never visited adult sites at work. Age-related issues, he says, are the cause of his filing. IBM, on its part, says that Pacenza was warned during a similar incident several months ago. Pacenza denies this as well.
The CNN article states that this wasn't his first warning: ""Plaintiff was discharged by IBM because he visited an Internet chat room for a sexual experience during work after he had been previously warned," the company said."
If people would actually take responsibility for their actions then this country might not be so bad.
IBM has been violating my rights to have a job there. Who knew?
This has apparently been going on a long time, since I've never worked at IBM.
I think IBM owes us all some back pay.
It's more like bullshit defense. I wouldn't be surprised if IBM kept logs of their worker activities at work - if he was fired for this incident *after already having been warned once* he wasn't cheated out of his job.
The only way I see ANY logic in this, is if Internet Addiction is considered a disability.... which causes you to look at porn... right.
:I
Maybe I can get away with classifying my need to punch stupid people in the face as a disability. After all, I shouldn't be fired for that
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
He says he's "an Internet addict who deserves treatment and sympathy rather than dismissal".
Sounds like he indeed visited during work hours or he wouldn't have had a reason at all to say this. It's IBM's system and rules. Tuff if you can't keep your hands (mental or physical) out of your pants at the job.
"Your Honor, IBM fired me because they failed to give me the right to watch porn rather than working while on the job." Seriously, no sane judge is going to allow that to get by the inevitable dismissal motion by IBM.
I am officially gone from
Technically, it's not "a unique defense." Pacenza is the plaintiff, not the defendant.
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
...so MS has agreed not to fire me from the hotfix team. They are much more enlightened than IBM.
SCO has the patent on "internet addiction" and is suing the man.
... and then they built the supercollider.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/07/29/bofh_2004_ episode_24/
"I don't actually think you CAN fire me for browsing porn.."
"Why not?"
"Well, I think I'm addicted to porn."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Addicted. To porn."
"You're joking!"
"Oh no. You see I'm fairly sure that the browsing of porn causes the release of testosterone, endorphins or something like that, which in turn causes a pleasure response in the body - or so my doctor will tell me if I ask. I'm addicted to that pleasure response, in much the same way as a drug addict is addicted to the pleasure they obtain from their drugs."
"So you're saying you have no control over your actions?"
"None."
"And you.... Believe that this is somehow the company's problem?"
"Oh no."
"Good."
"No, I think it's the company's fault. It's completely different."
"I think you'll find that to demonstrate fault, the company would have to be aware of a problem."
"They are. I filled out a workplace hazard form about it six months ago."
moment. It seems that the number of things that count as disabilities has become insane.
On the current criteria, I'm slightly bemused as to why 'being thick' isn't allowed to count. It's not your fault, it puts you at a disadvantage, you can't change it etc.
Could anybody tell me why it's OK to discriminate against people being stupid in the workplace, but it's not if the mental/physical disability has a nice name?
Sounds like he's a sex addict! Just because he's using the Internet to fuel his obvious sex addiction doesn't make him an Internet addict. It's like saying someone who uses magazines to get their porn is a magazine addict.
You're not addicted to the medium, you're addicted to the content.
"If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer
They should just fire him for being stupid. He must be borderline retarded to think that IBM doesn't keep traffic logs on their network.
Much better is where the boss sends you the porn via email so you don't go having to look for it, and also pays your green fees when it's time to go playing golf.
If you dont have either of the above, consider seeking alternative employment.
Once I was a four stone apology. Now I am two separate gorillas.
I think that there seems to be confusion between addiction and disability. While you might not fire somebody for a recognised disability (and some addictions tend to fall along those categories), I've never heard of having to hold on to somebody because they're addicted.
If that were the case, it would mean that when Bobby and Johnny get caused smoking pot in the back during work hours, or when Sally gets caught with a needle in her veins in the washroom, they could claim that the company could not fire them because they were addicts. I think not.
Surely the test should be whether you use company resources for personal reasons. So long as the usage is actuually legal, surely it should not matter what sites you visit. Bible quote website, /., dilbert, tits & ass... what gives any company the right to discriminate?
Engineering is the art of compromise.
I agree. If someone is unable to do their job and unwilling to try to change, I don't think the employer should have to keep paying them. I can understand a requirement that an employer not fire an employee who is going through some legitimate form of rehab for an addiction, but if the employee isn't doing anything about their problem, the employer shouldn't have to put up with it.
This sounds like a bullshit complaint that's about a bitter loser denying reality. Remember, anyone can file a complaint; whether it goes anywhere is what matters, and I doubt this one will. Big companies like IBM have checklists for firing people, and if they're saying they warned him months ago, they've almost certainly got it in writing. They've probably also got logs showing his workstation accessing porn. And as for Internet Addiction, even established addictions don't prevent you from getting fired--being addicted to heroin, for example, won't save your job just because you're legitimately, medically addicted to something everyone agrees is uncontrollable.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
Pacenza: Couple who had sex on desk merely transferred
He argues that other workers with worse offenses were disciplined less severely -- including a couple who had sex on a desk and were transferred.
Fred McNeese, a spokesman for Armonk-based IBM, would not comment.
Pacenza claims the company decided on dismissal only after improperly viewing his medical records, including psychiatric treatment, following the incident.
"In IBM management's eyes, plaintiff has an undesirable and self-professed record of psychological disability related to his Vietnam War combat experience," his papers claim.
Diederich says IBM workers who have drug or alcohol problems are placed in programs to help them, and Pacenza should have been offered the same. Instead, he says, Pacenza was told there were no programs for sex addiction or other psychological illnesses. He said Pacenza was also denied an appeal.
Diederich, who said he spent a year in Iraq as an Army lawyer, also argued that "A military combat veteran, if anyone, should be afforded a second chance, the benefit of doubt and afforded reasonable accommodation for combat-related disability."
...'cause now everybody will install filters and proxies so d***heads and c***suckers can't surf'n'sue them when discovered.
He is btw. not addicted to the Internet... he is a freak addicted to porn. He and his lawyers has just destroyed the fun of surfing porn at work for everybody else.
Does not cover everything. For example, kleptomania is not considered a "disability" under the act, and I doubt being addicted to the Internet is really much different.
Amazing, I was able to use the mandatory ethics training I had to take at work in a conversation....hooray! Maybe?
Monstar L
This is one of the most ludicrous cases I've ever heard of, and I've heard of a few (IANAL but I am a law student). There's no way this case is going anywhere. I suppose he feels he must have a chance though and it's probably due to the perception that alcoholism is a 'disease' and that obesity is a 'disability'. Alcoholism is NOT a disease but it can cause them. Obesity is NOT a disability but can be a symptom of one e.g. thyroid glands. By those rationalisms it's not much of a leap to say that having a job on the job isn't a psychological problem. Luckilly, the plaintiff will be pleased to know there's a treatment in the form of Depo-Provera, and no doubt his wife will feel the same way.
If sex additiction is a valid argument to raise when you're about to get fired, no men would EVER get fired. And then we'd have issues with equality between sex and blah.
His lawyer ... says Pacenza never visited pornographic sites at work, violated no written IBM rule ...
... (says) ... its policy against surfing sexual Web sites is clear. It also claims Pacenza was told he could lose his job after an incident four months earlier, which Pacenza denies.
International Business Machines Corp.
Seems pretty obvious. If IBM can produce those written policies, and has kept a written record of the previous warnings, Pacenza doesn't have a leg to stand on.
References to his past history in the military don't really seem all that relevant. Yes, many vets of Viet Name and other action carry the scars with them but that does not give them a right to totally ignore their employer's direction.
Three Squirrels
So lets see here. If I were a heroin addict, and I was fixing on the job, and they fired me for fixing on the job, I could sue them for 5Million? Dang, I should become an addict for the big pay day! Sounds like this guy just has an addiction to not working. Or perhaps he is allergic to work.
I would have to admit that if one employee views porn at work, and another set of employees FUCK at work, and their treatments by management are starkly different, with this person approaching a big retirement pension, the situation rather does look something like selective preferential enforcement. One of the reasons corporate consul will recommended treating all employees the same and have equitable and equally enforced policy is exactly because disparate treatment makes a good argument for a hidden agenda in court.
C//
He is defending his actions that caused him to get fired.
The point of an unlawful termination suit is to show that the employer broke the law. In raising that claim, he is opening himself to attack from the defense, which will point out the legality of their actions by showing that homeboy was doing things he wasn't supposed to be doing.
As long as they were within their legal rights in firing him, the fact that he was traumatized in the Vietnam War or has an addiction to porn don't really matter. My understanding is that they only matter if he can prove that he was fired because he had these problems, not because of their effect on his work.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
What is the rehab for internet addiction? Is it a twelve step program?
This reminds me of an incident I once saw while working IT at a fairly major firm.
One of the VPs called us into his office to report a problem with his computer. Apparently somebody had ejaculated all over his keyboard. He wanted us to get rid of the soiled keyboard, and bring him a new one. Not really being in a position to ask questions, we just did what he wanted.
About a week later, the same VP is on the phone, telling us that there's more ejaculate on his keyboard. So we bring him a new keyboard, yet again.
Another week or so later, we get a third call from the same VP. This time we went to the President of the firm, and reported this incident to him. He assured us he would look into it. I'm not sure exactly what the outcome was, but the VP ended up leaving his job soon after. According to some of the secretaries near his office, there was a pretty serious confrontation between him and the President of the company. One of the secretaries quoted part of the VP's yelling: "Yes, I got my sperm on the keyboard! It's because I have a fucking masturbation addition!"
Interesting. Not having a program for "programs for sex addiction or other psychological illnesses" may cause them for problems.
There has been some rulings (in Mass) that said that disability insurance companies can't discriminate between mental and physical disabilities.
Fight Spammers!
So many jokes come to mind that my head just exploded. Is there somebody I can sue?
You are welcome on my lawn.
Another employee saw something offensive on his computer and reported it to a supervisor. That's step #1 toward filing a lawsuit. If it happened again IBM would be sued for sure, with no defense. They have to take action to "protect" the other employees; it's the law.
Send Buddy over to my department. I am willing to assume the company's Duty to Accommodate - plus it will help mitigate the Undue Hardship I'm experiencing in trying to locate 'The Really Good Shit' porn. I need a professional.
Just when you think I'm being a smart-ass, this isn't as far out there as you might think. I understand the motovation(s) for this sort of governance, but the implementation is getting pretty whacky. From the Canadian Human Rights Commissions website:
1. What is the duty to accommodate?The duty to accommodate is the obligation to meaningfully incorporate diversity into the workplace. The duty to accommodate involves eliminating or changing rules, policies, practices and behaviours that discriminate against persons based on a group characteristic, such as race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, age, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, marital status, family status and disability. emphasis mine
So my contribution to diversifying sexual orientation is that I wanna monkey spank all day sitting at my desk. Where's the beef? ... [Slaps Head]
http://www.chrc-ccdp.ca/preventing_discrimination/ page1-en.asp
[17] Leary, T., White, C., Wood, P. R., Bhabha, W. D., and Wirth, N. Lambda calculus considered harmful. In Proceedings
No, it is not okay to discriminate against stupid people, at least in the USA. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Griggs vs Duke Power that people could not be hired or promoted on the basis of general intelligence.
Why would you sue a company (and expect to win) when you were fired for violating a companies (reasonable) policies. The lawyer probably knows his client doesn't have a chance, but it milking this chap for legal fees.
"I'll see you next time." - LeVar Burton
If indeed IBM simply transferred two other workers who had actual sex on a desk (one assumes this occurred when someone could witness it, rather than in a private office late one night), it's going to be hard for them to justify firing this guy for engaging in otherwise legal activity even though it was using company resources. That's not to say this is age discrimination or some other malfeasance on the part of IBM, but the lack of consistency is troubling.
Snu-snu... like sex to death snu-snu?
Why would anyone in that office want to retire before death?
Take off every 'sig' !!
Accoring to the article he was discovered by a fellow employee but I think questions still remain and the case isnt as open and shut (and funny) as it first appears.
meep
Just changing two words: "Allowing employees to visit religous sites may create a hostile work environment and sets you up for a lawsuit from other employees who might see it and be offended. You may be able to get away with it when it's you and a couple of buddies starting up, but when your profits are in the billions, you're a giant stack of cash waiting for the first person to claim religous harassment."
Engineering is the art of compromise.
There was a Grey's Anatomy episode about a patient who watched pornography to ease his pain.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
And before anybody accuses me of being insensitive here, I have a psychological disability myself But I recognize that it's *MY* problem, not other people's, and that it's up to me to make choices at work that do not put me in situations where my disability would reflect anything less than the most professional behaviour of which I am otherwise capable.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
James Pacenza just go FUCK OFF
Is there any fine-print on the effectiveness of the program, or how well they follow it? For example if a heroin addict goes to group every Wednesday, but still shoots up every Monday, Tues, Thurs, and Friday during lunch break... is he still protected?
I suppose in this case it would be if the guy goes to Wankaholics anonymous but still sneaks in a quickie at the computer during every lunch break.
This doesn't take into the account that while the guy might have a sex addiction, it does *not* require that he use company equipment to satisfy it. I had heard of one occasion where a woman was a clinical nympho who was offered regular breaks to satisfy her problem, but I'm guessing she was not allow to do such with the office equipment.
...then make sure that everything is channeled via ssh to an outside machine.
You don't want people to see that you're visiting nasty web sites? Well, set up a machine outside running Squid, drill a little hole into the firewall using ssh to connect the outside Squid with your favorite local port, which you now use as your web proxy.
And yes, this is also a wise thing to do even if you *not* visit nasty web sites but just sit in a company network which has an overly sensitive firewall e.g. blocking your attempts to search for a connector's "sex" and reporting you to the company authorities...
I do not see why this is such a huge deal. The contract you sign with IBM **CLEARLY** states that inappropriate webs sites, specifically porn will result in termination of employment. This guy does not agrue that he visited these sites, in fact he admits he visited those sites. The judge should toss this case out the back door into the garbage. Please can some one explain to me why no one chooses to take responsibilty for their actions in this country?
and the guy was successful, too, well kind of. The story is that my at one workplace my boss was at a few years ago, there was a man fired for browsing porn while at work. This wasn't just a one-time thing. He was caught spending up to 6 hours a day surfing for it. After the man was fired, he sued the company saying that his porn surfing was the result of addiction for which he was seeking treatment, and thus he had been wrongfully terminated. His claim was that he was disabled and that the company had fired him because of his disability. The case never went all the way to trial, though. Instead the company settled with him, agreeing to take him back on as an employee if he agreed to not surf any porn at work, and to have his every internet use monitored while at work. The sad thing is that he lasted a week under this arrangement. After about 5 days or so, he was caught surfing porn again. This time his lawyers told him to just go quietly. It would almost be a funny story if it wasn't so pathetic. Some of these people really do need help with their addictions (sexual or whatever). Suing IBM is not something that is going to be helpful, however.
So, he knew he was "sick", yet still came into work. I hate it when sick people come into work.
He should have gotten treatment by himself. The article refers to "self medication". Too funny. IBM happens to have very good mental health benefits and he could have easily gotten into a discrete program through IBM. Or even by himself. My guess is that he would have even gotten paid leave for a short while.
I would have felt just a bit more sorry for him if he had spilled hot coffee on his lap at the McDonald's drive through. Would have gotten him the $5 million and also solved his, um, other problem.
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." - Epictetus
I work in the insurance industry and while I am not in the USA, I can't see how someone can lose their pension. He might lose his next six months income, and that may have a minor impact on his pension, but he can surely retire early or something. In any case, if he wants to retire, then IBM has nothing to gain (or should not be able to gain) from his being fired. The law should normally prevent that.
I think IBM should just allow him to retire early, and save themselves 6 months wages at the same time, or just give the guy his 6 months salary, damn, he has been working there for like only 19 years. It is not worth it to fight this guy.
Gemetic in origin. Any known or discovered Internet Addict, should
be immediately Euthanized and their entire bloodline removed from
the Human Genome.
Science cannot be wrong. YOU can be wrong, easily.
Makes sense to me. Viewing adult sites at work leaves an electronic trail back to the company, so they have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders to stop it. Sex on a desk is only an issue if done in such a way that there is evidence of it having occurred (in view of cameras, in an unlocked or windowed office, in a cube farm...), if the sex act itself was some how unlawfull (non consensual or for money, though there are other options in some jurisdictions) or if the relationship results in a conflict of interest or the apearance thereof.
The first would, under the policies that IBM seems to be following in this case, result in first a warning (possibly a transfer at the same time to avoid sexual harrasment issues with employees who witnessed the act) and then termination, if the behavior continued. The second would likely result in prosecution by local authorities. The third generally results in transfer regardless of where any supporting acts occurred, in order to eliminate the conflict. It would also probably constitute a warning, so if they break up and one of them ends up in a similar relationship with a superior/subordinate it's the boot...
IANAL, this is all rational inferrence from my own companies manuals and sexual harrasment training (yes, thats what it was called, and yes, it should have had 'recognition and prevention' in the title to accurately represent it's content).
Realities just a bunch of bits.
http://www.bbspot.com/News/2002/11/fired.html classic.
Seems like Big Blue could block it from the inside out if they wanted to. If he's a work at home'r then how did they know?
... we find out who that BloodNinja guy was...
I'd have a personalized plate on my car, but "toxic bachelor" won't fit into 7 letters.
very well said
meep
I hope you were wearing your biohazard gear after keyboard #1.
Friends don't let friends line-dance.
(+5 Wtf)
Latewire
Lawyer's at large corporations (such as, hypothetically, IBM) teah you not to try to approach the person yourself because the law is so complicated that you might with the best of intentions inadvertently give the person who is harassing you a basis with which to defend themself or even sue the company over your behavior while discussing the issue.
Sucks but, at this guy has proved, the USA is a very litigious society.
"And you're aware that the company has a policy regarding acceptable use of computers?"
"Really?"
"YES" the Boss snaps, annoyed. "It's been in place for at least 18 months!"
"Ah, I see, so it's not actually a policy I agreed to several years ago when I started."
"Your contract gives the company the right to vary acceptable behaviour policies."
"Not my contract," I say
"I think you'll find it does," the HR Guy responds.
"No, mine was sent as an electronic document, so I just cut out the clauses I didn't like, added a couple of my own, printed two copies and signed them. Then your guy signed them too probably without checking. Or maybe he liked the idea of clause F.3 that I'm allowed to call Managers... 'knobface'."
"I.." the HR Guy says, then ducks out the door to check something.
two hours later . . .
"It's true," the HR Guy says. "There is a clause saying he can call you knobface."
"Which was also signed by your HR guy in ink," I add.
"Yes."
"Including the eight or so extra clauses I added... er.. Knobface?"
Firing addicts when they screw up their jobs due to their addiction, is good thing, not a bad thing. Make their self-medication have consequences. Make them hit bottom and want to recover.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
I'm addicted to slacking. How about some time off to recover, boss, how bout it, eh!
Table-ized A.I.
It's becoming increasingly obvious the internet's addiction potential makes it just too dangerous. We need to pass a law to ban the internet.
just let me unzip it.
See my art -> http://herbevore.deviantart.com
Sex on a desk is only an issue if done in such a way that there is evidence of it having occurred...
Well. *cough*. There WAS evidence that it occurred. How could have the referenced employees be disciplined if there were not?
C//
I don't think it's the the addition to masturbation that got the sperm on the keyboard, but the aversion to using a goddamn towel.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
people could not be hired or promoted on the basis of general intelligence.
:-)
Sure they can. Employers just:
a) pretend a college degree is relevant to your job
b) require it
c) let the college board give them an SAT
d) only hire people from colleges with high average SAT score
Yep -- requiring most young people to take on a mountain of debt at a young age is much, much better than giving an IQ test for a job.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
That takes brass balls. I mean, say it's coffee creamer, hand lotion, cup o noodles, anything. Lie.
Or is that beyond the abilities of IBM's network support groups?
If "Internet Addiction" is not a disability, then this guy is screwed. On the other hand, if it IS a disability, then IBM is going to have to demonstrate that "allowing this disabled person to use the Internet" is not a reasonable accomodation.
So as silly as it may sound, if the guy was getting his work done, and "Internet Addiction" actually is a disability, then this guy may have a case.
Of course, if he was fired, it probably was because he wasn't getting any work done, so IBM would simply say that allowing this guy to use the Internet is not a reasonable accomodation because it's unreasonable for IBM to pay someone to sit around and jack off all day.
Wow, I want that 90 seconds of my life back.
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
This is IBM we're talking about, and the acronym is just ripe for humor:
It's Better Manually. Ha! Works for 2007 as well as 1947!
I've Been Mislead/Microsoft'ed. Quid pro quo (sp?).
Internet Bans Masturbating. Keep both hands on the table, Skippy!
Itsa Big Misunderstanding. Really, it wasn't a porn channel, he was bragging about the "fat pipe"
he had at work to the intraweb...that's all. See, big misunderstanding.
I'd Better Move/Migrate outta this thread.
Have you read the moderator guidelines? Well, have you, PUNK? (and I want a Karma: Gnarly option)
You've made the assumption that the judge isn't playing "pop the weasel" under his robe.
Sounds like some sort of weird power trip to me to brazen it out, knowing that people have to deal with it anyway. That's some fucked-up shit right there.
I'm sorry, but the CNN article doesn't say he visited a porn site. It says that he visited an Internet chat room, supposedly for some kind of sexual gratification. (So at worst he "cybersexed" someone, at worst it could have been just as well an IRC channel for something else (there are channels for everything, including network administration, games, etc) and some idiot PHB applied an "IRC is for evil hackers and porn" preconception. We probably won't know which, as there are compelling arguments for both: the boss maybe isn't that stupid, but then some employees are smart enough to not connect to sexnet on the company computer too.)
Anyway, keywords: chat room.
Now I'm not advocating mis-use of the employer's resources, but let me also say: there was nothing for someone else to see on his screen either way. It's just a rectangular window with some text in it, not some big picture with a woman taking it up the rear end. To even see what he's chatting there, you'd have to pretty much go and read over his shoulder. And he can close the window long before you even figure out what's really going on in that chat. So the whole "oh, the humanity, someone could have seen it on his screen" argument just doesn't apply here, sorry.
And that is, again, why I wonder about the whole thing. Short of using a keylogger or other spyware, how can you tell that someone is on a chat-room/IRC for sex or not? You can't just see it on their screen, normally. I doubt that he just left the window open and continued blissfully cybering with the boss around reading over his shoulder. I doubt that he was caught with his pants down and his dick in his hand, or anything as clearly cut. Basically likely all they knew is that he's on a chat room.
So again, I'm not advocating mis-use of the employer's resources, but firing someone for "porn surfing" in a situation like that _may_ be just an undeserved insult.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Jeeze, this so makes me glad I'm not in the USA. It may sound like trolling, but I'm just genuinely shocked.
So basically in your world it's not a bad thing to shaft someone of their pension money, just because it saves a multi-billion dollar corporation some money? Jeeze, what a sad little world it must be down there, if people even find it _normal_ to be shafted for the company's benefit. It's not necessarily a bad thing, because some corporation made a few bucks out of it. Right.
That guy worked there for 19 years, for good or bad, and I may add that he couldn't have done that bad a job if they kept him for 19 years. But at least he worked there for 19 years, and the pension was pretty much part of the payment they promised him. Whatever he did at the end that got him fired, let's say maybe even if he loafed a whole flipping 1 year at the end, there's no justice in shafting him out of that payment for the other 18 previous years. The pension is nothing more than someone else handling some savings for you for your old age, so basically it's just like saying "if we fire you, you have to give us back whatever you saved while working for us. Oh, and we'll take your car too, while we're at it, it was bought out of the wage we paid you."
I mean, WTF, in the rest of the world you'd need some civil lawsuit and some serious damage caused by the employee, to just take their money like that. Taking someone's pension just because they were on a chat room before retirement, now that's rich.
Plus, it seems to me an inherently sociopathic thing to go trolling for guys to shaft in their old age, just because it saves the corporation a little money. It's pretty much as close to rock bottom as it gets on any empathy-towards-fellow-humans scale. Having some dignity in the old age is what I'd call close to a human right, not to mention basic courtesy from society to the members on whose work it's based. The moment anyone can look at an old guy or gal and think "let's shaft them out of their pension for some money", we're already established where he ranks on the APD scale.
Makes me damn glad that over here the pensions are handled by the government or by the big insurance firms, so they're completely out of the employer's reach. No matter what else you did, you paid your pension payments, so it's only rightful that you get your pension.
And make no mistake, one way or another this guy did too. Whether it was an actual monthly sum he paid, or just implied. When you're promised X dollars a month pension, it's directly convertible into "how much I'd have to pay per month at some other pension fund for that." As I was saying, one way or the other, it's part of the salary this guy negotiated and planned around. So retroactively shafting him out of a hefty chunk of, well, basically the negotiated salary for 19 years, is not justice by any kind of reckoning. WTH-ever damage that chatting during work hours did, it just doesn't justify awarding the employer that kind of damages. You'd need to blow something up in the rest of the world to end up paying your employer that much in damages, not just open a freaking chat room window. Better yet, in the rest of the world, they'd have to bring you to court to get that kind of damages out of you, not just help themselves to it.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
After some of the power trips I've seen, it sounds just about right.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
It's much easier than that. A manager can give a complex task to a stupid employee, wait a few weeks and fire him as unfit for the job, with all the documented proof in employee's own status reports.
Now I'm not arguing that people should surf for porn at work or anything, and I don't do it personally (if nothing else, I'm not stupid enough to risk my job for that anyway), but just a couple of points:
1. This wasn't a porn site, but a chat room. Even _if_ it was sexnet or something, for anyone to get offended, they'd have to go and actively read what's on the guy's screen. Maybe even shuffle windows around (I doubt that he'd not at least minimize it, even if he were stupid enough not to close it.) It's not like having a big picture that anyone can see by just walking at the wrong point in space.
I mean, wtf, at that point whoever is offended, might as well read the guy's emails too. Do we start having policies against emails to one's spouse, then, because some nosy busybody might get offended by those? (I can see how a couple of ultra-feminists could get offended even by asking the wife to have dinner ready at a different hour, or indeed at all. I can see some religious nut-job getting offended by an email mentioning another religion, or in some cases mentioning evolution. Etc.)
Or maybe it would be saner to have "mind your own f-ing business" start being just common sense. If you've been rifling through someone's drawers or their computer, then flippin' understand that you're not a passive bystander being actively harrassed, but someone who shouldn't have been doing that to start with. Someone showing you smut pics or calling you in their office while they have a stack of porn mags on their desk is harrassment, but you finding them while actively looking on their computer isn't harrassment, it's being the one in the wrong. Don't want to be offended by someone's chat logs? Then don't flippin' read them to start with. There we go. Problem solved.
2. Frankly, I don't buy the idea that porn makes people all hostile and aggressive. If that were the case, then most men at work and half the women (you'd be surprised how many of those watch porn too) would be berserking half the time. Even if they only look at porn at home, you'd think you'd notice some effect after years of it. Even if you postulate a very short term effect, surfing for porn at work isn't that horribly uncommon, so you'd notice a lot more hostility in the workplace if that was the case.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
"Diederich, who said he spent a year in Iraq as an Army lawyer, also argued that "A military combat veteran, if anyone, should be afforded a second chance, the benefit of doubt and afforded reasonable accommodation for combat-related disability.""
I find it hard to believe that a LAWYER, sitting in a green zone, is a combatant.
He may be in a combat zone, but he is essentially a pussy.
"ohhh, I heard bombs and scarey things while in Iraq"
Big deal. This guy is just a moron. A whining one at that.
IBM's bandwidth usage this week has dropped to a record low!
OTOH, they've been good to open source... and eclipse is a marvel. Perhaps they should see that some guy enjoying porn is perhaps a symptom of something wrong that could be fixed. Maybe he's tired of the isolation, the ubiquitous mono sexism, the repetion, being a faceless code puker or being critical yet unseen. If he weren't getting on in years, it might be the best thing to happen to him. Perhaps they favour the sexless, and in that case, they're in for hard times.
Why would are porn and gambling forbidden (in cases where they form no hazard to productivity!), but visiting travel sites or social networking sites are not? Why are they singled out, if not for moral or religious reasons? The state does not forbid these 2, only religion does.
That means they have no reason to be singled out by a company, since productivity interference is already covered elsewhere.
(I do however agree that visiting those sites during working hours is in almost all cases interfering with productivity, but so is visiting the disney site)
I don't sweat on work time and I don't sh*t on mine. Everyone should I B.M. ( Dookie ) at work. IBM eats it !
The VP must have been a very special person. I have never met a person who could add values with a (fucking) masturbation. I guess what he did is to count the strokes, didn't he? (not only he got the result out, but a motive to add really big numbers).
If he ever gets to calculate the digits of PI, let us know. We may send him on a space voyage. It would be really economic, since there would be no need to have a computer on board. In fact, he would combine all the functions (joystick navigation and computer) in one "device"!
Technically, it's not "a unique defense." Pacenza is the plaintiff, not the defendant.
Going on the offense by becoming a Plaintiff is a unique defense against his firing.
I'm a big tall mofo.
Let's start with anyone who has three digits or higher of /. posts.
That is why I always masturbate under the table. Much safer that way, especially when share an offer with two chicks.
"...I have a fucking masturbation addition!"
Hmmm...that doesn't add up.
Mr. T pitied this fool on 27 July 1992.
I live in a "Right to Work" state, and I just looked it up and so does the guy who was fired - Alabama.
As I was told by a lawyer a while back, in a right to work state, they can fire you legally because they don't like the way your hair is parted.
Thus this guy's only defense is a national law, which trumps state law. The ADA law.
So, as far as discrimination is concerned, forget it.
As for the ADA law, I think the guy is up a creek without a paddle. I won a suit using the ADA law (settled out of court, but I collected), and this guy hasn't got a prayer.
IANAL
One thing comes to mind on this issue, and it also is seen in companies that offer training and such. The idea of the company paying for treatment for a problem is that the company expects that the employee will return to be a productive employee after the treatment program has been completed. The question when an employee termination decision needs to be made is ALWAYS about the potential of said employee when it comes to work performance.
So, you have someone who is near the end of their employment with the company. It doesn't matter if it's a 2-week notice or a six month, if the treatment program is going to take longer than the employee will be working at the company, it doesn't make sense for the company to pay for treatment since there will be a negative return on the investment. This sort of logic seems to be lost on people who feel that their employer should pay for treatment.
Now, a deal that IBM could have cut would be that in exchange for the treatment, the employee would be required to work an additional two years AFTER the treatment has finished in order to get that pension, but again, that sort of offer would be based on the overall quality of work the employee normally provides.
In this case, was it age discrimination, or simply that there was an employee that broke the rules multiple times? We don't know his job performance history as well. People who meet expectations on their job but never do more, and are not considered a positive influence on their co-workers always will be at risk of losing their job. We only have the word of the former employee here, but I suspect it's a case of someone who really was ready to retire, was fired for viewing adult content while at work, and now hopes to collect more money than his pension would have given him in the first case.
"that is by definition age discrimination"
No this is wrong and silly. Discriminating against him because of his age would be age discrimination. Pending retirement status is not the same thing as age, even though the two may be related. And while you may think the difference is semantic, welcome to the Law where semantic differences are frequently more important than practical ones.
Why are so many posts with factual errors modded up?
But I can't remember what one. Two character are discussing about someone being addicted to porn after having to look at it all day for their job, and then trying to claim disability, maybe. It's fuzzy, but I know it's from a movie..... Burn Karma, Burn
From the article: ... violated no written IBM rule..."
"His lawyer, Michael Diederich, says Pacenza
From the Business Conduct Guidelines:
"IBM's information and communication systems, including IBM connections to the Internet, are vital to IBM's business; you should only use them for appropriate purposes."
I wonder how a sex chat room is an appropriate purpose
is there a patent on thinking yet?
On one hand, you have my sympathy. On the other... Sorry to be an asshole, but...
1. "Data" is not the plural of "anecdote". If your expertise is dating 1 or 2 guys who happened to be both, there's a reason why statistics uses bigger samples. Because judging based on 1 or 2 samples can get you all sorts of funny coincidences. It's like making a study of clover based on a single plant, and concluding that all clover has 4 leaves.
2. On the other hand, if you _have_ dated enough men to have an even remotely signifficant sample, and they were porn addicted and aggressive... have you considered that maybe, just maybe, you're just seeing the Biased Sample fallacy in action? I.e., that that's the sample _you_ chose? Maybe it's time to try dating another kind of man? Just a thought.
I know it's every schoolgirl's dream to have the _fashionable_ antisocial jock/thug as a boyfriend, and that Nice Guy (TM) nerds are sooo boring, insecure and unfashionable. Plus (and funnily this doesn't come from a guy, but a female psychologist) there's this strange correlation between girls who grew up on stories like Cinderella and Beauty And The Beast, and women who get beat up by their husband later. Can it be that IRL the Beast does _not_ turn into a gentle, caring prince, no matter how much you nag^H^H^H love him? Could it be that picking the most fashionable beast for a BF isn't really as smart as it sounds at the time?
But at any rate, if you only date X (where X can be anything, including "aggressive male beast" or "heartless bitch" or whatever), it only just says that that't the kind of person _you_ chose to be with. It's like choosing to drive a SUV and then complaining that all cars you drove were gas-guzzlers. Try another kind of car, if that becomes a problem.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
He will probably claim carpal tunnel next as a repetitive stress injury.
No, that would be pointless, because nobody ever infringes on that technology.
... and then they built the supercollider.
Isn't there a stark difference between between jerking off to porn and fucking on a desk?
One is totally creepy and pathetic, while the other is (assuming those involved were attractive people) hot.
It makes sense to me!