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Man Fired For His Online Customer Service Game
First time accepted submitter DiscountBorg(TM) writes "An employee of the Canada Revenue Agency lost his job after releasing a humorous game in which the player answers customer service calls for the Agency, usually leading to his termination. In an email National Revenue Minister Gail Shea said: 'The Minister considers this type of conduct offensive and completely unacceptable. The Minister has asked the Commissioner (of Revenue, Andrew Treusch) to investigate and take any and all necessary corrective action. The Minister has asked the CRA to investigate urgently to ensure no confidential taxpayer information was compromised.'"
In all honesty, though, their workplace policies aren't all that bad. I've worked as an IT analyst for the CRA for a few years. I regularly had to interact with employees that manned the phones and made friends out of a few of them, all of whom eventually quit. Essentially, the workplace environment isn't all that bad (I'd even go as far as to say that it's relatively nice). However, those who quit explained to me that they felt like they were slowly dying from the inside. See, their job is to call people owing the government money and essentially threatening them of legal action until they would pay up. Calling that one guy who owns a yacht and hasn't paid his taxes in 4 years feels okay, satisfying even. It's when they have to call a grandmother living alone in a small apartment, who breaks down in tears when they tell her the amount she owes that their job gets rather excruciating.