Complain About Comcast, Get Fired From Your Job

ub3r n3u7r4l1st writes When you complain to your cable company, you certainly don't expect that the cable company will then contact your employer and discuss your complaint. But that's exactly what happened to one former Comcast customer who says he was fired after the cable company called a partner at his accounting firm. Be careful next time when you exercise your first amendment rights. From the article: At some point shortly after that call, someone from Comcast contacted a partner at the firm to discuss Conal. This led to an ethics investigation and Conal’s subsequent dismissal from his job; a job where he says he’d only received positive feedback and reviews for his work. Comcast maintained that Conal used the name of his employer in an attempt to get leverage. Conal insists that he never mentioned his employer by name, but believes that someone in the Comcast Controller’s office looked him up online and figured out where he worked. When he was fired, Conal’s employer explained that the reason for the dismissal was an e-mail from Comcast that summarized conversations between Conal and Comcast employees. But Conal has never seen this e-mail in order to say whether it’s accurate and Comcast has thus far refused to release any tapes of the phone calls related to this matter.

Comments

Disturbing

[Anonymous Coward]

This, Yelp complaints, Facebook and Twitter posts... I guess companies looking good trumps my 1st Amendment rights. Screw all these companies. My wife actually looked at me sideways the other day because we are looking for a house and one house was served by Comcast and I told her I will not be a subscriber. I'd rather forego that house and find another. She thought it was ridiculous.

Re:Disturbing

[praxis]

Could you not buy the house and not subscribe to Comcast? It's not like you have to, you know. I wouldn't give up a swell house because it happens to have a dark Comcast cable going into it. I might even sever the connection at the curb or wherever their property ends just to be safe, but pass on the house? Nah.

Re:Disturbing

[X0563511]

It was, because when you buy a house you don't buy their services with it.

Rip that shit out and put in what you want.

Re:Disturbing

[Anonymous Coward]

They have the monopoly for the area in question. Here in Texas, sadly, cities allow this kind of crap. They are the sole choice outside of sateliite services.

Re:Disturbing

[Wookact]

If it is in an area that has not other internet options then yes, the correct answer is not to buy the house unless you plan to rent it out or some such.

Re:Disturbing

[NotDrWho]

What good does a bad Yelp review do when the company has no competition?

Re:Disturbing

[stoploss]

If it is in an area that has not other internet options then yes, the correct answer is not to buy the house unless you plan to rent it out or some such.

Truth. Last time I moved, I spent a weekend in my new house without power or internet. It was harder to deal with the lack of internet than the lack of electricity.

I wouldn't live anywhere I couldn't get internet access inside the domicile.

Re:Disturbing

[TechyImmigrant]

Good internet access it not negotiable. I certainly did buy my last house on the understanding it had good internet (fiber, not Verizon) and wouldn't have brought it if it didn't.

It's neither more nor less negotiable than other things, like running water, electricity, a roof, clear title etc.

Re:Disturbing

[jtownatpunk.net]

Then where will you get your internet, smart guy? DSL? Satellite?

Re:Disturbing

[Anonymous Coward]

Most places have these options: Cable company, Satellite, Phone Company. There are a few rare areas that have real choices. For internet Satellite is expensive and slow, Phone company is usually slow (unless they have FIOS - but few places do - they tend to have DSL). Cable is the only one that works for speed in a lot of areas and there is generally a local monopoly.

Re:Disturbing

[Anonymous Coward]

I would. ComCast is the only choice in most American towns at this point except those few areas still serviced by Cox or vichy TWC. Unless you enjoy bad internet in which case you can get AT&T, or you like taking a gamble and wasting money on Verizon FiOS when the chances are mathematically higher that you'll be using gimped service on a coax line instead of an actual fiber line (thanks, local governments and cable companies)

Re:Disturbing

[Grishnakh]

Rip that shit out and put in what you want.

I don't think your average housebuyer is in a position to start their own ISP service.

Also, homeowners are not allowed to install last-mile infrastructure to the ISP of their choice.

Re:Disturbing

[timothy]

Horses for courses, but at least sometimes there are some opportunities for homeowners to do the last-mile stufff, and contract an upstream provider ... we've had a few examples on Slashdot that are at least in the same (so to speak) neighborhood; here's one -- http://ask.slashdot.org/story/...

Also of interest: http://ask.slashdot.org/story/...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:Disturbing

[Anonymous Coward]

An agreeable house is one thing but if you cant do shit in that house because you don't have functional telecom/tv service, then what does it matter?

Keep in mind this is Slashdot. Nerdtown.

Re: Disturbing

[Anonymous Coward]

4g wireless

Re: Disturbing

[jtownatpunk.net]

Well, that works for me because I have a grandfathered Verizon account. But that's not a practical solution for most people unless all they do is surf the web and check their email.

Re:Disturbing

[infinitelink]

Don't sever the cable--depending on the configuration there might be power running through it. You might also kill the connection to some other household/s (though it should not be set-up that way), and without knowing it the prior owner may have signed-away certain rights to permit them to run the cable on/over/through your property (even without State legislation). It's basically just a mess in these regards, but don't go touching cables you don't know about***. (e.g. guy at [company big] decides to wire-up cables outside one day when ZAP...theoretically safe position and activity wound-up not being so due to inserters-of-power running through cables and killing the poor bastard outside because they were still live: I was at meeting for [company big] the following day when we were informed about the misfortune being found a few hours later out in the back yard by the household owner going "where'd my technician go?") So I repeat...don't go touching cables/configurations that you do not know about***. Just don't do it--power could be coming from somewhere on your property, or from their unit outside. (***Unless, of course, you **really** know what you're doing but, then again, so did that level X--where X is the highest number we had but not a roman numberal--technician.)

Re:Disturbing

[praxis]

Comcast is certainly not good internet. I agree good internet is not negotiable; my point being that having a Comcast wire going up to the property seems like a really blinding hatred of Comcast to pass on a good house (unless Comcast was the only ISP but that wasn't mentioned).

Re:Disturbing

[praxis]

I get mine from DSL. It's far superior to Comcast. I have a dark Comcast jack in my living room. I get the speeds I pay for. My service is not oversold. My ISP does not block any ports. My ISP does not charge me $35 for an IP address like Comcast did. My ISP does not throttle my traffic. My ISP does not have a data cap. My ISP answers the phone within 30 seconds with a competent tech. My ISP does not care what traffic I have going in or out nor that it's going in and out 24/7 pretty much at max speed. My ping time is amazing compared to what I had with Comcast.

Yes, my bandwidth is less, but it's enough to stream HD and larger downloads still take more than instant so I just download them overnight anyhow (thinks like 30GB games). Whether I have 7Mb/s or 30Mb/s doesn't matter in that scenario.

Comcast needs to go the route of AT&T

[Anonymous Coward]

Break them up, don't let them merge so that the abuses can continue.

Re:Comcast needs to go the route of AT&T

[barlevg]

Unless they're allowed to compete in the same markets, I'm really not sure how that would help.

Re:Comcast needs to go the route of AT&T

[Anonymous Coward]

Comcast sucks, but let's face it, this guy deserved what he got. I have no doubt in my mind that he tried to use the name of his employer to gain leverage, then lied about it afterwards. He never thought they'd actually call him on it.

Re:Comcast needs to go the route of AT&T

[superwiz]

What abuses? I am no fan of monopoly utilities (water, cable, electric, etc.), but if the employee got nasty, Comcast can't be forced to use a vendor they don't want to use. First amendment right is a right to speak. It's not a right to be heard.

Re:Comcast needs to go the route of AT&T

[jwhitener]

Won't help if the resulting smaller companies still have monopolies in their service areas.

Cha-ching

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, for the lawyers at least.

So, it has come to this.

[hawkinspeter]

Can't he just sue his ex-employer for wrongful dismissal or does that not exist in the U.S.?

Re:So, it has come to this.

[chubs]

It depends on the state. In many states, an employer can fire you for any reason or no reason at all (with exception of legally protected statuses that cannot be used in hiring/firing decisions such as race, age, gender, etc).

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Kalium70]

Many states are "right to work" states, which actually means the opposite of what it sounds like. In those states, you can be fired for any reason or no reason, so long as if there is a reason, it is not an illegal one. That is, you cannot be fired based on your ethnicity, for example. (At least in theory.)

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Skuld-Chan]

With at will employment no - your employer can fire you for any reason they like.

Welcome to "right to work" :).

Re:So, it has come to this.

[RavenLrD20k]

As noted in TFA a good portion of the US is "at-will employment" where an employer or employee can terminate the relationship at any time for any reason. This essentially means that an employer can fire someone for just about any reason down to "you have a speck of dust on your shoe." If an employee can prove discrimination this becomes a bit hairy for the employer, but generally there's not really much that an employee has for recourse.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Anonymous Coward]

That depends on where he lives. If he lives in an area of at-will employment, there won't be any wrongful dismissal.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[silverkniveshotmail.]

"right to work" is shit but there are limitations to why they can fire you.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually right to work is exactly like it sounds. You have the right to work without paying to join a union.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Anonymous Coward]

i may be wrong, but my understanding is that "right to work" has to do with being able to work in a place with a union, without having to join the union. "work at will" states are the ones who can fire an employee at any time, for any reason.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[MouseTheLuckyDog]

It might be hard to sue the employer but he could sue Comcast for tortuous interference.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Anonymous Coward]

That depends on where he lives. If he lives in an area of at-will employment, there won't be any wrongful dismissal.

No, but I wonder if he can suit Comast for Tortious Interference.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Anonymous Coward]

It depends. If he works at a company where he agreed that he can be fired at any time without cause then there is no wrongful dismissal. Except in this case, where it is obvious, the blowhard dragged his company into his petty little dispute with obvious consequences. Because, you know, account managers of multimillion dollar contracts NEVER pick up the phone and talk to the actual people writing the check, they just take the word of the night shift support drone and assume the pissant, bigmouth jerk on the other end of the line really is the executive vice president of MegaCorp who just happens to be filling in for Wendy from billing.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[ub3r n3u7r4l1st]

Normally employer are smart at fabricating reasons to fire you, and you will not have a smidgen of proof of wrongdoing.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Archtech]

So you can (in reality) be fired for race, age, gender, etc. All the firing boss has to do is to insist it was because you wore a bow tie (which, as we now know, denotes insubordination). Or because you were insufficiently productive, against an arbitrary standard chosen by him. Or because you were rude (according to another employee who must remain anonymous to avoid causing them stress, in that employee's opinion). Or...

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Archtech]

"Actually right to work is exactly like it sounds. You have the right to work without paying to join a union".

You may think this odd, but to my mind "right to work" sounds like "right to work". "Right to work without having to join a union" sounds subtly different.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[colin_young]

Maybe, but it seems to me like it would be more a case of slander or libel by Comcast. Assuming of course that whatever they provided his employer is not factually correct.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah yes, the so-called "Right to Work" states, which in fine legal and political tradition, means the precise opposite of what the name suggests.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[neoritter]

No, right to work means you don't have to join a union, and any provisions that you sign on your hiring contract that restrict where you can work are unenforceable. An example of this are non-compete clauses, where a company says you can't work for a company that is a competitor for one year after leaving the company. In right to work states, this is can not be enforced.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Precisely, although if the accounting firm refuses to offer a decent reference based upon the outcome of a questionable investigation, they could be on the hook for that.

In this case, it's primarily Comcast that's at fault here and they're the ones that are going to have to demonstrate in court that the information they gave the employer was complete and correct. And it sounds like they provided a summary, as in the information was paraphrased and probably in a way that makes Comcrap look better than what the full record would have shown.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[dcollins117]

With at will employment no - your employer can fire you for any reason they like.

Fine with me - I can quit for any reason I feel like too. Seems like an equitable arrangement.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[neoritter]

She'd have to at least prove that Comcast ask for her company to fire her. Yes they gave the reason as Comcast. But their defense was Comcast said she tried to use her company as leverage. So Comcast could've merely emailed saying, "Hey one of your employees threatened us saying she worked for you."

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Anonymous Coward]

With at will employment no - your employer can fire you for any reason they like.

Welcome to "right to work" :).

That's At-Will Employment. It means either you or your employer can terminate your employment agreement at will. As in whenever.

Right to work is a totally different thing. It means a Union shop cannot be closed. In other words, it means you do not need to belong or join a union to work at a place. It might mean that you get paid less and do not have benefits, but legally they can't stop you from working there. States without Right to Work have "closed shops", like Detroit, where you must join UAW if you want to work in a factory for the big three.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Right-to-work law

A "right-to-work" law is a statute in the United States that prohibits union security agreements, or agreements between labor unions and employers, that govern the extent to which an established union can require employees' membership, payment of union dues, or fees as a condition of employment, either before or after hiring. Right-to-work laws do not aim to provide general guarantee of employment to people seeking work, but rather are a government regulation of the contractual agreements between employers and labor unions that prevents them from excluding non-union workers, or requiring employees to pay a fee to unions that have negotiated the labor contract all the employees work under.

At-will employment

At-will employment is a term used in U.S. labor law for contractual relationships in which an employee can be dismissed by an employer for any reason (that is, without having to establish "just cause" for termination), and without warning. When an employee is acknowledged as being hired "at will", courts deny the employee any claim for loss resulting from the dismissal. The rule is justified by its proponents on the basis that an employee may be similarly entitled to leave his or her job without reason or warning. In contrast, the practice is seen as unjust by those who view the employment relationship as characterized by inequality of bargaining power.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[mythosaz]

Of course there's the alternative, where you can't fire anyone, and you keep incompetent employees forever.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[The Technomancer]

He doesn't have a case against his employer unless they were stupid and gave a reason for termination. He likely does have a case against Comcast under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, as the company is not allowed to contact an employer about a debt or matters relating to it. Since this is Comcast we're talking about though, they'll settle, claim this settlement was never recorded in their system, not pay, make the plaintiff call 37 times, then apologize to the plaintiff, offer him 3 months of HBO for free, then charge him in triplicate for that and the amount of the settlement.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[mythosaz]

There's no reason to "fabricate a reason" to fire someone working at will. Simply decide you no longer wish to employ them.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Megol]

Strangely enough that's the standard for even socialistic places (using the correct definition - not the US one) like the Scandinavian countries where most employees are member of a union. But one doesn't have to be - it's a choice.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Anonymous Coward]

With at will employment no - your employer can fire you for any reason they like.

Fine with me - I can quit for any reason I feel like too. Seems like an equitable arrangement.

Except that they may hold any vacation you've earned. They can tie up a lot of things and since you left you don't have much control over what they say about (short of defamation).

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Megol]

Like that's comparable...

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, there are only two options here.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Anonymous Coward]

incorrect. if the employer gives a reason, it may be challenged in court. however, they do not have to give a reason.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Frosty Piss]

It depends on the state. In many states, an employer can fire you for any reason or no reason at all ...

No.

In "right to work" states, you can fire someone for no reason at all, but even in these states, if you cite a reason, everything changes.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[mythosaz]

More importantly you do not need to "have a speck of dust on your shoe."

No cause needed.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[sexconker]

Of course there's the alternative, where you can't fire anyone, and you keep incompetent employees forever.

s/the alternative/unions/

Re:So, it has come to this.

[AK Marc]

That's true, but someone that lies to make you lose your job is an illegal reason. The only thing for the courts to decide is the burden on Comcast vs the employer (who was negligent for not getting the employees side and verifying the unsubstantiated allegations).

Re:So, it has come to this.

[sexconker]

And this is why you browse and -1 and pay more attention to AC posts than any other.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[AK Marc]

Nope. Texas is a Right-to-work state, and non-competes are legal and common. Though I don't know of them being enforced, they are in employment contracts. Maybe they are illegal but in the contract anyway.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[laie_techie]

Many states are "right to work" states, which actually means the opposite of what it sounds like. In those states, you can be fired for any reason or no reason, so long as if there is a reason, it is not an illegal one. That is, you cannot be fired based on your ethnicity, for example. (At least in theory.)

Utah is a "right to work" state (unions are outlawed by state constitution). However, it is our status as a "work at will" state which means that either party can sever the contract for any reason (or no reason!).

Re:So, it has come to this.

[AK Marc]

But there are still protections. If the contract lays out reasons for firing (most do, even in at-will states) the employer is bound by them. If they fired him for "unprofessional behavior" or something similar, and that's listed in the employment contract, then they would need to be able to prove it, or it is a wrongful termination.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[phantomfive]

So you can (in reality) be fired for race, age, gender, etc. All the firing boss has to do is to insist it was because you wore a bow tie

In practice, unless it's a really crappy company (the kind that is a blessing to get fired from), it is so easy expensive to fend off a lawsuit that HR will require a paper trail over time showing why someone had poor performance, and often an improvement plan must be put in place to help the person improve before he gets fired.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Jaime2]

If you take it to court, the judge (or jury depending on what court) is going to listen to the employer's explanation of why the person was fired. If it makes sense, the employer wins. If it doesn't make sense, then it's assumed that the employer is covering up for one of the illegal reasons. They will also look for consistency. If the person was fired for being rude and the employer has a history of not firing people who are rude, then there is an alternate explanation.

This is why people are always so careful to document firings of people who belong to a protected class. If you don't have your ducks in a row, the courts will just ignore your story and believe whatever the former employee says.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Stormy Dragon]

You're confusing "Right to Work" with "At will emplyment". This is understandable since most states that are right to work are also at will employment states, but strictly speaking the two are distinct.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Anonymous Coward]

If they are in a protected class, then if the former employee has evidence they got fired because of their protected class, that can lead to a shit storm.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[l0ungeb0y]

In the US, Employers are JOB CREATORS and therefor can do no wrong. He has no case.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Anonymous Coward]

No. In cases like this the company is guilty until proven innocent. This is why HR likes to demand so much paperwork before you can fire someone. Not to protect someone from getting fired too quickly, but to cover their ass when that fired employee tries to say it was because of some protected class. If the employee tries to say it was because of some protected reason, the company has all the documentation to prove he wasn't fired for smoking dicks during his personal time.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Welcome to capitalism, non-union workers can be fired for any or no reason at all, ever. Thus why to be a business owner or otherwise self-employed. College doesn't teach you how to be self-employed, though, nor feed into that system because self-sufficiency is a loophole in the bullshit American job system.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Existential Wombat]

I don’t think they can get out of paying for earned vacation in all cases. Certainly not in CA.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Tharkkun]

It depends on the state. In many states, an employer can fire you for any reason or no reason at all (with exception of legally protected statuses that cannot be used in hiring/firing decisions such as race, age, gender, etc).

If they give a reason for your dismissal then it opens it up for possible legal action. Which is why when a company fires you for something other than a RIF, or downsizing they collect historical data prior to termination. Otherwise you leave yourself wide open for legal action.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Archtech]

" If it makes sense, the employer wins. If it doesn't make sense, then it's assumed that the employer is covering up for one of the illegal reasons. They will also look for consistency".

All very reasonable. Unfortunately, it's much harder (and usually impossible) to establish truth or falsity. A lone employee up against a stack of managers and their HR department is rather like a single infantryman armed with a rifle trying to fight a tank regiment. It will only end one way.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yuh. My first job when I moved to Houston was with FMC Technologies, Inc. as an SCCM technician. I lasted 3 weeks. The last day I worked there, a Wednesday, my boss explicitly said I could leave early. I begged him for work to do every 5 minutes for 8 hours and ended up twiddling my thumbs the entire day. Then he made a comment when I was on slashdot for 3 minutes. I asked him again for work to do - no answer. I left 13 minutes early, because he said I could.

Got a call the next morning before my shift from Insight Global that they didn't want me on site anymore because I "was leaving early." Left early once. With permission.

Fuck off. Am I supposed to ethically sit there and soak up money for doing literally no work? For a company who forces employees to go through an extensive ethics rubric and claims to value it so highly, they don't seem to mind paying people to do jack shit.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Splab]

Ah bullshit, but thanks for playing.

We have unions in Denmark and you can fire people easy enough. And then there are countries like France, where you can't fire people at all, not thanks to unions.

The unions in the US have way too much power, and that is a business stifling problem; but that doesn't mean unions are a bad thing.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Anonymous Coward]

In the USA Corporations are people but Employees are not.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[mythosaz]

Of course. ...which is why "fabricating a reason" is still moronic.

Even if you were straight up firing an old guy for being old, a woman for being female, the handicapped for being disabled, or a minority for not being in the majority, and your working agreement were at-will, you'd just let them go without providing any reason whatsoever.

Fabricating a reason only gives the lawsuit a place to start.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Anonymous Coward]

By giving a reason that they fired her they opened themselves up to litigation end of story.
I know I work in a right to work state.

If any reason is given for your termination without any course of action to correct the offense then this leave the company open to a wrongful termination suit.
The fact that they did not give the evidence is just wrong.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Matt.Battey]

Which is the opposite of states such as California and New York. My sister occasionally worked as an extra on a daytime-drama filmed in Manhattan (New York). Upon her sixth engagement, she was met by the union steward and told that if she were to return again she would have to present her Screen Actors Guild card or he would shutdown production for the day. Yearly membership cost approximately 6 days of pay. When the director invited her back, they agreed to pay her membership dues so that she could return as an extra again. Guild membership gave here nothing more than the privilege of a couple more days of uncredited extra work. If you got to another occupation that has union involvement, you have to join that union too.

This is what it means when a state does not have Right-To-Work legislation.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[TheCarp]

Well yes, a point which I made to a friend recently who was talking about employment rights. Sure they can't fire you for THAT, but they CAN just fire you and not really say much about why.

This isn't even like....unusual here. This is the kind of "protection" we are used to, the kind that is just enough to make most people think its taken care of and ignore it.

Take "Fair Housing". Our version of it works like this. As a landlord (which I was for a while) you can't discriminate against age, race, sex, marital status etc. That is unless you only own 1 or 2 units in the same building and live in one of them yourself. If that is the case, then the courts have ruled you have the right to not live with anyone you don't want to, and can discriminate for any reason.

Now where it gets really funny, is when you are such a landlord. Even though you can use any criteria you want, you are still bound by fair housing laws not to put anything that would discourage any protected groups. So, even if I own a 2 bedroom little shack where my roomate and I will hardly be able to breath at the same time....I can't say anything like "no couples" or "no kids", and no matter how racist I am and how uncomfortable anyone of any color at all would be around me, I can't state that either.

I mean, that wasn't my situation and that wasn't me, but the irony of the situation was not lost on me. Our laws are just fucked up and designed to look good while providing almost no protections for anyone, even when they try.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Typically these days a reference simply states that "Yes. John Doe worked here from this date to that date," to minimize the the chance of a lawsuit.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[operagost]

In reality, the opposite happens. Employees who are part of a protected class often cannot be fired without a lawsuit.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[neoritter]

You misread what I said. I never said they are not in the contracts. I said that in states that are right to work, those provisions in the contract are not enforceable.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[operagost]

The fact that people don't know the difference between "at will" and "right to work" is probably why we have so many people opposing "right to work" laws. They think they're giving up employment protections, when right-to-work is mostly a win for employees and a loss for huge, money-wasting unions.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[dywolf]

That would be a myth.
Never once seen a union contract that did not provide for dismissal.
And if a company ever actually signed that sort of agreement, then they deserve what they got and need to fire their lawyers/negotiating team.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[TheCarp]

Yup. Anyone who has been in the workforce and not at a place thats small and full of happy people should have been able to piece this one together on their own. Whenever someone leaves a company it is always either "He has moved on to other opportunities" (he left on his own) or "He is no longer with the company" (we fired him)

You just about never get more than that officially, anything else will be off the record hallway talk. About the only exception to that I have seen was an old manager of mine who had a habbit of occasionally getting so frustrated with his managers that he would end up venting a little to the team. It probably wasn't smart on his part but, neither was continueing to work there, which, is why I left.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Nonsense. He introduced facts including citations to a nerdrage.

How dare he!

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Or defamation. Unless this becomes one of those he says, he says -situations with forged emails and such.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a nice false dichotomy you've got there. Be a shame if something happened to it... But seriously, there's a huge gulf between at-will and what you describe. I know of a small business where the receptionist is frequently rude to clients and spends more time on places like Facebook than actual work. So even if this small business had to show good cause for firing this receptionist, it wouldn't be that difficult a bar to meet. You just have to show some business related reason for firing the person, as opposed to "I don't like the color of your shoelaces. Get out, you're fired!"

What I don't get is that the US was founded upon the principles of everyone being equal and entitled to some kind of due process... Except when it comes to private business, when suddenly that whole idea goes out the window according to certain political philosophies. Ironically the same political philosophies often espouse ideals about freedom from oppression and decry dictators petty, tinpot, or otherwise. I've never been able to figure out how they reconcile such a disconnect where oppression from governments is the single greatest evil, but the same kind of oppression from private business is not only perfectly acceptable, it's a desirable outcome.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Anonymous Coward]

You're talking about at-will employment. Right To Work means you don't have to join or pay dues to a union if you don't want to.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Chris Mattern]

Never once seen a union contract that did not provide for dismissal.

Yep, all you need is the agreement of the union's designated representative. That should be easy enough, right?

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with you. I always interpret it the opposite way of what it really means.

Try translating it to "right to remain silent". My interpretation of "right to remain silent" means that I can choose to stay silent, and you can't take that right away from me without some sort of sufficient justifcation***. On the other hand, the "right to work" analogous interpretation of "right to remain silent" would mean "you have the right to remain silent and you don't even need to hire an attorney to invoke that right, however if we decide, for any reason at all, that we don't want you to remain silent, then we can prevent you from doing so".

For working, having the "right" refer to "your right to work without having to join the union" seems about as silly as having it mean "your right to work without having to pass the interview process". They are both the requirements of the employer. In one case, the employer requires you to join the union. In the other, the employer requires you to impress them in your interview. If the company wanted to let you work without joining the union, they could do it, and the union could strike to try and compel them to change their requirements. And that's exactly what has happened historically. The company has decided they'd rather require you to join the union than have to deal with a bunch of pissed off union people walking out of their job.

***note: even though I don't agree with it, there are currently legal justifications for revoking your right to remain silent. Ex: compelling you to reveal passwords, the identity of your informants, etc.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, and employees can quit at any time for any reason. Seems fair to me.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems fair, as long as these possible reasons are specifically listed and specified up-front at the point of the candidate deciding whether or not to take your job offer.

Otherwise, it can be seen as tantamount to a bait-and-switch fraud, as the notion of "if I do a good job for you and the company can afford it, you'll continue to pay me" is arguably implicit in the acceptance of the hiring arrangement.

Of course, as you say, we are talking legalities, not ethics.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[swb]

You actually mean "at will employment" where they can terminate your employment for any reason.

However, this gets further confused when you consider "termination for cause" -- are they firing you just to terminate your employment or is there some rationale for termination like insubordination, unexcused absences, criminal activity.

Most employers don't like terminating employment without cause because employees are often eligible for unemployment insurance which impacts their employer's premiums.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[BringsApples]

True story:

A co-worker sent a message (using a company computer) to another co-worker (using a company computer) detailing how she thought their manager was a bi-ch. That (bi-ch) manager looked on the computer(s) after hours one day and found that message. The next day that manager fired the one employee that spoke ill of her. Reason given was basically, "You don't talk about me like that!" That manager and her manager (the actual office manager) got together and decided that due to the First Amendment, they cannot fire her for that. So that office manager called the lady back, and told her that there was some confusion, and that she was in fact not fired. She was told to come back to work the next day. She came back the next day and both managers fired her for a messy desk.

Luckily the lady had a good friend that was a lawyer. She ended up suing and won a year's salary.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[BringsApples]

And then there are countries like France, where you can't fire people at all, not thanks to unions.

Can you elaborate more on that? How is this possible?

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's bullshit. I've been in a couple of unions and none of the contracts prevented employees from being fired for cause. They would have a set of steps that had to be taken, but the union's agreement was never required to fire somebody. In fact, I've known quite a few people that got fired off union jobs for breaking the rules. It's just that they had to have cause.

If it were as hard to fire union employees as you seem to think, nobody would ever be fired and the organization hiring the union workers would go out of business before too long.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[BringsApples]

In "right to work" states, you can fire someone for no reason at all, but even in these states, if you cite a reason, everything changes.

When a reason is required, everyone has a messy desk.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[stoploss]

That just means it's time to rebrand "right to work" as "illegalize taxation by unions" or "freedom not to join a union" laws.

I'm sure a few focus groups can work out a properly calibrated term.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been laid off from a job because my employer's wife wanted a new car (it was a year old already). There was nothing I could do legally, except collect a few weeks of unemployment before the state took it's website down so nobody could collect benefits for a week, thus stealing millions of dollars from previously employed individuals.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[sjames]

Exactly. There's the old favorite "just not a team player" (employee of the year awards notwithstanding).

Re:So, it has come to this.

[sjames]

Yes, both extremes are bad.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[sjames]

Not really. They can cut off 100% of your income suddenly and at a whim. I'll bet you cannot cut off 100% of their productivity at a whim, can you?

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Anonymous Coward]

> tortuous interference

Do you mean the tort of interfering with his contract with his employer, or were you describing talking with their "support" reps?

I can't quite tell ...

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps he's confused because, like me, I was directly told by corporate HR the position was at will, and it was specifically justified by them due to it being a "Right to Work" state.

Politicians aren't the only ones whom ambiguity and confusion conveniently serves.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hence the firing practice at my mega corp trying to lose X number of staff:

1) Ask everyone to volunteer to leave and offer a cash bonus as enticement.
2) Take the list of volunteers and random select X people from that list
3) Fire them and give them each a pile of cash in return for not suing.

So no one was selected for their protected class status. It was random.

The art is in setting the cash bonus large enough that you get more than X volunteers. These are generally the most experienced, skilled or talented people who can easily find employment elsewhere or are near retirement. The resulting hollowing out of the skill base then means you need to rapidly hire the following month.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[oldmac31310]

Ha, ha - yes - the way I heard it was that 'hire at will' protects both the employer and the employee! As if to reassure the working stiffs that they are neither slaves nor indentured servants and can work for whom ever they please. Job security my arse!

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah because he couldn't have been being sarcastic or anything.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Anonymous Coward]

except in practice a company can't do that.

Example: Former employer wanted to fire somebody because they sucked at their job. They started creating a paper trail. I ask why since they can fire for no reason at all. They come back with what happens if the fired claim it was actually religiously motivated or for some other reason where the person is in a protected class that the employer doesn't know about, if the fired person claims that they were fired for said illegal reason, and employer states it was for no reason, it's up to the employer to prove that it was for no reason, which becomes one hell of a hard thing to prove in court. This was the official stance from the legal department. Hence all firings required creating a paper trail first.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[sjames]

Actually, she would only need to show that Comcast expected some sort of adverse reaction. And if it didn't, why did it contact the employer at all?

Re:So, it has come to this.

[afidel]

The unions in the US have way too much power

LOL! Union participation is at an all time low, other than police and sometimes fire unions the public unions have been destroyed or weakened to the point of irrelevance. Heck, even the UAW and Teamsters, some of the strongest unions historically have little power and have given up almost all protections for new members to keep some of the gains for past employees. I'm no lover of the UAW (actually, have many fun stories about how they messed up things for me when I worked for IBM) but even I will say that the idea that they have too much power today, or any time in the last decade or so is silly.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh-so-ironically (or perhaps Newspeak-y), those states are known as "Right To Work" states. Please see Wikipedia:

"A "right-to-work" law is a statute in the United States that prohibits union security agreements, or agreements between labor unions and employers, that govern the extent to which an established union can require employees' membership, payment of union dues, or fees as a condition of employment, either before or after hiring. Right-to-work laws do not aim to provide general guarantee of employment to people seeking work, but rather are a government regulation of the contractual agreements between employers and labor unions that prevents them from excluding non-union workers, or requiring employees to pay a fee to unions that have negotiated the labor contract all the employees work under."

Sounds "fair," right? Keep those Damn Unions from interfering in the ability of the Hard Working Average American to get a job! A Man should be able to get any job he wants, union or no!

In practice, this has gutted the ability of any union to do any damn thing to protect anyone's "right to stay employed" and "right to be paid a fair wage" in those states. (Oh, crap, I can hear the naive baying of the libertarian hordes now...)

Are many unions corrupt, bloated, self-interested and potentially dangerous to economic growth and development? Sure, though probably not NEARLY as many or much as the popular opinion seems to be.

But these "Right to Work" states are showing that there's a damn reason why the little guy, the Hard Working Average American bled and, yes, DIED decades ago to get collective bargaining and unions established to begin with. You (and, to be honest, that includes me!) may want to not have to deal with a union to get a job, but given how badly the table is tilted, how outrageously the game has been rigged, there are precious few true alternatives.

Well, that was a bit of a side track to the original article, but I don't think it's necessarily irrelevant to the core problem. Big Business is Too Damn Big, and we are too freaking small by ourselves.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[HornWumpus]

Business owners are also free people.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[PRMan]

I think they are talking about Teacher's Unions like in NY, where they have dozens of teachers going to empty rooms all day to sit around and get paid because they can't fire them.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, there are only two options here.

This the the USA we're talking about. The land of people who believe that all false dichotomies are in fact true, and Terr'rists.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[dcollins117]

They can cut off 100% of your income suddenly and at a whim.

No they can't. I have several job opportunities.

'll bet you cannot cut off 100% of their productivity at a whim, can you?

Nor would I want to. What happens to them after I leave doesn't really matter to me.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[HornWumpus]

Depends what state you are in. In California what you say is basically true. In Colorado the labor board _always_ sides with the employer.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[PRMan]

This is why they handle it be having a "layoff" and only laying off the people that they want to fire.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[evilRhino]

I believe the idea that unions are still relevant is a popular message among the corporate media. For example when Hostess went bankrupt in 2012 due to mismanagement, the press reported mostly that the business would have to close if the unions didn't make concessions. Never mind the fact that they had previously made many concessions in the past, and the new contract would result in wages barely over minimum wage yet would not touch executive bonuses. OCP owns the police.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[PRMan]

Nope. Talking about it in your e-mail and then firing them for "no reason" is where lawsuits end...in favor of the fired party.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[HornWumpus]

Good reason to never hire any members of protected classes.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[PRMan]

And in CA, when they fire you they are required to hand you your last check immediately. If not, there is a penalty per day for unpaid wages.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[PRMan]

Well, as an IT professional I probably COULD, but it would be extremely unethical and illegal... (See San Francisco network.)

Re:So, it has come to this.

[PRMan]

And realistically, if you sue a previous employer, even for very good protected reasons, good luck on ever getting hired again. My friend's brother was fired for complaining about constant sexual harassment from his (female) boss. He ended up winning the lawsuit, as even her e-mails were clearly harassing him and several witnesses confirmed his version of accounts.

He got a $50,000 payout on top of money they were holding for a total of about $75,000. His lawyers took their standard third so he was back to about $50,000. After that, it took him 2 YEARS to get hired because every company saw a lawsuit against his previous employer and refused to hire him right there.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[PRMan]

Yes. Comcast is interfering with his business relationship with his employer when it is none of their business. This is where it gets important whether HE is the one that brought his company into it or not.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[operagost]

Number one, a contract is different from a policy. If you sign a contract, you have protections based on what is in the contract. Number two, you can put anything you want in a contract or a policy, but if it violates law they might as well put "must surrender first-born" in there for all the good it does them.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[The New Guy 2.0]

The headline is wrong. He wasn't fired for calling customer service, he was fired for calling the company controller for personal account using a number that should only be used for work reasons.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[The New Guy 2.0]

You can't "fire" for no reason at all. That's called a "layoff" instead. "Fired" means you can't get unemployment insurance money, "Laid off" means you win an unemployment claim.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[sjames]

An opportunity is not a job. I didn't say they could cut it off forever, now did I?

Fundamentally, there is an imbalance of power there.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Good for her. A LOT of people would kill for a SAG card.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[The New Guy 2.0]

I notice you refer to that show in the past tense. Was it "LUV-NYC"?

Unions made daytime drama too expensive, and that's why we have The Doctors and Let's Make a Deal on in daytime now.

"Right to work" is misnamed. It's really "Right to force union membership!"

Re:So, it has come to this.

[The New Guy 2.0]

Nope, he was fired for interference by calling someone he shouldn't have. Even accountants must take their complaints to customer service.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[TheCarp]

Actually, both of you are kind of right.

Unions, for the most part, have been exterminated. However, the few that do still exist and are strong.... Prison Gaurds and Police. They have had some rather impressive blooming in the last few years; and they most certainly do NOT stop at advocating for better working conditions.

In fact, the Union supported the NYPD use of "Stop and Frisk". These unions regularly oppose drug law reform, and anything else that might reduce the need for their "services". They are some of the most powerful groups in the entire country now.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[zildgulf]

With many At-Will employment states, like Georgia, employers fabricate reasons to fire employees in order to deny the fired employee unemployment benefits. If they site no reason or lie to the labor board about the firing the fired employee get unemployment benefits which is paid into by the businesses. The incentive for companies to fabricate reasons to fire employees is to keep their unemployment insurance premiums low.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[roninmagus]

No, it means exactly what it is called. "Right to work" means you have the "right to work" for a company without being forced by your employer to pay dues to a union. The whole ability to fire thing is mostly due to lack of union protections.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[mythosaz]

Otherwise, it can be seen as tantamount to a bait-and-switch fraud, as the notion of "if I do a good job for you and the company can afford it, you'll continue to pay me" is arguably implicit in the acceptance of the hiring arrangement.

...which is why nearly every employment agreement where at-will is the law says, in clear as crystal language exactly what at-will is, and explains how both parties may remedy themselves should they no longer want to work with each other.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing to do with Unions; well, ish.
The laws were passed at a state level to stop Unions from gaining power.
By allowing companies to operate "At-will", meaning both the employee and employer may terminate employment for any reason (or for no reason).
By doing so, anyone who even thinks about unionizing will get fired.

Net result; there are practially no unions in these states, unless they had a strong foothold before these laws went into place.
And if the "right-to-work" law was also passed, it means unions cannot force new employees to join the union as a condition of employment; to pretty much guarantee that the number of unionized workers decrease over time.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[mythosaz]

Who's sending these emails? Is this some narrative you've created?

You can fire an at-will employ for no reason. If you have a reason, it can be nearly anything that isn't on a short federally prohibited list. ...which is why creating a fake narrative to disguise an illegal firing is a terrible idea -- compounding the already terrible idea of firing someone based on federally protected discrimination grounds.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Anonymous Coward]

I have personally never seen this.
Every employment contract I have signed in the last 10 years have all had the same clause, almost copied verbatim.

At Will Employment
The employee agrees that employment is "At Will" and that either the employer or employee may terminate employment for any reason, or for no reason.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Your.Master]

Given that "citizenship" and "national origin" are protected classes, the only people who are not in a protected class are by definition American-born American citizens, who still obviously have legally-encoded special rights in the United States eg. hiring Americans preferentially to via workers. So even they are "protected" in a sense -- we can fairly say that everybody is in a quasiprotected class.

So in any organization that has international employees, basically everybody is in a quasi-protected class, and therefore the documentation requirements are incumbent upon everybody.

Of course another aspect of this is that, with frequency that may surprise you, people will say out loud with witnesses, or in writing, or whatever, that they are letting somebody go for one of those reasons that is explicitly illegal. That sort of statement makes it an open-and-shut case.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Grishnakh]

I'm guessing it has to do with employment law, rather than unions. Governmental laws are far, far more powerful than any union could ever be.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[jedidiah]

Yes. And clearly some people are more equal than others.

Strangely enough some of the peasants even support this as if the last 500 years of Anglo-American history didn't exist.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Penguinisto]

Agreed with the AC, actually.

If the guy indeed has a paper trail of good-to-excellent reviews and promotions, then suddenly got fired after the employer willingly admits the reason was over some petty vengeance from Comcast, then the guy can indeed sue the employer initially. All it would take is a subpoena of the alleged Comcast email/recording, and once Comcast fails to produce a valid (as in independently verifiable) version of either, suddenly he can go after Comcast for perpetrating all kinds of fraudulent stuff (and TBH, so can the employer).

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably not his employer, but possibly Comcast for Tortious Interference. It really depends on whether he involved his company.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Mr. Slippery]

Of course there's the alternative, where you can't fire anyone, and you keep incompetent employees forever.

And there, is, of course, no possible in between state. The only alternatives are being unable to terminate incompetent employees, and allowing absolutely arbitrary employment decisions by those in power.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[jedidiah]

Yes. "at will employment" is usually referred to by the Orwellian term "Right to Work".

Re:So, it has come to this.

[AK Marc]

One is a political grouping "Right to work" and the other is employment law "at will employment". Most employment in right to work states is at will. Thus, I didn't confuse the two, but I was talking about a specific place. If it's both, then your complaint is invalid. I even named it. If Texas is both, and it certainly was when I was employed there, then my statements are 100% correct, even if I didn't use the terminology you'd prefer.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[AK Marc]

But they work anyway. Would you rather be right (And out 6 months of legal fees, and probably lose your new job anyway because of the battle), or just follow the invalid contract? Most people pick the latter.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Anonymous Coward]

"What I don't get is that the US was founded upon the principles of everyone being equal and entitled to some kind of due process... Except when it comes to private business, when suddenly that whole idea goes out the window according to certain political philosophies"

Just wondering if you think if you should go through due process when you decide to stop buying goods in Walmart and choose a competition...

Re:So, it has come to this.

[khallow]

What I don't get is that the US was founded upon the principles of everyone being equal and entitled to some kind of due process... Except when it comes to private business, when suddenly that whole idea goes out the window according to certain political philosophies. Ironically the same political philosophies often espouse ideals about freedom from oppression and decry dictators petty, tinpot, or otherwise. I've never been able to figure out how they reconcile such a disconnect where oppression from governments is the single greatest evil, but the same kind of oppression from private business is not only perfectly acceptable, it's a desirable outcome.

Because private businesses can't impose the same sort of oppression that a government can. They have to follow laws and they can't shield their employees from criminal actions. And you can always leave an abusive employer. It's much harder to leave an abusive government, especially, if it has imprisoned you.

This stuff is not in the same league. It mystifies me how people can equate the huge power of governments with the far weaker power of businesses.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, how lovely for all the useless non-white parasites, who don't want to live around their OWN races, in their OWN countries, for some strange, bizarre reason, which I just can't fathom...

Re:So, it has come to this.

[marauder68]

You mean a unionized workforce.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[neoritter]

No they don't. Because the suit would be dismissed in court.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[jedidiah]

There is no real difference. They are policies that go together like peas and carrots because they originate from the same political ideology and benefit the same class of people to the detriment of the rest of us.

They get conflated for very good reason.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[marauder68]

Have you seen the process to fire a government union worker? The person has to get a bad annual review, then gets transferred to another supervisor who has to give another bad annual review, then gets transferred to another supervisor who has to give another bad annual review, and then after 3 years in a row the firing process can start, which takes another 2 years minimum. The whole process can be reset to the beginning by the worker putting in a half-ass effort to get a mediocre review in any of those 5 years. That whole time the person can show up and collect a paycheck without doing a single minute of work. While not impossible, it is for all intents and purposes impossible.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[neoritter]

Not if you're trying to prove "Tortious Interference" as the AC suggests. From the linked wiki:

The classic example of this tort occurs when one party induces another party to breach a contract with a third party, in circumstances where the first party has no privilege to act as it does and acts with knowledge of the existence of the contract. Such conduct is termed tortious inducement of breach of contract.

So as long as the employee isn't fired (contract breached/broken) Comcast would not be at fault for Tortious Interference.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Employee farted while in the bathroom". Terminated.

"Employee did not cover her mouth and nose while sneezing". Terminated.

"Employee did not complete the reacharound after tonguing her boss's balls". Terminated.

All GREAT reasons.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Atrox666]

It depends how fascist a state you work in. In some states they can fire you without reason making your freedom of expression guaranteed in the constitution completely moot. This is called At Will employment, it's sick and disgusting. It means that if you get fired for being gay you have to prove that it was because you are gay and not just because they felt like it.
 

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Mr. Slippery]

Fine with me - I can quit for any reason I feel like too. Seems like an equitable arrangement.

It can be equitable if you're a skilled employee working for a sole proprietorship run by a middle-class person. You have leverage.

If you're a laborer working for a multi-national corporation, you're lucky if the stockholders don't grind your bones to make their bread. There's nothing "equitable" about a human being facing an gigantic immortal psychopath created by state fiat.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Attila Dimedici]

As has repeatedly been stated, "right to work" and "at will employment" are two separate and unrelated concepts. "Right to work" means that you cannot be required to, among other things, join a union as a condition of employment. "At will employment" means that you may quit your job for any reason you choose and that your employer may fire you for any reason they choose (except for some exceptions written into the law in one place or another). While most states which have right to work laws also have laws stating the employment is at will, this is not 100 percent true.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[budgenator]

No he/she doesn't have to have any reason to fire you, it's actually better to fire people without a reason than with reason, just like I can quit anytime or for any or no reason. We don't let People go for frivolous reasons, letting someone go costs about $50,000.00 in our industry and of course entails a lot of emotional turmiol, but we could. Even in states like ours where you can fire anyone for any legal or no reason, we tend to keep people who should be terminated far longer than is good for either party.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Anonymous Coward]

That would be the state of California

Re:So, it has come to this.

[mark-t]

Why would the firing be illegal if the employee was hired in an at-will employment state?

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Anonymous Coward]

I had a run-in with this sort of crap when I was younger.

I worked in a grocery store in my teen and college years. They required all employees to join the UFCW ("United Food and Commercial Workers", for those that don't want to bother googling it). The initiation dues were basically the entire first paycheck ($50), but you got half of it back if you went to the UFCW orientation meeting that was held every few weeks. I went to the orientation. I never got my $25 back. Then they milked about $2 a week out of me for the few years I worked there. I received precisely squat in return.

After I had moved on from that job, the local union boss "retired and did not resign" and ended up being sentenced to house arrest for lying to a federal agent at the Department of Labor.

The grocery store and the union were both run by a bunch of absolute scumbags. The sooner the company goes out of business and the union is broken, the better.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Anonymous Coward]

So individual freedom of choice is a fucking political philosophy?

No. Its the lack of political philosophy. Not being forced to join a union or pay union dues means you are not being forced to live and work based on some assholes "political philosophy".

Re:So, it has come to this.

[TsuruchiBrian]

We can never really know the true motivations for people's actions. So let's give all our money to lawyers just to be safe.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[sjames]

But the employee WAS fired. That the actual result may or may not have been beyond expectation is irrelevant. There was expectation of an adverse reaction.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[TsuruchiBrian]

The fact that union participation is low might be a good thing in many situations. I am not in a union, but it is because I have desirable skills and don't require union protections. Maybe one day the only jobs that exist (for humans) will be jobs that don't require union protection (i.e. jobs that are not treated like commodities).

Also to say that unions are too powerful is not necessarily disputing the claim that unions used to be more powerful in the past.

Look at teachers unions in California. They have made it nearly impossible to fire incompetent teachers, but they haven't really succeeded at all in raising salaries to a level that I would expect professionals in a field as important as education. So does this mean the teachers union is too powerful? I don't know. I think it makes them bad for society. I certainly wouldn't want a union for nuclear power plant workers that was powerful enough to make firing of incompetent workers impossible.

I don't think the fact that the teacher's union is currently bad necessarily means that it can't ever be a good thing. I think it would be good if the teachers union fought for raising teacher salaries to double what they are, and did not fight for protections for incompetent teachers. But maybe if they did that and succeeded, teachers wouldn't need unions anymore (i.e. like how engineers don't need unions).

Re:So, it has come to this.

[laughingskeptic]

Certainly doesn't exist in Texas.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[TsuruchiBrian]

If the US is based on freedom, how come I am not free to marry whoever I want? I tried to marry Angelina Jolie, and she wouldn't let me. What country is this? Mexico?

Re:So, it has come to this.

[TsuruchiBrian]

Why is that a good thing?

Re:So, it has come to this.

[linuxrocks123]

How much of an imbalance there is depends a lot on the labor market and the individual. The employer often doesn't know what imbalance, if any, exists, which helps the employee.

If I have a marketable degree, I can probably find another job soon. That reduces the imbalance of power.
If I have 2 years of savings, I don't have to find another job that soon. That reduces the imbalance of power.
If I have a good family safety net (i.e., spouse works), I don't have to find another job that soon. That reduces the imbalance of power.
If I'm working for minimum wage in a market where the salary would be below minimum wage without government intervention (so there is necessarily unemployment due to Economics 101), have a preexisting health condition pre-ACA and either health insurance through my job only or no health insurance at all, have no savings, no family, and live in an apartment where I need my very next paycheck for the rent, then there is quite an imbalance of power.

There are various ways and individual can help himself move from that bottom category to one of the other ones. There are various ways society can help people in the bottom category (but minimum wage IS NOT one of them). It's good to think about these things, because, yeah, some employment relationships can be pretty unfair. Unions aren't necessarily the answer, though. I personally think trying to reduce poverty more directly is a better tactic (basic income, etc.).

Re:So, it has come to this.

[HornWumpus]

The employee doesn't own the job, the employer does.

Nobody is free to do things with the property of others.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[linuxrocks123]

Glad he won at least. Harassment can cut across both genders. Too often people forget that.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[TsuruchiBrian]

"Right to work" to me sounds like the government must provide you with a job if you request one.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[linuxrocks123]

Settlements get recorded by the court as judgments. They pull that, he can go to the sheriff and take his pound of flesh in seized cable boxes from their local office.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[BringsApples]

Why is what a good thing?

Re:So, it has come to this.

[sjames]

The catch is, if ALL of the favorable conditions you named are true you can just about reach parity. If any are false, not so much.

That's why in general, employment law needs to at least slightly favor the employee.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[TsuruchiBrian]

Everyone is a member of a protected class.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[TsuruchiBrian]

They can not cut off 100% of your income on a whim. They can stop paying you money. Whether the money they pay you is 100% of your income is up to you. If a company hired you as their only employee, you quitting would effectively be a 100% drop in productivity. Does that mean you shouldn't be allowed to quit?

What are other sources of income? Well how about a new job, and unemployment benefits for the time you spend looking for a new job.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[nobuddy]

Or simply give no reason.
the ironically named "Right To Work" states allow you to fire without giving a reason. A blatant effort to sidestep anti discrimination laws.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[nobuddy]

Citation needed. Since classrooms are universally overcrowded, I call bullshit.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[TsuruchiBrian]

This is the same argument that small red states make as to why they need the same voting power as big blue states. It's not fair if the big blue states can tell the little red states what to do just because they have more people.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[phantomfive]

I believe the idea that unions are still relevant is a popular message among the corporate media

The unions are still relevant because they donate a lot of money to politicians. That's the main reason.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[The Technomancer]

Yes, but that would kill the joke, dude.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Stoutlimb]

Don't you mean her lawyer won her salary?

Re:So, it has come to this.

[TsuruchiBrian]

That your coworker got a lawyer and a year's salary from the company. It's probably good for your coworker, but in total it actually seems like quite a tragic waste of time and resources in total which is bad for the economy and society.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh the humanity! Oh the oppression!

Really, what is the point of your story? Your sister got to work as long as the job lasted and there was no impact on her whatsoever. Even her dues were paid.

I can understand not wanting to join a union. However in the pantheon of "things a person does not want in life", union membership is way down the list for most people.

Hey, I don't want to work but I still want pay and a comfortable lifestyle! How come no one wants to hear my plea?? It's absurd of course but really, I'll bet good money that the average person hates their job a lot more than they hate their union. And if not then why not?

Re:So, it has come to this.

[mythosaz]

Are we going in circles now? It seems so.

In an at-will employment agreement, you can fire anyone for any reason or no reason at all, unless you've fired them because of something covered by, say, the ADA or Title VII. [Also, probably a lot more little things, YMMV, not valid in all 50 states or in Canada, TINLA, IANYL. IANAL.]

If you're an old black female Eskimo in a wheelchair, and I fire you on a whim, that's fine.
If you're an old black female Eskimo in a wheelchair, and I fire you for being old, black, female, Eskimo, and/or in a wheelchair, we've got a problem, because law.

Obviously in either case the elderly black disabled female Eskimo has a lot of cards to play in court should they decide to make a case for being (or alleging that they were) dismissed in violation of either the ADA or Title VII, but firing her on a whim isn't illegal.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[AK Marc]

No, they aren't. I know people in Texas who have gone to court over non-competes in a "right-to-work" state. You are wrong.

http://www.texasnoncompetelaw.... https://www.texasattorneygener...

Those prove that there's at least a legal discussion about it. It's not as obvious as you assert. And that Texas is officially a "right-to-work" state.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Anonymous Coward]

So you can (in reality) be fired for race, age, gender, etc. All the firing boss has to do is to insist it was because you wore a bow tie (which, as we now know, denotes insubordination). Or because you were insufficiently productive, against an arbitrary standard chosen by him. Or because you were rude (according to another employee who must remain anonymous to avoid causing them stress, in that employee's opinion). Or...

Well, to avoid potential lawsuits you tend not to ever be fired for anything specific, they won't fire you for wearing ugly ties, you'll get fired because "you are not a good fit for the team" or something equally vague that doesn't specifically blame any action or behavior on you that you might try to sue over.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[linuxrocks123]

Oh ... didn't see the joke. I see it now. Good one :)

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, and they are free to take their business elsewhere.

Hey, if it's a valid argument for your side...

Re:So, it has come to this.

[sjames]

Well, many employers strongly discourage a second job. I never said they could cut it off forever, but let's just say that in the vast majority of cases they can cause a whole lot more trouble for you than you can for them (unless you break the law).

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Anonymous Coward]

From: http://www.sagaftra.org/content/paying-dues

Dues are based on a sliding scale, with the amount determined by how much you earn under SAG or AFTRA contracts.
Each SAG-AFTRA member pays annual base dues of $198.00. In addition members pay 1.575% of all individual earnings under SAG or AFTRA contracts between $1 and $500,000.

And the dues one pays also provide for things like legal representation (at no cost) should your employer exploit you. If it isn't worthwhile to your sister because she isn't making any kind of career out of it, bear in mind that other people are. And it affects them when the employers are allowed to do things like reclassify employees as temps in order to skirt around their contractual obligations.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[TsuruchiBrian]

Well, many employers strongly discourage a second job.

I was not even referring to a 2nd simultaneous job. I was referring to a subsequent job.

I never said they could cut it off forever

They are not even cutting it off at all if you can collect unemployment benefits. They are only cutting off the income that you get from them, not the income you can get from anywhere. Just like how you quitting only cuts off the productivity they get from you, not necessarily the total productivity they get from everyone.

vast majority of cases they can cause a whole lot more trouble for you than you can for them (unless you break the law).

I think this is a good thing. A corporation is a large group of people that typically has a larger impact on society than a single person. It makes perfect sense that a single person would not be able to severely disrupt an entire corporation under normal circumstances.

I think this imbalance makes sense for the same reason that I think there should be an imbalance in voting power between states with large populations and states with small populations (i.e. to keep the balance of voting power between individuals the same). If a person had as much power as a corporation, it would mean that that person had much more power than every individual person in that corporation.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[BringsApples]

seems like quite a tragic waste of time and resources in total which is bad for the economy and society.

Right, that was the whole point of the story. This lady was very professional, and her manager(s) weren't. She had mouths to feed at home. And for the manager, rather than not snooping through computers, and rather than just sucking it up, and not firing someone over some petty words, they decided to take it to the next level. And now that they were sued for doing so, they are less likely to do it again (this is good for all the employees that dare still work there). Sadly most small companies like that learn most through a lawyer's advice, that comes free* with a class-action law suite.

*free: hundreds of thousands of dollars in settlement claims

Re:So, it has come to this.

[228e2]

Mod this up. This shit was why the twinkies went away and came back tasting funny. Fucking greedy shits.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[TsuruchiBrian]

Maybe they could have gotten over their differences and avoided this huge waste of resources. Surely losing 1 year of salary for 0 years of productivity must have been a tough loss for those invested in the success of that company (owners, other employees, etc).

Why was the penalty for wrongly firing your coworker so high? Did it take her a year to find a new job?

Re:So, it has come to this.

[towermac]

Pretty much.

Well, we have civil law, which you guys don't really have, so it's not a criminal charge, and you'd have to get a lawyer. But, you can't swing a dead cat here the States without at least hitting a paralegal, so you got that. And age is easy to prove, and easy to won those; you better have a pretty good reason to fire somebody 55 when you got a lot of 20 year olds working for you. Race and gender (generally) don't change, so you didn't get that job for the racists in the first place.

I guess it's a downside of a free country. But the upside is, there's a job opening...

Re:So, it has come to this.

[GlobalEcho]

Well, then, I guess it is time to show the cards: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10...

Re:So, it has come to this.

[w_dragon]

That's interesting. Here in Ontario it's the opposite, people are almost always let go without cause and given at least the minimum severance required by law so they won't sue. I'm not a business owner, but I think the employment insurance payments are set based only on an employee's pay. Fascinating how much small differences in similar government programs can affect behavior.

Re: So, it has come to this.

[ub3r n3u7r4l1st]

wait until all the H1Bs take your jobs. Not that many people in management can see why desirable skills and deep experience trumps number of brains. Otherwise, rampant age discrimination in STEM field would not exist.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is false, if they give a reason then it must be accurate an in accordance with established law. However, if the employer gives no reason then there is nothing you can do.

This is a good reason to record your own calls to any company. Either way, if he proves this then his dismissal is unlawful. Problem is that his case is with his employer and not Comcast.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Anonymous Coward]

> Guild membership gave here nothing more than the privilege of a couple more days of uncredited extra work

That is incorrect. Guild membership also guaranteed her scale wages. I have multiple family members in SAG-AFTRA. Without the union all of those jobs would pay minimum wage (or less, hollywood accounting is notorious for finding loopholes) because there is no shortage of people willing to work "for free" in the business because they are looking for the mythical lucky break.

Re: So, it has come to this.

[ub3r n3u7r4l1st]

and that will be the key to have any chance of REAL economic recovery.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[sjames]

You do know that unemployment doesn't pay 100% right? And that it runs out faster than many people have been able to find a comparable job, right?

It's fine and dandy that 1 person can't crash a corporation, but that doesn't mean that the person shouldn't be just as un-crashable.

Consider: the imbalance I speak of is why real wages have been in continuous decline for several decades.

Mob rules isn't the right answer either. That's why we have the population based House balanced by the 2 per state Senate.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[NormalVisual]

So as long as the employee isn't fired (contract breached/broken) Comcast would not be at fault for Tortious Interference.

Aside from the fact the employee *was* fired, tortious interference can be interpreted by the court as "interfering with an existing business relationship" without an explicit contract, which it sounds like was definitely the case. I think this guy's SOL in regards to his employer if he's in an at-will state, but that doesn't let Comcast off the hook.

In any event, if he sues either party, someone's going to have to cough up some emails to the court.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[NormalVisual]

He likely does have a case against Comcast under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, as the company is not allowed to contact an employer about a debt or matters relating to it.

The FDCPA deals with third-party debt collectors, not original creditors.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Matt.Battey]

I live in Nebraska and a lawyer friend of mine told me that non-compete clauses have little weight because there has to be parity between the contracted parties. So, unless you have a golden parachute that will pay you for your time during your non-compete duration, the company can sue your new employer, but will loose. This doesn't mean that you won't get socially blackballed for taking your client list with you to your next job.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[silfen]

Why would an employer want to fire you for "race, age, gender" if you're otherwise doing a good job? Do you seriously think an employer will first hire you and then a few months later decide "oh, he's a good employee, but his skin is too dark, so I'm going to fire him"?

In practice it usually works the other way around: employers are reluctant to fire people even if they have good reason to because they are afraid that they will be sued for discrimination. Usually, they just try to negotiate a severance package.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[silfen]

LOL! Union participation is at an all time low,

Yes, people choose not to join private sector unions. They haven't been "destroyed", they have become irrelevant.

other than police and sometimes fire unions

Public sector "unions" aren't unions at all, they are a big special interest group corrupting our political system. They should be destroyed, but unfortunately no politician dares.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[silfen]

What I don't get is that the US was founded upon the principles of everyone being equal and entitled to some kind of due process... Except when it comes to private business

Due process only applies to the government, because the government has special powers. The relationship between you and a business is voluntary on both sides.

I've never been able to figure out how they reconcile such a disconnect where oppression from governments is the single greatest evil, but the same kind of oppression from private business is not only perfectly acceptable, it's a desirable outcome.

Your distinction between you and a business is arbitrary. It's simply two private parties engaging in voluntary transactions. You have no more right to demand continued employment than a barber or restaurant has a right to demand you come back as a customer.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Anonymous Coward]

In other words, you smoke weed.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[HornWumpus]

They do. Make things hostile enough and all you'll have left is government work. See how that works.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[The Technomancer]

Thanks!

And don't worry, I do the same thing. #aspie

Re:So, it has come to this.

[bingoUV]

Yes, businesses can be less powerful than governments. But your arguments for it are faulty.

They have to follow laws

Laws which they helped write.

you can always leave an abusive employer

Unless they blacklist you. If Comcast can ask an employer to fire an employee, it can also ask them to not hire him. Or like Apple and Google "agreed" to not poach each other's employees. Or was it Microsoft? I keep losing track of which company did which illegal thing.

Now, essentially same arguments can be made for governments :
1. Governments have to follow constitutions.
2. You can always vote out an abusive government.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[bingoUV]

Why was the penalty for wrongly firing your coworker so high? Did it take her a year to find a new job?

Probably in the hope that it would avoid another wrong firing of another coworker? If that coworker found another job in 2.261 seconds for which the salary comes to 9.745 dollars, that wrong firing manager might consider it a reasonable cost to make people "respect" her.

Re: So, it has come to this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Cool story. I bet you wish it was true. In the real world when you're fired you're fired and no sane lawyer would take a civil case against a business without compensation. Nice fantasy, though, I'd suggest pitching it to Hollywood but even there it has grown stale. People are coming to terms with the fact that they are powerless and don't like for anyone to delude them again.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[dave420]

Eh? Did they not know the first amendment only applies to the government? Weird. Sounds like a bunch of muppets.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course he can, but he was a partner in an accounting firm, not a bloody burger flipper, so this isn't going to be wrongful dismissal, it's going to be rightful dismissal. It's just that you're only hearing one side of the story, and it's the side that's bound to contain the most bias.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[BringsApples]

Maybe they could have gotten over their differences and avoided this huge waste of resources.

I'm with you there. The whole thing was rather "catty".

Why was the penalty for wrongly firing your coworker so high?

Turns out that when you sue someone, there's no limit to what you're allowed to sue for. Getting that amount is a different story. In this case, I think that they may have taken into account the job that she did, the local market for said job, and her own personal "pain" for having to go through this, as well as her lawyer's costs. It's common for a lawyer to get 1/3.

Another thing that didn't help the company is the fact that they had recently been through a class-action lawsuit that cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars and exposed their ridiculous management's mindset regarding how they paid their employees hourly, limited them to getting paid for 40 hour weeks, but required them to work 50 or 60 hours a week.

I could go on and on about this company, I could even tell you their name, and where they are. This, however, isn't relevant to the original point: You can be fired for a messy desk, if a reason is required.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[superwiz]

It doesn't sound wrongful. As a juror, I'd never side with someone who insists on a right to say whatever they want to their employer's customers. And it sounds like the person in question worked for a Comcast vendor.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[lakema]

Well, then, I guess it is time to show the cards: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10...

This article is 7 years old, the city abolished the practice in 2010 as far as I can tell. Not to say that it wasn't a ridiculous situation, just that it isn't still the case.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Because private businesses can't impose the same sort of oppression that a government can. They have to follow laws and they can't shield their employees from criminal actions. And you can always leave an abusive employer. It's much harder to leave an abusive government, especially, if it has imprisoned you.

This stuff is not in the same league. It mystifies me how people can equate the huge power of governments with the far weaker power of businesses.

That would be a wonderful rebuttal... If I were making a point about the degree to which governments and businesses can oppress people. Unfortunately, I was making the point that both CAN oppress people and how frequently the people who are the most ardent opponents of government oppression (a worthy and noble cause, make no mistake) are also the most ardent PROPONENTS of allowing private enterprises to oppress people. The level to which they are able to oppress is, at best, a tangential side-discussion. I'm merely asking how it is you reconcile being both for and against oppression depending on whether we're talking about governments or private enterprise. At the risk of overgeneralizing, it would certainly appear to me that opponents of oppression frequently cite violations of due process when it is with governments, but do not hold private enterprise to even paying lip service to the same ideal. They actively argue AGAINST private enterprise having to follow anything even resembling due process.

So I don't personally understand how you can be in favor of a general principle like due process, but then pick and choose when you're actually in favor of it, and not be considered a hypocrite. Without any implied pejorative, every time I ask this question of someone like yourself, I get an answer more or less exactly like you just gave, which strikes me as sounding more like it came off a set of talking points rather than genuine introspection and reflection upon the topic.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[khallow]

Laws which they helped write.

So what? There are three things to observe. First, those laws still bound them, even though they helped write them. Second, businesses aren't the only ones helping write laws. Third, businesses are far from unified in what they want.

you can always leave an abusive employer

Unless they blacklist you. If Comcast can ask an employer to fire an employee, it can also ask them to not hire him.

You assume a condition that isn't true. There's no evidence that Comcast has asked anyone to fire an employee. What probably happened was that the employee made a variety of threats in the name of the company he worked for, then Comcast notified his management that this was going on. Then management decided to fire the loose cannon.

This sort of thing happens all the time in the real world. For example, if I complain about a rude phone repair technician and that complaint gets them fired, I didn't blacklist that employee. I merely reported bad behavior. I see no evidence that Comcast did anything different.

It's also worth noting here that in the past, even when blacklisting was a thing, it was still possible to get around the blacklisting. Rivals to the blacklister are far less likely to care and sometimes even make a point of doing so (in order to undermine the company's authority in this area).

1. Governments have to follow constitutions.
2. You can always vote out an abusive government.

Except that we have real world counterexamples of governments that don't have to do either (China or Syria, for example).

Re:So, it has come to this.

[HornWumpus]

Straight white male with no disabilities? You are simply wrong.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Anonymous Coward]

That is exactly the way it is here in the US. People get fired for seemingly small infractions all of the time, but the real reason is some sort of discrimination or nepotism.

ANAL, however I do have a friend who is one of the top employment lawyers in the country. According to him, wrongful termination is extremely difficult to prove and the courts will generally side with the employers.

Re: So, it has come to this.

[nosferatu1001]

Tortious interference maybe? Name them as a party, as it was their actions that precipitated the firing action.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[TsuruchiBrian]

So to teach this one manager a lesson you punish the whole company? Why not just fire that manager if she is so terrible?

Re:So, it has come to this.

[TsuruchiBrian]

I guess I just don't see this as a case of "justice has been done" (although maybe it was) as much as it exemplifies the wastefulness of our legal system.

If lawyers made $1,000,000 per trial, and you sue someone for causing you $10 of damage. Justice would be for the defendant to pay you $1,000,010 to cover your damages and legal fees (not including any pain, suffering, and inconvenience).

But this system is broken because it costs $2million to cause $10 of justice to be done. Obviously real life isn't this bad. But it is still ridiculous that it costs $X to ensure that $X of justice is done (i.e. lawyers got 2/3 of an anual salary I'm estimating 1/3 for each side), and your coworker got 2/3 of an annual salary.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[TsuruchiBrian]

Just because you are white, doesn't mean you can't have a little Cherokee in you. Assuming a Cherokee is white just because they appear white sounds like a lawsuit waiting to happen.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Anonymous Coward]

And try proving any of those "legally protected" statues since our conversation from a democratic country to a fascist one run by corporations.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[bearvarine]

"I've never been able to figure out how they reconcile such a disconnect where oppression from governments is the single greatest evil, but the same kind of oppression from private business is not only perfectly acceptable, it's a desirable outcome..."

So well said. I've never seen someone so clearly articulate why American Capitalism sucks in so few words.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[DedTV]

That's called a government.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[HornWumpus]

In California they established a separate government department (general services) where all other government departments can transfer their worst incompetents.

There is a 6 story, full block building in downtown Sacramento (south of Broadway) full of people that do absolutely nothing. At least they are out of the way.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[BringsApples]

I guess I just don't see this as a case of "justice has been done" (although maybe it was) as much as it exemplifies the wastefulness of our legal system.

I can't tell if we agree or not. I think we do. But the point of this original post wasn't anything to do with the legal system, or any of that, but rather the ability to fire someone for $reason or $no_reason. It's a silly fallacy, because everyone can be fired for a "messy desk" in the end.

If you want to get into the ridiculousness of civil law, then look up asset forfeiture.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[HornWumpus]

The exception is for 'room mates'. Not 1 or 2 units and live in one yourself. Unless you share living space you are bound by the fair housing laws.

Which makes sense, otherwise a girl would have to take a man as a roommate or get sued.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[gzuckier]

Why? On what grounds? Again, in all probability this is an employment contract where either party can terminate at will, except for certain protected reasons; race, gender, age, religion, etc. If you run a company and your biggest client comes in and says he doesn't like the salesman, fire him or he's moving his business, no court is going to tell you no. And it doesn't have to be a customer.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[gzuckier]

What I don't get is that the US was founded upon the principles of everyone being equal and entitled to some kind of due process... Except when it comes to private business, when suddenly that whole idea goes out the window according to certain political philosophies. Ironically the same political philosophies often espouse ideals about freedom from oppression and decry dictators petty, tinpot, or otherwise. I've never been able to figure out how they reconcile such a disconnect where oppression from governments is the single greatest evil, but the same kind of oppression from private business is not only perfectly acceptable, it's a desirable outcome.

Because private businesses can't impose the same sort of oppression that a government can. They have to follow laws and they can't shield their employees from criminal actions. And you can always leave an abusive employer. It's much harder to leave an abusive government, especially, if it has imprisoned you. This stuff is not in the same league. It mystifies me how people can equate the huge power of governments with the far weaker power of businesses.

Dude, you are so 19th century.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[gzuckier]

Yes. And clearly some people are more equal than others.

Strangely enough some of the peasants even support this as if the last 500 years of Anglo-American history didn't exist.

For most people, history begins about when they started first grade. Everything before that is myth and legend.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[HornWumpus]

You need to learn some skills. Seriously, if you employer would not be hurt by you leaving that just proves you are a moron.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[sjames]

I personally am not in that boat, but realistically, if nobody was our entire economy would unravel in an instant.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[bingoUV]

So what? There are three things to observe.

None of which take away from the game being essentially Calvin - ball. Where do I sign up for following rules I make?

You assume a condition that isn't true.

Followed by "probably". And a wishing away of my point about Google and Apple. Google and Apple's rivalry didn't help the potential job hopping employees.

There are real world counter examples of all your points too, like I already mentioned. Companies having to follow only their own laws in their primary area of business, colluding, non- poaching agreements. But you refuse to see them because it goes against your brainwashing.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[bingoUV]

Going by the story, two levels of management were involved. Company can feel free to fire those. In fact, company should be able to counter sue those managers for the loss because illegal activity should be demonstrably unsupported by company if only a manager , like you insist, or 2 like what happened according to the story, are involved.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Anonymous Coward]

>So you can (in reality) be fired for race, age, gender, etc.

Yes, but you can challenge the firing on those grounds, even in an at-will state. In the United States, there are protected classes (you just named three of them) that cannot be the basis of discriminatory action under the equal protection clause.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[HornWumpus]

You're going to have a hard time showing someone discriminated based on something that nobody knew about.

More basically your going to have to pay your shyster hourly, they won't take loser cases on contingency.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[HornWumpus]

The world does need ditch diggers too.

That there are consequences for not learning skills is a good thing. Only tricky part is getting kids to see it.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[TsuruchiBrian]

I think we agree. I think I just took us on a tangent. Requiring an employer to provide "a reason" (i.e. as opposed to a good reason) is basically the same as not requiring a reason.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Shirley Marquez]

It is sometimes possible to win discrimination cases for wrongful termination; the employer will try to claim that you were fired for other reasons but they don't always convince the judge. The ones that are really impossible is proving that you were never hired in the first place because of discrimination.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[TsuruchiBrian]

You're going to have a hard time showing someone discriminated based on something that nobody knew about.

Trying to prove someone's mental state is a pretty hard thing to do in general. Trying to prove that someone knew you were part Cherokee is probably about as hard as proving that they fired a member of a protected class *because* they were a member of that class.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[CountZer0]

Unless you are in New Jersey or New York, where nearly every blue-collar job is unionized.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[david_thornley]

It's cleaner if they can give a good reason. If the employee winds up on unemployment insurance, IIRC the employer has to pay for some of that. Somebody fired for cause can't generally collect unemployment. Defining "for cause" can presumably get interesting here (as well as "constructive dismissal", meaning the employer deliberately made the employee's life miserable so he or she would quit).

Re:So, it has come to this.

[HornWumpus]

There are plenty of jurors who would immediatly assume anyone was fired because of discrimination. Look up this thread for many examples.

But claiming you were discriminated based on something nobody could see? No black juror will side with you. No flaming juror will agree with you. Basically no member of any protected class will agree with you, they will all just say 'Fuck whitey! This money is for US.'

Re:So, it has come to this.

[david_thornley]

In the US, not every employee has a contract. In the jobs I've been in, I get hired, I show up, I work, I get paid. No contract necessary.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[TsuruchiBrian]

So you think all black people are the same? Where do you work at?

Re:So, it has come to this.

[AK Marc]

I've only ever worked in at-will states, and all had statements about conduct, which rescind many of the protections offered by "at will". What states have you worked in?

Re:So, it has come to this.

[AK Marc]

And when they pay you 1/10th what was agreed, you can't complain because you have no offer in writing, nor contract with pay or benefits listed?

What states have you worked in?

Re:So, it has come to this.

[sjames]

To that there are consequences too. What will you do when the kids of the world all take your sage advice?

Don't even try to tell me the many office workers out there will dig their own ditches, I see them huffing and puffing when they have to go up a single flight of stairs.

It seems a bit disingenuous to claim that people fulfilling an important role in the economy are victims of their own mistakes when we know very well we'd be up shit creek had they decided any differently.

It is akin to (but perhaps a lesser offense than) declaring slaves less than human so we could pretend it was OK for the plantation owner to prosper from the sweat of their brows and share nothing in return.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[warpuck]

I kinda surmise after observing multiple employers, that the bottom rungs of the corporate ladder are as follows. a. The supervisor has to be smart enough to read. b. Listen to instructions, but not understand the true function of the instructions. c. Greedy enough to believe every thing the employer promises. d. If the employer suspects he may have figured it out, he is fired. So your best is track to keep your self riding the fence between stupid and smart. e. Rememberr you were hired to do a job, not get promoted into the job you would like. f. You are expendable. g. Nothing has changed since Ernestine (Lily Tomlin) was on Laugh-in.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Anonymous Coward]

they can fire you for anything not excluded by law provided THEY then discipline or fire EVERYONE for the same offense otherwise the employee can claim discrimination and/or wrongful termination. In a right to work state the law will be federal so age, sex, creed, color, etc based based decision will be illegal. Such states the employee has a harder burden as they have to prove the discrimination which may rely heavily on coworker testimony where their own jobs will be on the line if they testify against the employer.

ex A manager in a right to work state could fire you for where too short a skirt but if another employee wore a similiarly short skirt but was not fired the 1st woman would have cause to sue.

Problem is you now have to sue and go without income until after possible appeals and you would have a gap on your resume to explain- most employers arent keen on hiring employees with a history of suing their employer.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[warpuck]

The main reason the the Teamsters had to be taken down is the pension fund. Oh looky there they loaned $500,000 of the fund to union pres. X. Never mind it is at current bank rates & not in default, we will prosecute. So in 1979 who was one the biggest investors in Wall Street ? Teamsters.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[khallow]

Dude, you are so 19th century.

And the obvious rebuttal is the US's NSA, a 21st century problem.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[khallow]

There are real world counter examples of all your points too, like I already mentioned.

The examples you gave were broken. For example, there's no evidence that Comcast had blacklisted anyone in the story. Second, the collusion between Apple and other companies with respect to hiring was illegal and will cost them money which runs counter to your assertion that they only have to follow the laws they make for themselves.

But sure, please give those counterexamples you claim you have. And I'll give counterexamples like China or Syria, you know real world counterexamples that actually demonstrate the point I'm trying to make.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[khallow]

I notice you don't say a thing about due process for employees. If it's not about the relative power of the actors, then due process should apply to everyone. But if it is about power, then it's relevant to point out that governments are far more powerful than any of the other parties and hence, require more constraints such as due process on their behavior.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Fjandr]

His arguments should have been:
1) Government employees can shoot you with little consequence.
2) Government employees can lock you up with little consequence, and shoot you if you resist.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Fjandr]

"Right to work" is not the same as "at will employment." They have nothing to do with each other.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[bingoUV]

Comcast story need not be true because Apple+Google story exists. About laws, i also said "in their primary areas of business" which you completely ignored. And actions of China and Syria will cost them. I don't see a difference.

Companies can displease the majority of voter base and yet thrive. Governments in most countries can't.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[bingoUV]

Yes, these arguments are valid in most places.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[gzuckier]

Well played sir, well played indeed.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[HornWumpus]

If all a healthy adult person knows how to do is dig ditches he is a victim of his own choices. If there was a shortage of ditch diggers their wage would go up. They could learn to dig a ditch with a backhoe. They have options. Not many great ones by that stage.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[HornWumpus]

I think they'll see through such a charade. They do understand real discrimination and somebody with 8% casino indian blood claiming discrimination will find much less support among black people than white liberals like yourself.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[l0n3s0m3phr34k]

What state was this in? Corporations don't follow the idea of "Constitutionally protected free speech". Congress is the only entity listed in the 1st Amendment, and then whatever case law has been decided since then. The office manager was an idiot, obviously neither the manager or "office manager" understands the law at all. Must be a small company if they have no lawyers on tap to advise them of things like these. Having evidence like that they could have fired her for a list of completely legal reasons...violation of computer use policy, insubordination, defamation of superiors, hostile work environment, ethics violation via cursing on a work PC...if the employer hadn't of been spastic there would have been no successful lawsuit. In Oklahoma no reason is needed to be fired...

Re:So, it has come to this.

[sjames]

What about adults born with mental disabilities? What about adults that grew up abused?

How about adults ready willing and able to do something requiring more skill but the work is not available?

And really, what do you propose if the kids DO heed your advice and literally everyone not mentally challenged can do more than dig ditches?

For that matter, don't you think it would be preferable if they could afford enough time in their week to go to school (and for that matter, be able to afford school) so they can do better?

Re:So, it has come to this.

[TsuruchiBrian]

What makes you think I am a white liberal?

Re:So, it has come to this.

[khallow]

Comcast story need not be true because Apple+Google story exists.

The Apple+Google story is just another example in my favor. They did something that if they were writing the rules would have been quite legal. But it's not legal and they're facing fines as a result.

Companies can displease the majority of voter base and yet thrive.

So can individuals. Are you going to claim that you have as much power as a government because you can be a jerk to so many different people?

Governments in most countries can't.

Please show me an example of a government that actually has these constraints. A lot of people can be unhappy even with a democratic government. All it takes to stay in power is to divide the electorate against each other and make sure none of the resulting blame sticks to you.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[warpuck]

It is more like this: You have the right to work without union scale pay, bennys, OSHA regs, paid vacations, overtime over 8 hrs per day, 40 hours per or overtime even get 40 hours pay per week and if you think you will get unemployment. We will just fire you when the job is done because we paid off the the state legislature and they changed the rules so we can do that. By the way that means you don't get enemployment . God luck finding the next job. aka Texas rules in the the heavy construction industry. Been there and yes it sucks, but not for the owners. Really how many HR clowns are going to believe you got fired because the job ended ?

Re:So, it has come to this.

[warpuck]

Actually where the owners want to lead us in the U.S. is back to the '80s. The 1880s. Anybody want to build a railroad in the Sierra mountains ?

Re:So, it has come to this.

[cwsumner]

Ah bullshit, but thanks for playing.

We have unions in Denmark and you can fire people easy enough. And then there are countries like France, where you can't fire people at all, not thanks to unions.

The unions in the US have way too much power, and that is a business stifling problem; but that doesn't mean unions are a bad thing.

Unions are not bad, but -huge- unions are bad. Any organization that gets too big goes bad. The only question is how big is too big...

For the word "unions", substitute any other organization. 8-)

Re:So, it has come to this.

[cwsumner]

If the company you work for is not desperate to keep you, then you are working for the wrong company and maybe in the wrong job...

Re:So, it has come to this.

[bingoUV]

But it's not legal and they're facing fines as a result.

Fines that shareholders, customers will pay. Sometimes even taxpayers - e.g. when government is the customer. For management's crimes.

Please show me an example of a government that actually has these constraints.

ALL elections where incumbent government lost power.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Anonymous Coward]

East India Tea Company?

Re:So, it has come to this.

[ComputerGeek01]

I believe the idea that unions are still relevant is a popular message among the corporate media. For example when Hostess went bankrupt in 2012 due to mismanagement, the press reported mostly that the business would have to close if the unions didn't make concessions. Never mind the fact that they had previously made many concessions in the past, and the new contract would result in wages barely over minimum wage yet would not touch executive bonuses. OCP owns the police.

Now let's compare that situation with a list recent failures from say the IBEW: queue crickets.... Maybe this trend actually says more about unions who provide protection for skilled labor and actual talent vs. monkeys who press a button on an assembly line and who don't actually know what that button does.

Here's a hint for all of those who are for a a union to protect their job; if your employer threatens to hire a scab from outside of your union, and your reaction is anything other then either A.) laughing in his face until you need to be hospitalized asphyxia or B.) grabbing a bag of popcorn to watch the inevitable shit show. Then your "union" never had any leverage to begin with.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[soft_guy]

I wonder if you understand just how quickly a workplace can go down the tubes if the boss starts firing people who don't deserve it.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Anonymous Coward]

No they can't. I have several job opportunities.

It must be tough deciding between McDonalds, KFC, and "Squeegee guy at the corner of 5th and Main".

Re:So, it has come to this.

[QilessQi]

They can cut off 100% of your income suddenly and at a whim.

No they can't. I have several job opportunities.

Good for you. But when you're middle aged, less marketable (by far), and supporting two parents in a nursing home, a kid, a special-needs toddler, and a stay-at-home-wife who takes care of the toddler, you may think differently about your employer firing you just because Some Big Company decided to take revenge on you for daring to badmouth them.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[DexterIsADog]

Ha, ha - yes - the way I heard it was that 'hire at will' protects both the employer and the employee! As if to reassure the working stiffs that they are neither slaves nor indentured servants and can work for whom ever they please. Job security my arse!

Even that is bullshit. Most companies I've worked for required non-compete agreements, so I couldn't work for another company that does anything remotely like they do, for up to two years. At senior manager level, these companies will go after employees who dare to move to another company in the same industry. I have had to pass on candidates we wanted to hire because they'd have to remain uninvolved in the majority of our business for a year or more to avoid running afoul of one of these agreements.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[DexterIsADog]

Who's sending these emails? EVERYONE! People in general, and people who work in HR especially, are morons who will put the most damning discussions in email. If these people *weren't* so stupid, they wouldn't be firing people just because they are (a woman/pregnant/minority) in the first place.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[DexterIsADog]

Since you put it in your sig, you must be looking for comments. What does that mean, that we "deliberately forgot" creation? Are you talking about racial memories? Do you believe racial memories are real? I don't imagine you are referring to historical records. In any event, why would we deliberately forget the origins of the race?

Re:So, it has come to this.

[oldmac31310]

Interesting. The last place I worked shut down after a horrible series of financial problems. I figured I could continue with some of my customers to get their work done - BUT - my ex-boss had his lawyer call me to tell me not to call on any customers. The really ugly part of this was that this same lawyer was my divorce lawyer. How fucked up is that? So I was effectively shut out from pursuing the kind of work I had been doing for almost 20 years. Nice old boss, eh? I had never signed anything - but being taken to court was something I couldn't risk. Five months unemployed and finally landed a job doing something very different. What is one supposed to say? It's all for the best? Everything turned out OK in the end? These experiences definitely wear away one's sense of self worth.

Re:So, it has come to this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Because private businesses can't impose the same sort of oppression that a government can. They have to follow laws and they can't shield their employees from criminal actions. And you can always leave an abusive employer. It's much harder to leave an abusive government, especially, if it has imprisoned you.

This stuff is not in the same league. It mystifies me how people can equate the huge power of governments with the far weaker power of businesses.

Because you're creating a false dichotomy and you're so wrong it's hilarious.

They have to follow laws and they can't shield their employees from criminal actions.

Big businesses can buy the laws. How many bank CEOs were imprisoned as a result of the 2008-2009 mortgage collapse? How much taxpayer money was stolen and given to these WHITE COLLAR, PRIVATE crooks?

And you can always leave an abusive employer.

You can leave, yes. Now, whether any other employer will ever hire you again is another story, so while what you said is technically true, it's of little practical use to anyone outside a thought experiment.

Did you know that in many jurisdictions you can't even find out what a former employer said about you to a prospective? Even if you could, do you think 95% of the populace has the money to lawyer up and win if their former employer said something "illegal"?

This stuff is not in the same league. It mystifies me how people can equate the huge power of governments with the far weaker power of businesses.

It's because you're making the same mistake a lot of libertarians here on /. make: the difference between government and big business is getting more and more blurry all the time. The only real axiom to put your faith in is that power corrupts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B...

Not the first amendment.

[Anonymous Coward]

Be careful next time when you exercise your first amendment rights.

As the government did not arrest this person for what they said, it has nothing to do with the first amendment.

Re:Not the first amendment.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why your constitution is a piece of shit.

Re:Not the first amendment.

[sandytaru]

Well, it was written at a time when the only organizations big enough to terrorize individuals were the governments. Big corporations are a relatively new bully - at the time the only ones that existed were the big trading companies, and 95% of the landowners who wrote the Constitution never had any dealings with them.

Re:Not the first amendment.

[timothy]

Comcast isn't the government, you're right.

I took the submitter's words to mean something more like this, though: "You have a perfect right to free speech, but here's a reminder that it can land you in trouble in unanticipated or unfair ways."

Re:Not the first amendment.

[bigpat]

Not quite that clear. Congress makes all sorts of laws to enable companies to exist in the first place. If some of those laws enable companies to unreasonably stifle free speech then that would be a violation of the first amendment by proxy.

Re:Not the first amendment.

[dywolf]

That is the legal definition, yes.
And yet within the public sphere we also expect each other, particularly those in positions of power, such as big corporations, to also adhere to those principles and ideals.

The fact our constitution did not mention powerful private entities who would stifle our rights is an oversight the Founders did not anticipate, not a feature.

In fact, this leads to a fascinating discussion: does the concept of inalienable only pertain to governments? and thus corporate towns, like the Domino's pizza guy's town in Florida, can override and nullify all your rights simply because they arent government?

Re:Not the first amendment.

[Jack9]

> If some of those laws enable companies to unreasonably stifle free speech then that would be a violation of the first amendment by proxy.

I wish I had +1 for you sir!

Re:Not the first amendment.

[stoploss]

Your mistake is believing that your rights flow from the government, rather than the Bill of Rights specifically stipulating things the government cannot do.

Your inverted perspective is precisely the reason many founders were against the Bill of Rights: they feared that people would eventually lose sight of the fact that the Constitution whitelists powers for the government, rather than whitelisting rights for the People.

Their point was since the Constitution stipulates powers for the government, and, for example, restricting freedom of speech was not an enumerated power, it is obvious that the government has no power to restrict freedom of speech. Thus, the Bill of Rights is superfluous because we, the People, already naturally had these (and many other) rights.

The Constitution has no enumerated power that allows the government to "enable companies to exist in the first place". We already had the right to form companies, build houses, live, work, and pursue happiness without requiring the blessing and forbearance of the federal government. You know, because they have no power over any of that (c.f. the reminders given by Amendments IX and X).

Before you knee-jerk, take note of the fact that I have not argued in favor of companies restricting employee speech. Rather, I take issue with your dangerously flawed understanding of our rights.

Re:Not the first amendment.

[roman_mir]

Obviously. Rights are protections against government abuse, persecution, theft and murder, not against other individuals or businesses.

Government is the only entity that has legal ability to fine, imprison or even murder an individual, companies cannot do that (of-course under a contract fines are possible between 2 parties that agree to a contract).

Inalienable rights are the rights of the individual not to be stolen from and destroyed by the collective, where the collective is the organisation with legal privileges actually to steal from you (taxes, inflation, regulations) and destroy you (imprison you, murder you).

Re: Not the first amendment.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm I fail to find any flaw in your logic here. I must reluctantly agree

Re:Not the first amendment.

[MooseTick]

Yes, this isn't a 1st amendment issue. Even so, free speech doesn't mean it is free from all consequences.

Re:Not the first amendment.

[orgelspieler]

But it's not just governments who tax. Once an organization becomes large enough, they can tax individuals. Look at banks foreclosing on people that didn't actually have a mortgage through them. Or recording companies in Canada getting a tax on blank CDs that you never used as a recording media. Or my personal favorite, power companies with a low monthly rate "guaranteed" for 12 months, who then get special written permission from the government to charge more during that period, but I cannot get out of my contract and find a new power provider. These companies act like governments. They are bigger than some governments. They should be beholden to the populace the same as governments. If a company can claim first amendment religious rights, why shouldn't they respect the rights of others?

Re:Not the first amendment.

[bigpat]

There is no right for corporations to exist. There is a freedom of association, but that is of no specific form. Corporations are government contrived legal entities that are given rights by laws.

Re:Not the first amendment.

[roman_mir]

Banks foreclosing, etc., all of this is based on government participating in the market, destroying lending standards and propping up failing business models with money that is stolen from the individuals (taxpayers). None of this is normal behaviour under free market conditions, these situations are created by government "trying to help".

Banking is government regulated.
Power is government regulated.
Health care is government regulated.
Insurance is government regulated.
Food industry is government regulated.
Money is obviously government regulated.

Find me something that is not government regulated beyond computer software and other systems (and even many of these are regulated by the government) and then lets talk about free markets and how somehow without government regulations, taxes, inflation and generally control companies 'tax people' in an actual competitive environment.

Re:Not the first amendment.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a known business practice in the Sales Department. It was bound to seep into other departments.
For my employer, I recommend that they purchase one of several competing product. One of the losing competitors requested a meeting to "go over" the reason I didn't recommend their losing product. During the meeting they asserted that my decision was unethical and recommended that I be removed from the process and the competition start again. This was the 1980's and it was a normal business practice--it could be devastating to an individual and was to this one.
I guess the Comptroller's office didn't want to speak to customer. They certainly taught their now unemployed customer a lesson he will never forget.

Re:Not the first amendment.

[TsuruchiBrian]

I suppose it could refer to comcast's first amendment right to tell this person's employer anything it wanted.

Re:Not the first amendment.

[TsuruchiBrian]

Freedom of speech means that all speech is free of *legal* consequences.

Re:Not the first amendment.

[NormalVisual]

We already had the right to form companies, build houses, live, work, and pursue happiness without requiring the blessing and forbearance of the federal government.

You've always had the right to go into business for yourself, but you don't have the right to saddle others with your debt. Unless you want to keep track of a signed contract for every shareholder that explicitly grants you the right to pawn a percentage of your debts off on them in exchange for their share purchase, you're going to need Big Brother's help to make that happen. Even ignoring the debt issues, there's no way to force the government to recognize your company as a separate legal entity capable of entering into contracts and such without their cooperation. It'd really suck to go into court, have the judge say, "I don't recognize this ad-hoc corporation as a legal entity, so the plaintiff's entire award will be paid by you, Mr. Stoploss."

Re:Not the first amendment.

[NormalVisual]

Not quite. I'm free to go into the middle of the town square and yell "TsuruchiBrian is a thief and punches kittens!", but you're just as free to bring legal action against me for saying it. Freedom of speech means the government is not allowed to curtail it, but there still can be legal consequences just the same.

Re:Not the first amendment.

[silfen]

The fact our constitution did not mention powerful private entities who would stifle our rights is an oversight the Founders did not anticipate, not a feature.

In fact, the drafters of the Constitution explicitly discussed "powerful private entities" and reached the opposite conclusions from you. Madison, for example, wrote that "the minority of the opulent should be protected against the majority".

In fact, this leads to a fascinating discussion: does the concept of inalienable only pertain to governments? and thus corporate towns, like the Domino's pizza guy's town in Florida, can override and nullify all your rights simply because they arent government?

He cannot "override and nullify" any of your rights. What he can do is use his private property as he sees fit, even if you don't like it.

Re:Not the first amendment.

[silfen]

Look at banks foreclosing on people that didn't actually have a mortgage through them.

Banks can only foreclose mortgages they own and only if you don't fulfill your contractual obligations.

Or recording companies in Canada getting a tax on blank CDs that you never used as a recording media. Or my personal favorite, power companies with a low monthly rate "guaranteed" for 12 months, who then get special written permission from the government to charge more during that period

Both are rent seeking, i.e. failures of government, not private businesses.

These companies act like governments.

No, your government acts like government, and it seems like a bad one. You don't like that? Get involved in politics.

Re:Not the first amendment.

[Anonymous Coward]

These companies act like governments.

No, your government acts like government, and it seems like a bad one. You don't like that? Get involved in politics.

Actually he lives in one of the freest democracies in the world. If you read some of his other posts you will see that what roman_mir wants, more than anything, is to topple the American government (even though he doesn't live there) and install his religious leader as their ruler-for-life.

Re:Not the first amendment.

[plhys]

"KNOW YOUR RIGHTS" . . . Number three You have the right to free Speech as long as you're not Dumb enough to actually try it. Heddon/Topper/Simonon/Strummer

Re:Not the first amendment.

[TsuruchiBrian]

I mean "legal" in the sense of (the law). There can be no punishment described by laws (i.e. by the government) for speech.

Re:Not the first amendment.

[suutar]

They are supposed to only foreclose on mortgages they own. It didn't actually work out that way...

Re:Not the first amendment.

[silfen]

MERS (not banks) tried to initiate foreclosures. I don't see how that is "corporations acting like governments". All MERS was doing is ask the government for a particular action. In some states the government agreed, in others it disagreed. Where the government disagreed, MERS had no recourse. Therefore, your example shows that MERS (or banks) cannot "act like governments", because if they could, they wouldn't have to go to court.

Re:Not the first amendment.

[l0n3s0m3phr34k]

Corps can censor their employees. "Congress" is the ONLY entity listed in the 1st Amendment who can't pass free speech infringement laws. It trickles down since the Feds gave permission for the various states to form, the states charter counties, counties charter towns, etc. This case was in North Dakota, but is close to your above scenery. The court found: "conduct protected by the First Amendment's guarantees of free speech and peaceable assembly. They assert that application of the city trespass ordinance under these circumstances, to enforce the mall's prohibition against expressive activity, directly infringed upon their First Amendment rights and that their convictions must, therefore, be overturned. The First Amendment forbids the enactment of laws "abridging the freedom of speech . . . or the right of the people peaceably to assemble.""

So no, a company can't have their employees "pass laws" and criminally prosecute people for violating said laws if the laws are illegal. They can have a corporate policy saying "you'll be fired", but they'll still probably get sued.

What 1st Amendment Rights?

[SenorPez]

Is Comcast the government now? Is his accounting firm the government now?

Re:What 1st Amendment Rights?

[lister king of smeg]

does buying the government count?

Re:What 1st Amendment Rights?

[EuclideanSilence]

Yes, Comcast is the government. *Every* public utility is the government, whether it is sewage management or Comcast.

Consider this: try to make a company to compete with Comcast. Assume all the powers that Comcast has. Just go around tearing down the copper that Comcast "owns", and lay down your own. Rip up people's front yards. You'll find out quickly that you are not allowed to compete because Comcast is the government.

There is nothing unreasonable about organizations created by the legislature, startup funded by tax dollars, and existing by grant of government right such as eminent domain to be held to *every single standard* that the government itself is. That includes the first amendment. It includes public management of accounting.

Comcast never had any claim to not being a government agency. Ever.

The truth hurts

[amiga3D]

What did anyone expect. This is the only way Comcast knows to respond to criticism. Did he think they were going to change? Improve? What a laugh, they have monopoly power and can do as they please.

Re:The truth hurts

[TsuruchiBrian]

The only way Comcast knows how to respond to criticism is to call your work and tell on you? This seems like a rather unorthodox and desperate way to deal with criticism. The only thing more shocking is that it seems to have worked. What the hell did the guy say to comcast "Fuck you guys! I steal office supplies from my employer!"?

Re:The truth hurts

[amiga3D]

I expect they just let his employers know they didn't appreciate the criticism and if they didn't do something about it they'd feel like his employers supported his view. I expect that's all it took. They probably wet their pants then fired him in a panic.

And what's the problem ?

[Anonymous Coward]

If the guy really did name-drop his employer in an attempt to intimidate/coerce Comcast, what's the problem?

If the company name was used it would be entirely fair to contact the company to make sure the policy stated by the employee was in fact the policy of the company. If not, if the employee did misrepresent the company, than getting fired may be appropriate.

Cable companies may be evil but not everything they do is necessarily wrong. Pushing back against a bully would not be wrong.

Re:And what's the problem ?

[MitchDev]

Amen. This shit has to stop. Break up Comcast/Xfinity/whatever-the-hell they're calling themselves already, they'll a criminal thug organization these days more than anything.

Re:And what's the problem ?

[Archtech]

"Pushing back against a bully would not be wrong".

So, having read TFA, you think that the customer was the bully? Not the vast monopoly, or the callous employer? Either you're very rich, or you believe (probably wrongly) that you will be one day.

"Cet animal est tres mechant; quand on l'attaque, il se defend".

Re:And what's the problem ?

[itzly]

Careful what you say, or they'll terminate your slashdot account.

Re:And what's the problem ?

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that Comcast had no business in reporting that to his employer. Regardless of whether he was doing that or not, I'm sure that Comcast gets a lot of that from people that work at prestigious law firms, universities and such, the reason why they opted to forward this one to his employer was purely retaliatory in nature because they knew damn well that he was in the right.

Also, I take it that you haven't ever had the misfortune of dealing with Comcrap. They are the bully here and absent any actual evidence from their side, this is just the latest case of them abusing their power to get money that they're not entitled to. I've literally never dealt with an ISP that was so thoroughly incompetent in my entire life.

Re:And what's the problem ?

[neoritter]

If a politician said to a coffee store, "I should get this coffee for free because I'm a US Senator." Would you be okay with that? Or how about if I said to someone who took my park spot, "rolfwind, will come beat you up if you don't move." You probably want no part in my private affairs, and you certainly don't want to said to do things you have no intention of doing right?

Re:And what's the problem ?

[Rakarra]

If the guy really did name-drop his employer in an attempt to intimidate/coerce Comcast, what's the problem?

Without the tapes of the conversation from Comcast, we don't actually know what was said. It's a he said/she said sort of deal.

For instance, the customer works at an accounting firm which audits Comcast's books. If the customer called up Comcast and used his position as an associate at the firm in order to gain leverage, that'd be an ethical violation, and yes that would warrant an investigation and termination... if it were true. He wouldn't have had to exactly name the company either (which he says he never did), just state what the company did.

But again, no proof either way. But something funny happened -- do you think Comcast really does this for everyone who tries to cancel? No, this was a special case.

Re:And what's the problem ?

[Qzukk]

He didn't ask for free cable.

Try "Do you think you should serve this shit to a US Senator?"

Re:And what's the problem ?

[Anonymous Coward]

There are a lot of red flags here. If Comcast is in the clear they should release the tapes, and regardless of the dispute, shouldn't have someone fired over it.

Lesson learned, and really somebody should make an app if it already doesn't exist to record every phone conversation to customer service. I wonder if there is a law against recording conversations with customer service?

Re:And what's the problem ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Either you're very rich, or you believe (probably wrongly) that you will be one day.

A great number of the ills affecting American society today can be traced directly to this particular psychosis.

Re:And what's the problem ?

[The New Guy 2.0]

We seem to be reading a one-sided story... why didn't he call the police when the installer tried to give him equipment he didn't want. In-home sales laws exist.

Re:And what's the problem ?

[EuclideanSilence]

If he contacted Comcast from his company, there was a good chance that it was related to his job for the company.

Re:And what's the problem ?

[Anonymous Coward]

"If the guy really did name-drop his employer in an attempt to intimidate/coerce Comcast, what's the problem?"

Agreed! Let's all listen to the taped phone calls that prove this is what happened. Wait, that's right, Comcast refuses to let anyone see those for some reason.

The tapes would prove the case and all this would be a non-issue. Companies generally only hide information when it's going to bite them in the ass.

Until the evidence is presented, I'm far more likely to believe the person who's life was fucked over.

Re:And what's the problem ?

[Anonymous Coward]

not even comcast can terminate my slashdot account

Re:And what's the problem ?

[Attila Dimedici]

If the man name dropped his employer, it is perfectly acceptable that his employer fired him. Of course, it is important that they did not just take Comcast's word for it, but actually heard a recording of where he did so. However, that does not mean that you are wrong. Comcast deserves the bad press for contacting the employer (unless part of that name dropping was to threaten action by his employer against Comcast, in which case not only was his firing acceptable, it is good business).

Re:And what's the problem ?

[TsuruchiBrian]

Customers are not always right... But that said, yes we need some laws to get rid of this ridiculous cable situation we find ourselves in.

Re:And what's the problem ?

[TsuruchiBrian]

I was once a poor person. Even back then I believed in fairness over loyalty to my economic class. I wasn't assuming I would one day become rich (and I am still not what I would consider rich).

That said I don't know who the bully was (if anyone) in this situation. But I am certainly no fan of comcast.

Re:And what's the problem ?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Comcast" doesn't do that to a customer. A really really pissed off customer service rep wouldn't even do that to a customer; they wouldn't know how. But a really really pissed off 3rd-tier customer service manager probably would do that to a customer. So it sounds to me like this guy behaved like such a complete asshole that the customer service staff felt that they wanted to get even with him. And they were smart enough to do it. Go them. Customer service staff listen to assholes every day so this asshole must have really taken the biscuit.

So enough with the "even if he name-dropped his employer". Of course he name-dropped his employer, or he wouldn't have been fired. And he obviously did it to make himself seem important and powerful, with only one objective - to try to bully the staff into doing what he tells them to do. The word "fair" doesn't come into it because most people can't name-drop an accountancy firm - this was clearly an attempt to get unfairly beneficial treatment on account of his status. Now he's gone public with the story to whine about it even more and get some people on his side on account of the fact that "clearly" someone as important as him shouldn't get fired over something like this or else what is the world coming to?

If you want to be a poster-boy for that kind of behaviour, go ahead, but don't do it just because the word "Comcast" appears in the story and you hate Comcast. If anything, Comcast should go up in your estimation, for standing up to designer-suited narcissists like this.

Re:And what's the problem ?

[Anonymous Coward]

How does breaking them up help anything? So instead of getting screwed by a big cable company, you get screwed by a little one.

Re:And what's the problem ?

[fluffy99]

It was more than name dropping. There was a suggestion that he worked at company that could initiate an investigation by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), which could be interpreted as a threat. More than likely Comcast reached out to his employer to figure out if the threat was serious, and his employer got pissed.

If I mentioned I worked for the Police and that i could arrest them for theft, when I called to complain about a billing problem, would you have a problem with that?

Comcast sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

"Comcast sucks" --... waiting for a dismissal.

Wrongful Termination Suit

[Anonymous Coward]

Find it out in discovery.

Lol

[Anonymous Coward]

He must have been an incredible ass to fire someone up enough to pull this stunt.

He must have enough money to sue the shit out of everyone involved.

Re:Lol

[Anonymous Coward]

He must have been an incredible ass to fire someone up enough to pull this stunt.

Just World Fallacy, party of one? Your flimsy rationalization is now ready.

Re:Lol

[Anonymous Coward]

If the guy was name-dropping his employer, cussing me out, and generally pissing me off, I just might do the same.

He probably said that he's a partner at so-and-so firm and if they don't treat his personal account right, then he'll convince the firm to drop service as well. As a Comcast rep, I might be so inclined to call his employer and make sure services were up to par. Then probably explain that I was calling because the guy just told me all of this unhappy stuff and cussed me out.

The same thing happens when you're a dick in a fast food line. Someone might put their dick on your burger. Happened as Sonic Drive-In in Anderson, MO. Guy was being a dick to the girl taking his order. Guy in the kitchen (I'll refrain from using his name) took his burger back to the bathroom and stuck his dick in it.

Guy ate dick-infested burger. And he went on about his pompous day none-the-wiser.

Moral is: Don't be a dick.

Re:Lol

[Anonymous Coward]

Moral is: Don't be a dick.

Or you might end up in a burger?

We don't know the details

[ShaunC]

I can't help but think that there's more to this story. I hate Comcast and it's fun to rail on them, but there's no proof yet that they've done anything horrible here. What appears to have happened is that a customer used his position (or knowledge he gained through his position) at work to escalate his own personal billing issue to someone at Comcast who had zero to do with the situation, and it backfired. Until or unless the recording of the phone call is made public, nobody really knows what went down and everything else is useless speculation.

There are plenty of 100% legitimate, proven reasons to hate Comcast. This might not be one of them.

Re:We don't know the details

[mythosaz]

Bingo. /. was displaying 0 posts for me for a while, but I mostly posted the same thing -- if it didn't go to the abyss.

Re:We don't know the details

[rahvin112]

I fully believe they Google'd the guy. He basically threatened them with reporting them to the IRS and SEC for violating accounting standards, and he didn't just threaten a nobody, he threatened another accountant. Very very serious allegations. They likely ran those accusations right to their legal department who did a full investigation and realized he worked for someone that worked for them. A quick call to a partner threatening to pull the account and the guy is fired.

I completely believe this happened even without knowing their side of the story. Even if he did mention who he worked for it would have been irrelevant and treated just the same way it would have been if he was talking to low level support. Without Comcast releasing the actual call recordings we shouldn't trust any spin they put on it, nor should we outright believe everything the guy says. But the fact is they called his employer and got him fired. There is almost nothing he could have said on the phone to them to justify that.

Re:We don't know the details

[UnknownSoldier]

/sarcasm Awww, but knee-jerk reaction is so much fun ... :-)

Re:We don't know the details

[avgjoe62]

I admit this is speculation, but I have to wonder if the conversation went something like this:

Comcast: We're sorry, we admit those charges you're disputing are our error but there is no way for us to remove those now.

Customer: Don't be ridiculous. I've worked for Big Name Accounting Firm for years. You most certainly can reverse those charges.

Not saying that this happened, but given the customer's profession and the reason he was calling I could see the above scenario.

Re:We don't know the details

[Anonymous Coward]

That's Comcast's side of the story, certainly. Consider this, however: If the horrific phone calls we all heard about over the last several months weren't recorded, and instead it was just a "his word against Comcast's word" type thing, do you really think Comcast would have come out and admitted it? Of course not. They'd sit back, refuse to provide a recording, and insist that they followed "internal company procedures with integrity" or some other corporate bullshit line.

Like it or not, Comcast has lost the benefit of the doubt many times over the decade(s). If they want that back, they need to earn it back. Until then, they can take it in the PR ass for 10 years while also working to change not just their claimed "culture" or policies, but provide real consumer experience that reflects that.

Re:We don't know the details

[Anonymous Coward]

OR, it MIGHT be.

Re:We don't know the details

[Archtech]

"... to escalate his own personal billing issue to someone at Comcast who had zero to do with the situation..."

Senior people in any organization are responsible for what their underlings do. Either they set things up that way, or they hired the guilty party, or they are irresponsibly negligent. You can run things in other ways, but they don't work very well.

Re:We don't know the details

[neoritter]

I don't doubt the theory so to speak. But there's a difference between, notifying someone that someone else is name dropping them, and actually asking someone to fire someone else.

Re:We don't know the details

[Anonymous Psychopath]

There probably aren't any recordings. It's typically only the contact center that records conversations. The article says the firing was a result from an ethics investigation launched when Comcast called to complain about him. It implies that the ethics violation centers around him using his position with his employer to further his claim against Comcast. Say, for example, he obtained the controller's name and contact information using his employee's resources. Or maybe he implied he could make an error that would cost Comcast just as Comcast had done to him. Or maybe it's just as he presented it and Comcast used their leverage to get rid of an annoyance. I've no idea, really, but there has to be a lot more to this story than just what's in the article. It's impossible to draw any real conclusions.

Re:We don't know the details

[Stan92057]

"He basically threatened them with reporting them to the IRS and SEC for violating accounting standards"

Just where did you find that statement? I didn't read it anywhere in the articles.

Re:We don't know the details

[WheezyJoe]

Plausible. From my own experience, patience and restraint on the order of The Mahatma is required to get problems fixed over the phone with Comcast (and, as it turns out, an increasing number of other companies, too).

My advice is to get a friend (or paid representative) to call on your behalf, someone not emotionally involved and who won't blow his stack (and, consequently, say something stupid, like where you work) after being told many things that are obviously, frustratingly wrong.

Re:We don't know the details

[AK Marc]

He basically threatened them with reporting them to the IRS and SEC for violating accounting standards, and he didn't just threaten a nobody, he threatened another accountant.

Then he's an idiot. When I had trouble with AT&T DSL back in the '90s, I couldn't ever get anyone to talk to me. I used my "work position" to try to escalate. "I work for a tech company doing tech, I understand these things."

Nothing worked.

I didn't push the issue after the 6th month or so of problems. I sent a letter to the FCC about the deceptive practices, copying the 12 divisions of SBC that were involved in delivering AT&T DSL at the time, and to AT&T's corporate council.

Within 48 hours of putting the letter in the mailbox, I had an AT&T tech at my house and the problem I was told for 6 months was "impossible" to fix, was fixed.

Don't ever threaten to go to a regulatory body. Just do it. Of course let them know, so that when the FCC got back to my complaint another 6 weeks later, I could tell them it was resolved.

Re:We don't know the details

[rahvin112]

During this call, he says that he mentioned that Comcast’s billing and accounting issues should probably be investigated by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), a private-sector oversight operation.

Such an investigation would trigger all sorts of follow on process from multiple jurisdictions as he just made the claim they are violating accounting standards (the only thing that gives our economy and investors confidence in the system). Such claims are not taken lightly by anyone, particularly the IRS who views claims of accounting irregularity as a indicator of possible tax law violations and would probably trigger at the least an audit or more probably even a full blow investigation (as in men with guns coming in a seizing all your files). This doesn't even include state investigations or an investigation by the Consumer protection bureau. Just the announcement of an investigation would cost them millions. He did not make a minor threat here, he went nuclear. It was incredibly stupid on his part (he should have known better) but did NOT justify them getting him fired by calling his employer.

Re:We don't know the details

[timothy]

Yeah -- sorry, we had a network glitch, which you caught a bit of, it seems. Seems to be fixed for now, at least.

Re:We don't know the details

[Anonymous Coward]

Couldn't agree more, but really fire somebody of over baseless accusations though?

Re:We don't know the details

[Dragonslicer]

He basically threatened them with reporting them to the IRS and SEC for violating accounting standards, and he didn't just threaten a nobody, he threatened another accountant... But the fact is they called his employer and got him fired. There is almost nothing he could have said on the phone to them to justify that.

These two statements seem to contradict each other. You don't think that an accountant threatening to falsely report violations of accounting regulations is an offense that warrants being fired?

Re:We don't know the details

[swb]

I'm pretty sure regulated industries have people who are kind of reverse ombudsmen -- they get regulatory complaints and then go out and try to "fix" the problems and have significant escalation authority with which to do so. I'd guess that the number of outstanding regulatory complaints on file has serious impact on their ability to get rate increases or can spur investigations they don't want.

Sometime in the late 1990s the power company came and swapped the meters on the duplex I lived in. We never had any notice of the work to be done and naturally the power loss borked one my computers. I called the power company to complain but got nowhere. I filed a complaint with the Public Utilities Commission and I think in less than a week I had a very professional and insistent woman from the power company calling me to make amends (although she didn't offer me anything of value) in the hopes of getting me to rescind my complaint.

Re:We don't know the details

[Anonymous Coward]

So, it sounds like Comcast should be investigated after all? Shouldn't we have laws in this country to protect against this kind of retaliation? Or are we all just resigned to living in a corporatist dystopia now? Why is it reasonable that he should have to "know better"?

Re:We don't know the details

[AK Marc]

I had the same problem once. The power company insists that they put a flier in my mailbox. I couldn't prove they didn't, so nobody cared, not the PUC, not the utility.

Re:We don't know the details

[TsuruchiBrian]

I had verizon DSL for a whole year. Then 3 days before I was to move, it stopped working. A call to support led to the claim that the phone line from my wall to the DSL modem was too long. Despite being that long the whole year, the technical support representative told me that the modem was "getting tired" trying to send data through such a long wire for such a long time, and now it was "too tired" to work.

I thought about bringing up the semi-relevant fact that I was in my last year of a computer science program, but really I have no idea how DSL modems work, although I'm pretty sure they don't get tired and need 1 hour breaks every 12 months, if the phone line to the wall is 12 feet instead of 6 feet.

Re:We don't know the details

[Anonymous Coward]

The power company insists that they put a flier in my mailbox.

Should have called the Postmaster.... I'm pretty sure it is illegal for anyone to put a flier in your mailbox unless it is an employee of the post office.

Re:We don't know the details

[Anonymous Coward]

Despite being that long the whole year, the technical support representative told me that the modem was "getting tired" trying to send data through such a long wire for such a long time, and now it was "too tired" to work.

Technically possible. The capacitors go bad over time, crystals drift and it can no longer calibrate the signal with the interference from your long cable.

Re:We don't know the details

[Anonymous Coward]

Comcast: We're sorry, we admit those charges you're disputing are our error but there is no way for us to remove those now.

Don't argue with this. Pay your small claims court fee, and let the judge issue a judgment giving you the amount in question, followed up by letters to your local state attorney general and PUC.

Re:We don't know the details

[Anonymous Coward]

He basically threatened them with reporting them to the IRS and SEC for violating accounting standards, and he didn't just threaten a nobody, he threatened another accountant. Very very serious allegations. They likely ran those accusations right to their legal department who did a full investigation and realized he worked for someone that worked for them. A quick call to a partner threatening to pull the account and the guy is fired.

Then the guy should report them to the IRS and SEC.

Re:We don't know the details

[Anonymous Coward]

Your last sentence makes no sense at all. You spend an entire paragraph explaining how serious what he did was, and then go on to imply that he should be able to make such nuclear threats with impunity. That's a complete cop-out. As far as I can tell, them calling his employer was perfectly reasonable, and his employer firing him was perfectly reasonable. They didn't "get him fired", though, he got himself fired. They just informed his employer of what he had done. If it was as simple as "getting him fired" that's only because his behaviour was so egregious that being fired was the only alternative once his employers found out ... in which case they almost had a moral duty to inform his employer. This guy is (was) an accounting professional, not some burger flipper. I have no conception of what moral code you could be applying that says this guy didn't absolutely deserve what he got.

Re:We don't know the details

[david_thornley]

Um, the power company has to make a good attempt to keep your power on, and has to generally succeed. They don't have to have six nines of reliability, and if they had to do that you couldn't afford electricity. It's perfectly permissible to have occasional power failures.

Also, why did you have a computer in a borkable state? There's lots of things that can cause the power to fail, squirrel in the transformer being one of the more common. (First outage report on a new system in our local power company had "fried tree rat" listed as the cause.) It's kind of like backups: if you don't have backups, you will lose data sometime. If you have a computer that absolutely depends on uninterrupted line power, it will get borked sometime.

Improvement

[Anonymous Coward]

See the new guy Comcast appointed to change their customer support has had an effect. If you complain he gets you fired, you are then to poor to afford Comcast, therefore you can not complain about service you don't have.

Hacking attempt?

[The New Guy 2.0]

How did this customer wind up with thousands of dollars worth of unused equipment? If he ordered them, he'd have to pay. If he didn't order them, then why did he let the package stay at his house?

To me, this sounds like somebody hoarding equipment for a hacking attempt... but Comcast and all other digital solutions are too ready to let that fail.

Re:Hacking attempt?

[TheCastro1689]

What are you talking about? The unactivated equipment? He didn't say he didn't order that, but that he was being charged. It's like getting an extra DVR for later when you finish installing a tv in another room. The other equipment he didn't order and he took back. Heck Comcast brought two DVRs to my house we only kept one and the driver left with the other. It took 4 months for them to stop billing me for it, they claimed the driver never turned it back in and that it was my problem. Huge pain, but it finally got resolved after talking to someone higher up.

Re:Hacking attempt?

[Archtech]

"If he didn't order them, then why did he let the package stay at his house?"

As far as I know, a person is under no legal obligation whatever to return unsolicited goods sent to him by a corporation (or anyone else).

Re:Hacking attempt?

[ottothecow]

That's because your "independent contractor" comcast driver didn't report the equipment as returned (did he give you a receipt?) and instead sold it on craigslist.

FWIW, I once had a non-contractor--as in an actual comcast employee--out for a second visit after the useless contractor (usually they are only good for swapping your modem, restarting your computer, and maybe recrimping the cable end) failed to identify the problem. He was clearly of a different breed...had actual knowledge of the underlying systems, had specialized test tools, etc. Of course, in the end, the problem was that some idiot contractor had cut our wire at the box when trying to disconnect someone else's service, so this guy's higher-tier support wasn't really needed except for the fact that the contractors are too stupid to realize a wire's not even connected on the other end.

I am sure there are contractors who don't suck, but most of these guys jobs are simply going around and drilling the most convenient holes they can in your house to run new service (god forbid they might actually think about how ugly a cable would look coming out at waist height in the middle of a room...). They get paid by the visit, and aren't paid enough to give a shit. I signed up for comcast service last week (moved to comcast-exclusive building...) and am ever-thankful that they offered to send me a "self-install" kit instead of letting one of these yahoos into my house.

Re:Hacking attempt?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dumbest question on the page thus far. Just because a company trolls you with 15 cable modems you didn't order doesn't mean you're immediately going to jump up, waste your time and gas on a weekday to stand in like with 85 other pissed off people, and try unsuccessfully to give them back. First you're going to investigate why the fuck they sent you 2000 dollars of equipment you never ordered. Then you're going to battle with homicidal rage and decide whether or not to light their building and employees and children on fire. Then when you feel like wasting 4 god damn hours of your weekend, you'll goto the nearest action center and try to argue with a moron that they WILL be taking their unwanted shit back.

Having that shit unsolicitedly dropped on you is literally nothing but a ploy by Comcast to screw you into fees, agreements, confrontations, service charges, equipment charges, and awkward situations.

Re:Hacking attempt?

[The New Guy 2.0]

Yes, but it defies rational behavior... if he didn't order the devices, and has no use for them, why did he keep them?

Re:Hacking attempt?

[The New Guy 2.0]

Comcast, like all cable companies, is having trouble controlling their employees. It seems like you contractor said "I brought and installed two!" when you say "I only wanted one!" which leads to Comcast paying him less.

They really should get these 1099 employees linked to a better reporting system... like requiring the device be sensed on the network before the contractor gets paid, and penalizing contractors for quickly dropped accounts.

Re:Hacking attempt?

[NormalVisual]

but most of these guys jobs are simply going around and drilling the most convenient holes they can in your house to run new service (god forbid they might actually think about how ugly a cable would look coming out at waist height in the middle of a room...)

Or whether that hole happens to go through some power conduit. I'm sure he'll notice quickly enough though.

Did anyone

[Anonymous Coward]

Did anyone else read this as getting fired from working at comcast?

Well, I'm sure this will lead to some class action suit before very long.

I'm all for hating Comcast but...

[silverkniveshotmail.]

the whole being fired part has a lot to do with working for a shitty company, regardless of how "prestigious" it is.

Re:I'm all for hating Comcast but...

[CaptainLard]

has a lot to do with working for a shitty company

Yeah its the guy's own fault. Doesn't he know how easy it is to just switch to a company that treats its employees great with all other things (salary, location, etc) being equal? In other news: The kid wouldn't have his lunch money stolen and get stuffed in a locker if he wasn't a nerd, and, She asked for it by dressing sexy and not watching her drink.

Re:I'm all for hating Comcast but...

[silverkniveshotmail.]

No need to put words in my mouth or to get all histrionic and talk about rape. I didn't say it was the guy's fault, I said the company was shitty.

Re:I'm all for hating Comcast but...

[shadowrat]

i agree. comcast is a bad guy, but they are not the only bad guys in this story. clearly the employer is not looking out for interests of this guy. At least they are going to put their own interests or the interests of the boss being buddy buddy with some guy at comcast ahead of this guy.

At best this fellow was just not as clever as he thought he was. He maybe should have determined if there was a relationship between his employer and comcast before going on attack. He might actually be downright foolish to have knowingly attacked his boss' buddies at comcast. In fact i find it hard to believe that he wouldn't know this relationship existed and it seems like he might have just had the ego that told him he could totally bully big bad comcast.

Is it possible that all 3 characters in this story are the bad guy?

Do I smell a lawsuit?

[zoffdino]

This is lawyer gold! Any employment lawyer should call Conal right now and ask for a meeting. If things are as he said, I can see breach of privacy and unlawful dismissal to start. Of course this is only half the story, there's no way to know for sure until Conal release his letter of dismissal and ask Comcast for the call records.

Hanlon's razor wasn't meant for comcast

[i kan reed]

Never attribute to malice that which can adequately be explained by being evil incarnate, dripping with pure unfiltered malice for all your customers.

Re:Hanlon's razor wasn't meant for comcast

[Anonymous Coward]

Hanlon's razor was quoted backwards anyways. Anywhere above "the sales floor", it's the opposite of the quote that applies.

Headline misleading

[The New Guy 2.0]

The loser wasn't fired for just complaining. He was fired for going over the top and calling someone from accounting using his work identity, and that person from accounting said that the charges were legit and this guy shouldn't have bothered him, so that controller called the accounting firm this loser worked for, and out the door he went.

Re:Headline misleading

[drinkypoo]

He was fired for going over the top and calling someone from accounting using his work identity,

As far as we know, he only has one identity.

and that person from accounting said that the charges were legit and this guy shouldn't have bothered him, so that controller called [...] and out the door he went.

And because the person from accounting says the charges are legitimate, that makes it true?

Re:Headline misleading

[Anonymous Coward]

Accountants are not infallible. One of the local colleges still thinks I owe them a few hundred dollars because one of their spreadsheets says it's so. But, they can't actually provide any documentation to verify the accuracy of their spreadsheet and it took them many years in order to find it.

In short, accountants aren't always honest and there's plenty of places you can go to hire an accountant to cook your books or "find" money that's owed regardless of whether that's true.

Re:Headline misleading

[future assassin]

And because the person from accounting says the charges are legitimate, that makes it true?

Well they were legitimate in the eyes of Comcast lol

Re:Headline misleading

[The New Guy 2.0]

What I'm saying is this guy was calling an accountant and dropping the name of the accounting firm he worked for. That's a firing offense at the company he worked for, because he should have have called customer service and not communicated without mentioning his job, just his Comcast account number.

When you're at work, who you work for is part of your identity. When you're a customer, you just need to show your Visa/Mastercard number for proof you did enough work to deserve the product or service. Calling a high-up person in accounting and saying you're in accounting is making a threat that you'll disrupt the business at work, which is against ethical standards.

Re:Headline misleading

[drinkypoo]

What I'm saying is this guy was calling an accountant and dropping the name of the accounting firm he worked for.

First point, we don't know that. There are any number of ways that Comcast could have found out where he worked. For example, he could have provided his work number to Comcast as an alternate at some point so that if (as often happens) they sent someone to his house outside of the scheduled period, that they would be able to contact him and he would be able to reschedule with the "technician" (aka cable puller.) Second point, there's lots of ways you might conceivably mention your job in a conversation with a phone monkey. Unless the terms of his employment explicitly prohibit telling anyone without a need to know who his employer is, then mentioning this is not grounds for termination. There is no evidence whatsoever that he attempted to abuse his business relationship. Asserting that the firing is such evidence is invalid since parties involved have so far refused to cough up any supporting information.

When you're at work, who you work for is part of your identity.

It is when you're not at work, too. So?

Calling a high-up person in accounting and saying you're in accounting is making a threat

No, no it is not. It could be a means of explaining that you know that they are full of shit. When I call up an IT (or support) department, I'll tell them that I work in IT so that they know not to ask me the phenomenally stupid questions. If I had a business relationship with that other company, I would still tell them this, to establish my familiarity with the material in question.

a threat that you'll disrupt the business at work, which is against ethical standards.

The assertion here is that he is being billed for a service he did not receive, which is against ethical and legal standards. The business at work is accused of being a criminal. Many reports on the same business support this assertion, which makes the claim believable. Threatening to disrupt a business in the commission of a crime is not against ethical standards.

In short, everything you said is based on your personal assumptions made without any supporting evidence. I don't know how it went down, but you don't either. You're making assumptions in favor of Comcast, which is probably the dumbest thing I'll see on Slashdot today. There are some hours yet, however.

Lawsuit in 3...2...1

[Chas]

If this person is telling the truth, and they had NOT been name-dropping, he's got a hell of a lawsuit on his hands.

Granted, Comcast can tie it up in the courts for years...

Re:Lawsuit in 3...2...1

[The New Guy 2.0]

"If he was telling the truth" seems to have evaluated to "False".

Re:Lawsuit in 3...2...1

[freeze128]

In addition, now he can call Comcast all day and continue to complain, because they can only get him fired if he's employed.

Re:Lawsuit in 3...2...1

[FrankNey]

And Comcast can watch their merger with Time Warner hit the shredder.

Lawyer up

[Mistakill]

Would be my advice... (IANAL)

This would not work at my office

[emagery]

Anyone calling in from comcast here would get a scorched ear for their time (and complete and utter lack of transparency, support, value, ethics, et cetera.)

Re:This would not work at my office

[Anonymous Coward]

A little different in this case. Sounds like the guy's company did consulting work for Comcast. I'm sure the conversation included suggesting Comcast-NBC-Universal could look to another company for the same consulting work.

Re:This would not work at my office

[Archtech]

"I'm sure the conversation included suggesting Comcast-NBC-Universal could look to another company for the same consulting work".

Exactly as, in fairness, all Comcast's customers can change suppliers to some less revoltingly evil corporation.

Oh wait.

Hanlon's razor wasn't intended for Comcast

[i kan reed]

Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by being pure evil incarnate, with a seething hatred for all your paying customers.

Um.

[Anonymous Coward]

Despite this being incredibly shitty and possibly actionable, the First Amendment has nothing to do with it.

Comcast employee should get fired

[Anonymous Coward]

Looking up where the customer works and contacting their employer to take revenge due to a complaint sound rather unacceptable. It would be strange if Comcast did not fire the employee who did this.

Re:Comcast employee should get fired

[MitchDev]

This is Comcast we're talking about. The guy will get a promotion and raise for this...

Nope

[Anonymous Coward]

I would say something but I wouldn't want to get fired even as AC

Lawsuit in 3...2...1...

[Chas]

If he's telling the truth and wasn't name-dropping, then Comcast has some explaining to do. To a judge and jury.

Granted, they have deep enough pockets to tie it up for years. But...

That's Comcastic!

[Anonymous Coward]

Comcast is going to continue bribing congress to allow their abusive practices to merge with TWC's abusive practices, which will work as money has thoroughly corrupted our country's political and regulatory system.

A quick reminder - while both parties accept bribes in order to compete in our current system, it's the republican party that has used the Supreme Court to define bribery as speech.

Re:That's Comcastic!

[Archtech]

"...which will work as money has thoroughly corrupted our country's political and regulatory system".

Exactly. Money is the universal solvent. Kurt Vonnegut famously wrote that, "There is a tragic flaw in our precious constitution, and I don't know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nut cases want to be president". But actually the fundamental flaw is that money eats through EVERYTHING. How can you appoint guards or regulators to control rich people, when almost every one of them has their price?

What we desperately need is a way of allowing money to be used only for buying things - not people.

Re:That's Comcastic!

[FrankNey]

Easy: Repeal the laws that outlawed dueling. Things would change rapidly at Comcast if the CEO was constantly being invited to coffee and pistols at dawn. After being the ninth CEO of Comcast in as many days, problems would be solved.

Slander or Libel

[Whorhay]

Possible grounds for lawsuit, Slander or Libel?

Cha-ching

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah, he'll also make more from the civil settlement than he would in a lifetime as an accountant.

outrageous

[Anonymous Coward]

Should I be upset about tapes we can't hear, and an email we can't read about a person I don't know who complained about his service? No idea about the context of what was said, nor why it would be worth of getting someone fired.

Sounds like a bunch of man-children to me. Doubt it should be difficult to get hired again after that. Too bad it happened anyway. Vindictive people, when will they learn?

I donno

[Anonymous Coward]

I could see Comcast contacting THIS company if he was throwing around the name and threatening to sue, (Lawyers know Lawyers if you know what I mean) If you read the it states "Comcast contacted a partner at the firm" they may have assumed/been told it was the legal firm he had hired.

When "the firm" investigated the situation, they released him.

I don't see how the "The firm" could release someone for "ethics violations" who never mentioned the company name or had anything to do with the company.... I personally think he got caught pulling something by his own company and wants to blame someone, and decided to jump on the "bash comcast" bandwagon.

But who knows?
 

The real question...

[TemporalBeing]

...is who said what and did what. There's simply not enough info to say.

Re:The real question...

[pr0fessor]

I have worked support for a ISP before, If I had a dime for every time a conversation started with I'm a lawyer, technician, or etc.. so I know what I'm talking about. I would be a millionaire. To get a response like this a customer would have had to threaten a lot of physical harm and it probably would have been the police not their job that was called.

You are right there is only one side of the story and no proof presented for either so there is not really any way to know.

Re:The real question...

[SpeedBump0619]

I have worked support for a ISP before, If I had a dime for every time a conversation started with I'm a lawyer, technician, or etc.. so I know what I'm talking about. I would be a millionaire.

I wish more people understood this. There are plenty of ways during a support contact to show me you are an exception to the norm, but telling me you are the exception just makes you less exceptional.

AKA: Show me don't tell me.

Re:The real question...

[pr0fessor]

I also used to get people who would start with the only thing I know how to do is check my email, please help. They were usually easier to work with because their only goal was to get it working and they would listen, answer questions, and follow instructions.

Well what everyone now needs to do is.

[LWATCDR]

If you have not already sent the links to the Comcast call from hell and other comcast stores on the net
Then
send a strongly worded email with the links to your congress people;
Else
Add this to your list of strongly worded emails sent to your congress person about comcast;

Add "please oppose the comcast merger".

This is an election year.

Comcast being dicks...

[Kenja]

is not news. But I still smell a lawsuit in the works if things went down as described.

Pretexting opp

[Anonymous Coward]

I can see this as a new career management opportunity. Want your bosses job? Well, just call up Comcast and....

Get the audio recordings

[Spy Handler]

of the telephone convo. Comcast like most others of its ilk record all conversations and should be easy enough to get with a court ordered discovery during a lawsuit. Should be a slam dunk case.

Unless this guy wasn't telling the truth and he really did invoke his employer's name while ranting at some poor Comcast employee ("F**k you, do you know who I am? I'm the CXX at YYY!") Then he won't sue.

Re:Get the audio recordings

[Rakarra]

Unless this guy wasn't telling the truth and he really did invoke his employer's name while ranting at some poor Comcast employee ("F**k you, do you know who I am? I'm the CXX at YYY!") Then he won't sue.

He wouldn't have to invoke the employer's name; just saying he worked at an accounting firm which has oversight on Comcast's finances would be enough.

Re:Get the audio recordings

[JaredOfEuropa]

Are Comcast obliged to retain such recordings? Comcast have already denied the guy's claims, and if they smell a lawsuit coming up, they'd make sure those recordings got "lost" if they could get away with it... unless the recording backs up Comcast's side of the story.

Re:Get the audio recordings

[david_thornley]

If they "lost" that particular recording, the fired guy could argue in court that it was because the recording was unfavorable to Comcast. If Comcast has a policy that involves destroying recordings according to certain rules, that argument would be invalid.

I wager...

[skogs]

That someday the world governments will fall just like in the science fiction future novels. One day the world will be ruled by corporations. Those corporations will then have to have large armies to protect themselves from the masses they control. Things like this is why.

Re:I wager...

[drinkypoo]

That someday the world governments will fall just like in the science fiction future novels. One day the world will be ruled by corporations. Those corporations will then have to have large armies to protect themselves from the masses they control. Things like this is why.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Space_Merchants

We are not hearing the full story.

[Frosty Piss]

Look, we all hate Comcast, but something is fishy here about this guy. I will go as far as saying that the write-up is one-sided, and if "true", the employer has opened themselves up to a lawsuit, and I really don't think HR and their lawyers would do this.

We are not hearing the full story.

Re:We are not hearing the full story.

[Anonymous Coward]

Comcast won't GIVE the full story, that's part of the story jackass!

Re:We are not hearing the full story.

[JerryLove]

Look, we all hate Comcast, but something is fishy here about this guy. I will go as far as saying that the write-up is one-sided, and if "true", the employer has opened themselves up to a lawsuit, and I really don't think HR and their lawyers would do this.

We are not hearing the full story.

I'm not so sure (and suspect that it depends on which state he's in). My state, for example, is "right to work". Which means, unless it expressly violates some protection (disabled, race, gender, etc): I can fire you for anything at all. I can fire you because my astrologer said I should fire anyone who wore a red shirt in today.

I would think *comcast* might be actionable *if* they actually lied. Otherwise, and unless he's in a state with more signifigant protections than mine, he's SOL.

Re:We are not hearing the full story.

[tomhath]

I will go as far as saying that the write-up is one-sided

The story is from the Consumerist so you know it's one-sided. But yes, the guy must have said/done something really out of line. I also suspect it wasn't the first time the employer has had issues with the guy.

Re:We are not hearing the full story.

[Frosty Piss]

In "right to work" states, you can fire someone for "no reason at all", but there are things you can not fire people for even in "right to work" states, retaliation is one of them.

Re:We are not hearing the full story.

[dcollins117]

Look, we all hate Comcast, but something is fishy here about this guy. I will go as far as saying that the write-up is one-sided.

The last anti-Comcast Slashdot article I remember seeing was the one about them terminating Tor users. That turned out to be total bullshit, so I'm skeptical as well.

I'm no fan of Comcast but I do use them - if they give one iota of a reason to switch providers I would be delighted with DSL. Hell, I could use dialup or wireless and be happy as a clam. So far they haven't pissed me off enough to do so .

Re:We are not hearing the full story.

[Rakarra]

Look, we all hate Comcast, but something is fishy here about this guy. I will go as far as saying that the write-up is one-sided, and if "true", the employer has opened themselves up to a lawsuit, and I really don't think HR and their lawyers would do this.

As I speculated above, the customer works for a firm which handles some portion of Comcast's accounting. If the customer tried to use that specific influence (or say, made threats that the books would be looked at more carefully, or any sort of veiled insinuation for that matter), that would be an ethical violation that would justify firing. However, it's just he-said/she-said until you hear the tapes, and with a pending lawsuit, I doubt anyone but lawyers / court staff from each side will them anytime soon.

Re:We are not hearing the full story.

[AK Marc]

It's not for lack of trying. One guy is talking. Comcast isn't contradicting him. That's the whole story.

Any defense of Comcast is the unsubstantiated, fabricated part.

Re:We are not hearing the full story.

[AK Marc]

My state, for example, is "right to work". Which means, unless it expressly violates some protection (disabled, race, gender, etc): I can fire you for anything at all. I can fire you because my astrologer said I should fire anyone who wore a red shirt in today.

You've obviously never worked for a corporation. Anyone larger than a 2-man shop has larger, longer contracts. They almost always explain disciplinary actions, and unacceptable actions. I.e. showing up to work drunk is subject to immediate termination.

If those are in your contract (And I've worked in multiple at-will states, and they were always in there for companies larger than 2-people), then they must follow their contract.

We don't have his contract, so all the people asserting they know for a fact it's legal to fire him for it are lying sacks of shit. You don't know it, you can't know it. And you are leveraging your ignorance of employment contracts to claim to be an expert in employment law because you read about "right to work" once on Wikipedia.

Re:We are not hearing the full story.

[JerryLove]

In "right to work" states, you can fire someone for "no reason at all", but there are things you can not fire people for even in "right to work" states, retaliation is one of them.

You may want to research that a bit further: http://www.ncsl.org/research/l...

That would require "legally proper, necessary, or desirable activities". Fire someone for unionizing and you have retaliation. Fire someone for suing over discrimination and you have retaliation. Firing someone for misuse of your company clout? That seems to fall well within valid firing. Even firing someone because they got someone to come complain about them and it annoyed you... that's usually fair game in an at-will state. (your mileage may vary)

Re:We are not hearing the full story.

[Anonymous Coward]

Go back to masturbating in you mom's basement with her granny panties on.

Re:We are not hearing the full story.

[Frosty Piss]

It's not for lack of trying. One guy is talking. Comcast isn't contradicting him. That's the whole story.

Comcast is not saying anything now because there is potential for litigation. If this jackass had any brains, he would shut the fuck up as well and let his lawyer do the talking in court .

Re:We are not hearing the full story.

[Overzeetop]

The employer, in a right to work state, may be perfectly within their rights. However Comcast may face a defamation lawsuit.

Re:We are not hearing the full story.

[AK Marc]

There is always "potential for litigation" if that applied, nobody would ever talk. And they do, so nobody follows your silly rules. And most companies know that if they lose the PR but win in court, it's a net loss, so they have PR work with Legal to make statements. That they aren't indicates they don't care. Not that they do care.

Re:We are not hearing the full story.

[cbhacking]

That is *NOT* what "right to work" means - you're confusing it with "at will [employment]" - but you're probably still right. That said, if you fire somebody *for cause* (as opposed to simply saying "I'm sorry, but you are no longer employed by this company") then they *may* be able to sue you over the cause.

Some companies try hard to avoid firing for cause in any but the most obvious cases (criminal behavior, for example) because it can get them in legal trouble. Others try to avoid firing in any case *except* "for cause", because then the former employee can get unemployment insurance payments (which costs the company money) and they have to say that no, he was not terminated for cause when anybody asks. Most are somewhere in between, especially in at-will states; you can terminate people who are not good matches for the company (and eat the costs of your insurance premiums going up as the cost of a bad hiring decision) without putting a black mark on their employment history or incurring (significant) risk of legal hassles, and fire others for cause whenever you can demonstrate a significant cause.

Re:We are not hearing the full story.

[Frosty Piss]

There is always "potential for litigation" if that applied, nobody would ever talk.

Reading comprehension seems to be lost on the youth of this country when some political axe needs to be ground.

I said he should talk through his lawyer, not that he should not talk.

He's cutting his own throat.

Re:We are not hearing the full story.

[AK Marc]

Comcast isn't saying anything through their lawyers. As much as "silence isn't a confession" applies in the courts, the opposite applies in media. The only reason they would be quiet is if they knew they were wrong, so it's evidence of wrongdoing.

Re:We are not hearing the full story.

[Frosty Piss]

Comcast isn't saying anything through their lawyers.

Who told you this? You have inside information?

Re:We are not hearing the full story.

[AK Marc]

Since you are implying I'm wrong, you must be the one with inside information. There is no release by their lawyers, and more than one source claims to have contacted Comcast for a statement without result. Either there's a media conspiracy to make Comcast look bad, or Comcast isn't saying anything.

Re:We are not hearing the full story.

[FrankNey]

Not anymore. Courts here are now using silence against the accused. If you wish to exercise your right to remain silent, it has to be the first words out of your mouth.

Re:We are not hearing the full story.

[AK Marc]

Refusing to answer a single question in a series of questions will be held against you, but refusing to answer any (with or without comment as to why) still can't be used against you.

Re:We are not hearing the full story.

[JerryLove]

Of course I don't know what his personal contract of employment might read. Neither do you. Neither does the original poster.

Generally though, unless organized labor has been involved in drafting them, the contracts (for non-executive positions) are mostly to protect the employer. It would be odd for a company to remove from itself the ability to fire "because they feel like it".

To the tennor of your post: it's uncalled for and inflammitory. You imply that I am a "lying sack of shit", though it's a straw man. You assert that I claim to be an expert (another straw-man as I never did), and further claim knowledge you don't have about me to assert why. You are leveraging your ignorance of who I am with your misreading, deliberate or otherwise, of my post to claim to be an expert on his contract and my experience.

And no. I didn't "look it up in Wikipedia". I researched my particular state's statues because I have had employees.

Hell. I didn't even check if he was *in* a right-to-work state or not. He may not be. What I said was that it was not clear that he did have grounds. Feel free to prove that it's clear with support if you can.

Re:We are not hearing the full story.

[JerryLove]

You are corect. I improperly used "right-to-work" where I should have used "at-will". Thank you for pointing it out :)

Re:We are not hearing the full story.

[AK Marc]

It would be odd for a company to remove from itself the ability to fire "because they feel like it".

You say that, but in all my contracts, they have done so. Because it lowers lawsuits when they have a stated discipline policy. Unless, of course, if they don't follow it.

Meh

[mythosaz]

Comcast maintained that Conal used the name of his employer in an attempt to get leverage. Conal insists that he never mentioned his employer by name, but believes that someone in the Comcast Controller’s office looked him up online and figured out where he worked.

But he might have, and it's he-said, she-said.

He went outside of Comcast customer service and started throwing names and threats around, and it got back to his boss.

Re:Meh

[suutar]

I'm not sure I'd agree that it's he-said she-said when there are in fact recordings that prove exactly who said what. However, it sounds like the only way they'll come out is if he files a slander/libel suit against Comcast, and to do that he likely has to get the email they sent so he actually knows what they said about him, which will probably require a wrongful termination suit against his ex-employer.

Re:Meh

[mythosaz]

As long as the recording only allege to support his story, it's he-said, she-said.

lawyer up. you can own that firm.

[swschrad]

clear violation of civil rights and probably of his employment contract. the lawyers will probably form a double line a block long outside his house to take this case on contingency.

Why can't I read peoples comments?

[Perl-Pusher]

Did they change something? I can't see a single comment

Re:Why can't I read peoples comments?

[Anonymous Coward]

Did they change something? I can't see a single comment

Your employer asked that you not be allowed to read those nasty comments.

This call is recorded....

[Anonymous Coward]

where is the recording?

Re:This call is recorded....

[mythosaz]

Probably doesn't exist.

He went outside of support, called "higher ups" at Comcast, despite never mentioning he was anyone but a dissatisfied customer. :/

Re: Time To Occupy Comcast HQ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong. This is Calitalism pure and simple.

don't do this.

[Nukenbar]

1. Talk bad about our boss' clients in public
2. Get fired.

This is not a first amendment issue.

Re:don't do this.

[ub3r n3u7r4l1st]

which part of the complaint is "in public" ?

Discovery?

[bill_mcgonigle]

He has a lawyer but he hasn't filed a lawsuit and demanded the recordings as part of discovery?

Is there some reason they wouldn't back up his version of events? It's not hard to imagine that many courts would award him significant damages if the story is true and many attorneys would take such a case on commission.

Re:Discovery?

[mythosaz]

Unlikely there are recordings of his calls to the higher-ups. Only his calls to CSRs will have been recorded unless he himself made them, which he didn't, or we'd have them already.

Re:Discovery?

[Garfong]

Getting a lawyer to send a nasty letter is cheap. Filing a lawsuit and going through discovery is expensive.

If you can get what you want from a letter, why bother with the lawsuit. On the other hand, if the letter doesn't work, you can always escalate to the lawsuit with little money lost. The letter probably also puts them on notice they need to preserve evidence.

Re:Discovery?

[Amtrak]

Which goes to show that you should record all conversations you have with a company that is knowingly recording you as well. If it is legal for them to record you with a notice playing in front just get your own notice. If they hang up well don't talk to them.

Re:Discovery?

[bill_mcgonigle]

If you can get what you want from a letter, why bother with the lawsuit.

What could a letter get him at this stage?

Re:Discovery?

[mythosaz]

...which still wouldn't have necessarily covered his "escalated" calls.

When he skipped the normal chain of customer service escalation and started calling higher-ups at Comcast, there's no such notice. The Consumerist article isn't clear on which state the fired guy is from, or in what state the Comcast controller was in. He could have probably recorded the calls without issue -- heck, I record everything on my mobile phone -- but there was almost assuredly no recording notice when he tried to throw his weight around their corporate office.

Re:Discovery?

[Garfong]

They might be able to negotiate a settlement.

Re:Discovery?

[flopsquad]

Which goes to show that you should record all conversations you have with a company.

FTFY; you definitely have the right idea, but take it to the next level. Any time you are making a phone call over which you think there could be a future dispute, or you are being promised something (i.e. a resolution to your problem, the date a tech will come out and fix things, the BS taken off your bill), you should record it.

This is not legal advice, mind your state's wiretapping laws, etc. There should be a federal law that says "Any time you are having any kind of conversation or correspondence with a corporation, business, proprietorship, etc, you are allowed to record it and you cannot be prosecuted under any 'wiretapping' laws." That would be squarely under the commerce clause, given how broad it's been interpreted.

Tapes or it didn't happen

[Anonymous Coward]

And, if it didn't happen, it's collusion, slander, and possibly grounds for criminal charges against the "firm." Advice: find a lawyer that doesn't like the lawyer you worked for.

Re:Tapes or it didn't happen

[ub3r n3u7r4l1st]

"My guess is Comcast's lawyers will try to make the Comcast employee who called the customer's employer out to be a "rogue" and try to pass legal responsibility on to him."

IANAL, but Comcast could be liable under the "respondeat superior" doctrine in common law. Such form of secondary liability is called "Vicarious liability". A subset of them is the well known Nuremberg defense.

Hmm

[jargonburn]

If he's on the level, sounds like a wrongful termination suit against the firm, and possibly something related against Comcast? Not a lawyer, or anything. IF he's on the level.
I'm not sure what he could have said (with regards to his employer) that anyone at Comcast should have taken into consideration with regards to whatever his problem was. If he did, he shouldn't have. If he did, Comcast shouldn't have cared. If he did, and Comcast cared, I don't think his employer should have cared.

Long story short, there's a HELL of a lot of information we are missing. *shrug*

Cancellation Questions

[alex4u2nv]

Question: Why would you like to terminate your service?
Answer: Because I will lose my job.

hello

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this comment thing on?

It's simple

[Charliemopps]

It's simple... he's in collections, who, by default know where he works. It's freely available to all collections agencies via Experian. One of the first things a collections agency will do is call your employer. If his employer does a large amount of business with Comcast he'd be out the door faster than he can blink.

This is his employers fault for selling his employment data in exchange for free employment reference services.
http://www.learnvest.com/2013/...
Your employer is likely doing the same...

And then again their fault for firing him over some minor missed payments.

Re:It's simple

[MozeeToby]

One of the first things a collections agency will do is call your employer.

Only if they want to be shut down in short order. Contacting your employer is one of the few things that collection agencies cannot do without landing in hot water.

Re:It's simple

[Charliemopps]

One of the first things a collections agency will do is call your employer.

Only if they want to be shut down in short order. Contacting your employer is one of the few things that collection agencies cannot do without landing in hot water.

You're cute!
Welcome to the real world buddy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:It's simple

[Anonymous Coward]

They can not call your employer for collections...

http://www.consumerfinance.gov/askcfpb/337/can-debt-collectors-call-my-employer-and-tell-them-they-are-calling-about-my-debts.html

Re:It's simple

[orgelspieler]

It might not be legal. But they do it all the time. Why do you think there are so many websites asking if debt collectors can do that? It's because the people they're doing it to want to know if it's legal.

Re:It's simple

[david_thornley]

A collections agency doing something illegal could cut into their legal options, but not their harassment options. Harassment is probably cheaper and more reliable.

time to put Comcast on suicide watch?

[ChipMonk]

Because this really does look like a corporation bent on its own destruction.

Comcast employee may get fired too

[Russ1642]

I can't imagine that it's Comcast's policy to try and get their customers, angry or not, fired from their jobs.

Re:Comcast employee may get fired too

[ub3r n3u7r4l1st]

It is their customer retention policy... try get your service cancelled, and we will tell your boss.

Wow.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's fucked up.

comcast sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

comcast really sucks

All word of mouth

[rebelwarlock]

I'm going to need to hear a lot more than he said she said to believe a word of this.

Re:All word of mouth

[Anonymous Coward]

We'll get right on that for you.

Comcast employee may get fired too

[Russ1642]

I can't imagine that it's Comcast policy to try and get their customers, angry or not, fired from their jobs.

Comcast sucks

[__aaclcg7560]

One time I tried to explain to a customer service rep that the problem was on Comcast's side of the service box, I went without Internet access for a whole month. Comcast eventually sent a technician who discovered that the last technician installed a bypass filter backwards in the service box. That, neighbors and friends, describes Comcast technical support perfectly: ass-backwards.

Slashdot bug.

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it just me or is anybody else being sent into comment post mode when just trying to view the comments?

Not an exercise of first amendment rights

[Anonymous Coward]

The first amendment protects the people from retaliation from the government, not between private parties. Comcast isn't the government, so this accountant was not exercising his first amendment rights here.

your first amendment rights.

[wiredog]

His First Amendment rights weren't violated at all, since his firing was related to what one company said about him to another. The First Amendment applies to being censored by the government.

He might have a defamation case.

1st Amendment...

[SenatorPerry]

It protects you from the Government... Not an employer. There may be other laws applicable, but it isn't the 1st Amendment.

All word of mouth

[rebelwarlock]

I'm going to need a lot more than he said she said to believe a word of this.

Seems like a straightforward slander lawsuit

[gurps_npc]

They wrote an email to his boss, he got fired.

Now it's up to them to prove what they said was completely accurate.

If they gave anything not demonstrably true, he wins a lawsuit.

Re:Seems like a straightforward slander lawsuit

[ub3r n3u7r4l1st]

or destroy the email IRS-style.

Re:Seems like a straightforward slander lawsuit

[Overzeetop]

That was my take: the company may be perfectly within their rights to fire him, but if Comcast made any defamatory remarks which led to the termination they could be on the hook for that. As always, lawyers would need to be involved to sort this out.

How Comcast fixes customer service complaints?

[jsepeta]

Comcast recently bragged about hiring a new executive to help fix customer service complaints.
http://articles.philly.com/201...

"Complain about our service, lose your job" should be their new ad campaign. I can see it on bus signage.

I wonder how many more negative Comcast stories..

[monkeyFuzz]

before people will start a mass boycott.

record every call

[Anonymous Coward]

Basic 'living in america' 101.

A valid use of the legal system

[Anonymous Coward]

We love to rant and rave about the failings of our legal system (there are, no doubt, many), but this is exactly what the U.S. legal system is designed to address. Side X says that's not true and I've been wronged. Side Y says it is true and we did nothing wrong. You file suit, you get discovery, and then we let a collection of our peers (there's one of those potential failings) figure out who is telling the more believable (or likable) story. The rather slim filing fee seems cheap to get a copy of that email, especially if it could help get his job back.

Of course, ideally, this should never have happened. But to sometimes people are just assholes. As for Comcast, sometimes just doesn't apply.

Right, Wrong, smart.

[Anonymous Coward]

So, I figure Looking at this unable to confirm anything but the undisputed, I would figure a mistake would be to not end service somewhere in the beginning of all this shit storm.

Wrongful Termination?

[Sable Drakon]

If Comcast is in the wrong here, and it wouldn't surprise me if they were, this guy is gonna be able to come in to a whole lot of money. Both from Comcast and his former employer.

Hmmm..

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess everybody is too afraid to post...

How many more negative Comcast stories

[monkeyFuzz]

will it take before a general boycott of Comcast is in the works? Or are people just too attached to their TV to ever care?

Re:How many more negative Comcast stories

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been boycotting Comcast for 11 years now, even though it means I'm stuck on 1.5Mbps DSL.

US First amendment rights don't cover this

[Anonymous Coward]

This is summed up quite well by xkcd - http://xkcd.com/1357/

Natural outgrowth

[Alan Shutko]

This seems like a natural evolution of the freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences doctrine.

Re:Natural outgrowth

[Anonymous Coward]

Except it isn't because first of all, consequences only come from doing something wrong. Unless the guy threatened to kill their mothers, there are no consequences. According to every version ofo the story online, he was trying to do what thousands of customers have attempted to their own chagrin before - cancel their fucking ComCast service.

Like I needed another reason to hate Comcast

[1_brown_mouse]

But the added drama is always nice.

Right To (not) Work state?

[Strider-]

Welcome to the new world...

First amendment?

[ColonelPanic]

"Be careful next time when you exercise your first amendment rights."

Are we sure that the First Amendment guarantees a right to complain about a cable company without reprisal?

Re:First amendment?

[Archtech]

"Are we sure that the First Amendment guarantees a right to complain about a cable company without reprisal?"

Not specifically the First Amendment, no. More the whole "free country" business. Mind you, who still believes in any of that? This is the 21st Century...

I don't live in the USA

[Anonymous Coward]

so I can say whatever I want about ComCrap.

Its not like they have any impact on my routing, like to USA based serve................

Issue?

[Fwipp]

The submitter says "be careful when you exercise your first amendment rights," which attempts to frame the issue as one of "free speech."

Really, it sounds like the guy called up Comcast, was a total asshole, bad enough that a guy at Comcast told his employer what kind of person they kept employed. Bad enough that his employer would fire him for it, so we can only guess at the content, but I'm willing to bet it was pretty abusive. Those customer service people put up with a whole hell of a lot on a daily basis, so this was probably something above and beyond the normal abuse people hurl at Comcast (justly or unjustly).

You could argue that the employer should have shown the guy the email summary, but that's on the employer's conscience.

Like, I know that Comcast is a terrible company, and it sounds like he was right to be pretty upset with them for the terrible customer service he received. But given that he makes no attempt to explain or defend what he said on those calls, I'm guessing he crossed *way* over the line. If you're a terrible person, maybe you should be fired.

Re:Issue?

[Archtech]

Argue it however you will, it appears to have been entirely Comcast's fault. You may say it's wrong to rant and swear at a customer service employee, and I quite agree. But the greater fault - because the original one - was on the part of Comcast, which undertook to provide service and then failed to do so. Failed repeatedly, egregiously, in such a way that it's almost impossible to rule out deliberate malicious intent.

Or do Americans nowadays really believe that no corporation can ever do wrong?

Re:Issue?

[Fwipp]

Trust me, I'm no fan of Comcast, nor corporations in general - I'm voting socialist this election. But this dude was clearly out of line, and I'd expect a mom&pop store receiving such abuse to do the same.

In the end, it's the employer's "fault" for deciding that his actions were fire-worthy - Comcast just said "hey, look at what your employee is doing."

Re:Issue?

[Anonymous Coward]

What was "out of line"? Please tell us.

Re:Issue?

[Dutch Gun]

I'm not sure it was simply rude behavior during a call. I think it had more to do with the fact that he used privileged contact information from work to "escalate" his own customer service problem, started name dropping, and then threatened Comcast with accounting ethics / oversight boards. From that perspective, it's not surprising he was fired. It was an incredibly inappropriate thing to do, as he might have caused serious harm to his employer's business relationship with Comcast.

We don't really know that's what's happened, but that's my guess from reading between the lines. As horrible a company as Comcast may be, it doesn't make sense for them to contact his employer unless he actually made what they considered to be credible threats against them - and the article actually says that's just what he did:

During this call, he says that he mentioned that Comcast’s billing and accounting issues should probably be investigated by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), a private-sector oversight operation.

Combined with the *implied* name dropping, and the fact that he knew who to call higher up in the corporate food chain, Comcast might well take it at face value that he's in a very real position to make this happen, and reacted to that by contacting his employer to make sure this wasn't actually going to happen. The accounting company reacted in a way entirely predictable when they found one of their employees was abusing confidential contact information in order to threaten one of their clients with an ethics investigation. I know it's cool to hate on Comcast and big business here, but this guy may actually have been in the wrong, even if Comcast was in the process of providing him with their usual shit service and runarounds.

Oh, and this doesn't let Comcast off the hook for their mistakes and poor service with this guy either. A story about such poor customer service should be news on its own merits. But just because Comcast was wrong doesn't necessarily make what this guy did any more right.

Re:Issue?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm guessing

You sure are. You sure are.

So in the states, someone can phone up your boss, say something about you (true or not) and get you fired? lol that's fucking nuts. No wonder everyone's so fucking deferential and subservient to their bosses there. Yuck.

Re:Issue?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, that's what I thought, until I found out some more, and then I found this guy is even worse than that. He basically called up one of their accountants, and threatened to report him for non-compliance with accounting standards (the corporate equivalent of threatening to lay false rape charges), unless they cleared up his minor billing issue. And he was stupid enough to mention his employer when he made the threat, to make it sound like the threat came from from his employer and not just from him.

Re:Issue?

[FrankNey]

This "minor billing issue" lasted for the better part of a year and $2000, and escalated to collections. No longer minor.

Re:Issue?

[david_thornley]

Comcast can do plenty of wrong. That doesn't justify unlimited action against them. For example, much as I may like to, I'm not allowed to shoot Comcast customer service people.

Re:Issue?

[Fwipp]

Yes, in the United States, most employees are "at-will" - meaning that either the employer or employee may terminate the employment contract at any time, for any reason (save for discrimination against protected attributes, such as race, religion, etc).

I don't like it either, but that's how the laws of the land are, and the possibly unethical actions of the employer do not mean that Comcast was behaving unethically.

I lOVES the Comcast

[Anonymous Coward]

Theys called my boss ands I gots mo Monet!

Worse than before

[Anonymous Coward]

A few years ago. I was ordering Comcast and I needed them to wire out to my place for cable with one jack for the modem. I went online working with a rep, I offered to pay the first full year in advance plus the install. Then, he says do me a favor and put in a deposit. I ended the chat, complained to comcast and told them to send me a live person which they did and gave me a better rate which I paid nearly two years in advance on. Install went smoothly and never had a problem with it for the two years before I moved out.

First

[Anonymous Coward]

Second
Third

Bollocks

[rodrigoandrade]

I know it's cool to rip on cable companies, but this story smells fishy from where I'm sitting. I want to hear the other side of this story.

Re:Bollocks

[ub3r n3u7r4l1st]

You won't, at least voluntarily. Because secrecy and ignorance is a defense.

We shall hear the other side of the story when this reaches the courtroom.

Re:Bollocks

[roc97007]

Watch any Xfinity commercial.

Can You Say...

[Anonymous Coward]

Can You Say...EVIL EMPIRE???

Slashdot bug.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's terrible right now. I posted twice because I couldn't see my comment posted. And then I saw no comments. Went into beta mode and still no comments until I slid the slider to show -1 and above. It's all fraked up. For a site that claims to be all nerdy Slashdot has the WORST coding besides crappy Flash sites.

Comcast hate

[phantomfive]

So far it's just a "he-said/she-said" story, but the only one saying anything is the complainer himself. The writer didn't seem to make any attempt to contact the "large, prestigious accounting firm" to see why the guy was actually fired.

I dislike Comcast as much as anyone, but there are real things to be upset about......I don't have time to be outraged by every bit of hearsay found on a blog somewhere.

Re:Comcast hate

[The New Guy 2.0]

The article buries the lead... let's re-headline this: "Accountant takes personal complain to Comcast controller, gets fired for going around customer service."

Re:Comcast hate

[Anonymous Coward]

> The writer didn't seem to make any attempt to contact the "large, prestigious accounting firm" to see why the guy was actually fired.

It wouldn't matter, no company bigger than a mom-and-pop is going to say anything on the record about a fired employee. There is just too much legal liability. If you've ever worked in management for such a company you know the policy is refer all contacts to HR and then HR respond with boilerplate "no comment."

Comcast

[Anonymous Coward]

Not even once.

And what's the problem ?

[rolfwind]

If the man's account is to be believed, EVEN if he name dropped his employer, it was only in an effort to get fair service from comcast to begin with. And get all the crap charges removed.

And comcast should get bad press for contacting their customer's employer to begin with. Who the hell does that to a customer? Comcast, that's who. Time to go to congress, and get all this cable and telecom monopoly crap gotten rid of.

Re: Time To Occupy Comcast HQ?

[roc97007]

I would say this is the opposite of capitalism. Lack of consumer choice, paying off politicians to achieve an unquestioned monopoly, no need to provide a decent service because there's no competition. That's more like a government sponsored monopoly.

The dark side...

[roc97007]

...of linkedin.

Tapes or it didn't happen

[davidwr]

Suppose, just suppose, that the tapes do show something like the ex-employee clearly violating work rules.

Now it becomes a question of free speech - are the work rules enforceable or not? If not, he's got a legitimate gripe with his employer.

On the other hand, if he didn't say anything in the conversation that violates work rules, he definitely has a legitimate gripe with his employer.

In either case, he probably has a case against Comcast and/or the specific Comcast employee for violating his privacy/tortuous interference, etc.

My guess is Comcast's lawyers will try to make the Comcast employee who called the customer's employer out to be a "rogue" and try to pass legal responsibility on to him.

Welcome to the world of assholes!

[Anonymous Coward]

I had something similar happen when I got a refund via PayPal dispute (I had ordered something and waited all the way to the maximum time to get a refund, about 3 months, and they still had not shipped it). These jackasses (actually probably just one person) had my address, email, and phone number from the shipping information and they used that to dig in to my life, sign me up for countless spam email, get me on phone lists for weird shit (endless calls to my cellphone where I have to pay for every call), and other assorted bullshit. They wasted more time and money harassing me than the pocket change I had refunded. Assholes!

Re:Welcome to the world of assholes!

[ub3r n3u7r4l1st]

Is that merchant called "Butterfly Labs" ?

Taping Conversations?

[volvox_voxel]

This incident sounds like a good case for recording all of your conversations with such companies. It is my understanding that you have to tell them that the conversation is being recorded; something they may not agree to. Does anyone here know more about the terms and conditions of this CYA method?

This example seems pretty hard to believe / outlandish but unreasonable and vindictive if true. It would be interesting to hear if there were similar stories from other people.

Re:Taping Conversations?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is my understanding that you have to tell them that the conversation is being recorded; something they may not agree to.

Depends on your state, but that's irrelevant if the other party has already notified you that they're recording on their end "for quality assurance and training purposes."

Re:Taping Conversations?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why when I'm talking to the person I'm like "haha, well I'm recording you too!" They think I'm joking but this will hold up in court. If they record you, you can record them, period.

Re:Taping Conversations?

[cbhacking]

In many (most? all?) cases, the fact that they tell you that "this call may be monitored or recorded" gives you all the permission you need. I do sometimes mention it to CSRs anyhow, though.

Re:Taping Conversations?

[Just Some Guy]

This incident sounds like a good case for recording all of your conversations with such companies. It is my understanding that you have to tell them that the conversation is being recorded; something they may not agree to.

It's almost certain that their recording says "this call may be recorded for quality assurance and training purposes" or something very similar. Well, thanks! They just said I may record them for quality assurance purposes!

I'm sure that's not what they intended by that message, but I'm equally sure I don't give a rat's butt what they intended. What they said was "this call may be recorded". And I'd be willing to argue - and I'm 99% certain a judge would agree - that it otherwise forms an unconscionable agreement for them to assert that they and only they have the right to record the conversation. And in any case, they've clearly stated their intent to record it, making it pretty damn hard for them to argue that they didn't want to conversation to be taped.

Re:Taping Conversations?

[dcollins]

Depends on the state. There's a dozen that require both sides to consent. The rest require only one side of the conversation to know about, and consent to, recording.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_recording_laws#United_States

Re:Taping Conversations?

[Anonymous Coward]

T&C are as follows:
details vary by state. For instance, I recall seeing a TV show where a person went to Oregon because then they were not legally required to reveal recording.
I've worked in a large (telephone) company once. Company policy was that if a customer said they were taping the conversations, I was to ask them to stop. If I didn't get rather immediate cooperation, I was to explain that I am hanging up over the issue, and then hang up. This was one of very few instances where I had clear permission by policy to interrupt a customer if needed, and proceed with making statements even if the customer isn't giving me a decent chance/turn to speak. Another such instance is if anyone got flagged as being only allowed to communicate with us via the legal department. I could provide an address for them to write to, but was otherwise restricted from helping such a person.

Sure, you can try implementing such a technique, as it is your legal right to do so, but you may end up finding out that there are consequen

Re:First Amendment rights?

[Anonymous Coward]

There's no attempt to make it so; only a warning about exercising the rights protected by that amendment: "Be careful next time when you exercise your first amendment rights." He exercised his rights, those rights were in no way infringed, and he still got burned. Thus: be careful next time...

It doesn't have to be political speech, nor does it have to be a story about infringement, in order to bring up a warn a person about completely legal behavior that might nonetheless have personal consequences.

Re:lawyer up. you can own that firm.

[drinkypoo]

clear violation of civil rights and probably of his employment contract.

What is this "employment contract"? I've heard of them, but never actually seen one.

The First Amendment applies to the government

[Anonymous Coward]

...not businesses.

Sorry, but when it comes to corporations, you have no rights, other than the right not to participate.

Re:The First Amendment applies to the government

[ub3r n3u7r4l1st]

His right of not to participate is also violated.

He is trying to cancel his service, and in return he get unwanted equipment and billed $1800 for it. He returned the equipment, and then he got fired from his employer. Simple as that.

this is crap

[Anonymous Coward]

a. Iam outraged by this. Tell me why hasn't anyone stood up in the midst of this monopolistic behavior??
b. why can't an oversight commitee be engaged to review the cruft caused my Comcast's unethical business practices..
c. why cant they be sued?
d. has the money pile gotten so big that no one wants to stand in it's way, or no one CAN stand in its way? Where is the president during all of this, or the labor relation board, or a PUC type of body?

Whom can we engage for help and support with regard to this draconian enemy, not only of the state, but also the main stifler of innovation (oops in their terms competition, if they dont suport our juggernaught we will find a way to get them out of the picture.)

I also wonder who is going to come along and pull the rug out from underneath them, causing them to fall and trip..

Re:this is crap

[Anonymous Coward]

ya like anyone cares.. The people whom could affect the most change are allready bought off..

that's why people complain, and noting happens except for an escalation in tactics on the antagonist side of things..

seriously

Re:this is crap

[Anonymous Coward]

of course this thread is Modded as "0" comcast lovers..

Would be illegal in Germany

[prefec2]

In Germany his employer would not be able to fire him on the grounds of a letter from another company discussing private behavior. Especially not without having the chance of defending yourself.

It would also been illegal to summarize communication and send that to a third party. They could however sued him in court. To do so they would not need his present address, the state would have handled this.

So, it has come to this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Depends on the state where he lives. Many states are labelled "at-will" which sums up to "either the employee or the employer may sever employment at any time for any reason."

To play devil's advocate..

[dohnut]

He probably contacted Comcast and some time during the call(s) he played the "I'm a lawyer" card and maybe hinted at legal action. At this point, the customer service representative would be required to turn over the call logs to internal legal counsel. Comcast's counselors did their homework and figured out who this individual was and then contacted his firm to discuss the threat of litigation. His firm was probably like, "WTF?" and canned him because they would rather their employees didn't go around trying to intimidate others and/or get preferential treatment just because they have a law degree.

Again, playing devil's advocate here.

Re:To play devil's advocate..

[ub3r n3u7r4l1st]

1. You would also need to pass the bar exam (not just the degree) to practice law, and claim yourself to be a lawyer.

2. Trying to get erroneous bill fixed is not asking for preferential treatment, unless the practice of slapping random charges on random customers.

Re:To play devil's advocate..

[Anonymous Coward]

Except he worked for an accounting firm, you ignorant fucking twat.

Re:To play devil's advocate..

[unitron]

There is nothing in the article to indicate that he is a lawyer.

If anything, it implies that he's an accountant.

Who has a lawyer who has contacted Comcast about the matter and received a most inadequate response.

Time to escalate

[TsuruchiBrian]

This dude should call the wife of the comcast CEO and "discuss" her husband (i.e. convince her to divorce him). That will show him.

Re: Time To Occupy Comcast HQ?

[TwoEyedJack]

Nonsense. Under capitalism, there would be no artificial barriers to entry erected upon endless regulations.

Re:Time To Occupy Comcast HQ?

[Eunuchswear]

No, time to fix your ridiculous employment law.

In any sensible country this guy would take his ex employer to court and win big.

How Comcast Bought the Democratic Party

[ub3r n3u7r4l1st]

http://www.nationalreview.com/...

Re: How Comcast Bought the Democratic Party

[Anonymous Coward]

Next you will argue that Republicans don't suck Koch.

Re: How Comcast Bought the Democratic Party

[CauseBy]

Without reading the article I'm going to guess the question "How Comcast Bought The Democratic Party" is answered by "With Money".

By the way I think your summary of the story (you are the submitter) is weak.

Re: How Comcast Bought the Democratic Party

[Zalbik]

By the way I think your summary of the story (you are the submitter) is weak.

Yes, but at least it is better edited than most of the submissions we see on Slashdot. It makes more sense, too.

Re: How Comcast Bought the Democratic Party

[Anonymous Coward]

These are exactly the sort of scare tactics the Democratic Party employs. I wouldn't be surprised if they're using the same playbook, inherited from NBC's former GE overlords.

How Comcast Bought the Democratic Party

[ub3r n3u7r4l1st]

http://www.nationalreview.com/...

Re: Time To Occupy Comcast HQ?

[The Technomancer]

Natural monopolies, which utility services belong to, absolutely are a product of capitalism, and they require regulation to prevent predatory practices due to their position in the market as a natural monopoly. One of the biggest issues with the Austrian school of economics is that they ignore the mathematical proof of certain monopolies being more efficient than a competitive market.

I'm a firm believer in the power of capitalism as the most efficient market-sorting mechanism out there, but in order for it to work correctly, one needs to recognize the areas where it breaks down, either due to unlimited demand as in a health care market, which is effectively buying life, on which there is no price too great to overcome the natural will to live, or natural monopolies where first to market/mass market is more efficient due to the significant infrastructure (and therefore capital costs) necessary to compete.

Re: Time To Occupy Comcast HQ?

[Fulminata]

Exactly. (Responding to cancel out a mis-rating)

Re: Time To Occupy Comcast HQ?

[roc97007]

Well, regardless, I would not say that in the case of comcast, capitalism broke down. Rather, it was circumvented. And the government, who are ostensibly supposed to protect us from the kind of abuses you're talking about, was a party to it.

There is something more to this story

[Timmy D Programmer]

There is clearly something more to this story than what was being said. I think most employers would say "Yea, Comcast service is famously terrible, what's your point". I suspect he did bring up his employer, and included some threats. Why the heck else would Comcast even bother.

Re: Time To Occupy Comcast HQ?

[Anon-Admin]

I hate to point this out but Utility Services are not Natural monopolies. They are government sponsored monopolies. The right of way where the lines and poles go is strictly regulated and restricted. In many cases it is codified that only one service my use the right of way.

In recent years it has lessened with Electricity where I am in that there is one company that has the line and right of way but they are prohibited from providing electricity to the customer, instead they are required to sell access to other electric companies.

Collusion is actually a Federal Crime

[gelfling]

Get a lawyer to contact the DoJ, the FCC and the FTC.

Re:Time To Occupy Comcast HQ?

[X0563511]

I don't think you can "Occupy" private property.

Re: Time To Occupy Comcast HQ?

[roc97007]

I should add, this is why government protecting us from corporations doesn't work very well. Government is made up of people, just like corporations are. People in government pretty much rely on marketing their image in order to stay in business, just like corporations do. (Sometimes, they use the same marketing companies.) Heads of government are no less likely to be corrupt than heads of corporations.

I understand it's a thing that corporations are evil and government will protect us from them, but when all is said and done, that's a belief system, not a law of nature.

Re: Time To Occupy Comcast HQ?

[Duhavid]

"And the government, who are ostensibly supposed to protect us from the kind of abuses you're talking about, was a party to it."

In what way is the government party to this?

Not First Amendment

[KillaGouge]

I don't know why the first amendment was even brought up. That only protects you from the government from making laws saying what you can and can't say. A private entity can do whatever the fuck it wants based on whatever the fuck you say.

wow

[Anonymous Coward]

You dare stand against the might OF THE ALMIGHTY COMCAST and their unbounded GLORY (monopoly) !?

You sir are FIRED! FUCKING FIRED BOB!

Re:Time To Occupy Comcast HQ?

[HornWumpus]

That's an assumed risk sport.

Re: Time To Occupy Comcast HQ?

[Anonymous Coward]

So you're advocating letting any yahoo string whatever wire they want to on any pole then? Ever been to a poor Indian neighborhood and looked up?

Re:lawyer up. you can own that firm.

[AK Marc]

You've never worked? That explains a lot. Even when I worked temp jobs or summer jobs (in a "right to work" state), I always had a contract.

At will employment != Right to work

[sjbe]

In "right to work" states, you can fire someone for no reason at all, but even in these states, if you cite a reason, everything changes.

"Right to work" laws govern whether unions can force employees in an organized company to pay dues even if they do not want to be a member of the union. This has nothing directly to do with at will employment which applies to every worker not covered under a contractual agreement (including union contracts) stipulating conditions for termination. At will employment means you can be fired for any reason or no reason at all unless it impacts your status as a protected class.

Re:At will employment != Right to work

[dywolf]

They are connected in one way....by the words they leave out, and who they favor (the company) and who they disadvantage (the worker).

The right to work...for less.
At will employment...the employer's will.

Re:At will employment != Right to work

[digsbo]

The right to work for less may be better than not working at all.

Re:At will employment != Right to work

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not to my disadvantage that a union I don't want to join can't extract ransom money from me by holding my employment hostage.

Re:At will employment != Right to work

[Frosty Piss]

The right to work for less may be better than not working at all.

Ah yes, servitude. Is your maid black or Mexican?

Re:At will employment != Right to work

[digsbo]

I don't have one. What are you trying to imply? That artificial wage floors don't cause unemployment, and that people who are opposed to wage floors are evil? Or, would you rather discuss the issue civilly?

Re:At will employment != Right to work

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a common misconception that I've heard repeated -- in fact, I fell victim to believing this myself until doing independent research on the matter.

Re:At will employment != Right to work

[Anonymous Coward]

"Right to work [wikipedia.org]" laws govern whether unions can force employees in an organized company to pay dues even if they do not want to be a member of the union.

Nice spin there. Right to work is actually about whether a company can enter a contract with a union that requires the company to only hire union members. That's why it is called "right to work" because it is about whether non-union people have the "right to work" despite any such contract.

Re:At will employment != Right to work

[silfen]

Ah yes, servitude. Is your maid black or Mexican?

Your comment mostly shows that you're an arrogant prick, thinking that a perfectly good and well-paid profession amounts to "servitude".

Re:At will employment != Right to work

[Dahamma]

You are correct that it's an "at will employment" issue, but the OP is also correct that with at will employment you are better off terminating someone for no cause than a cause that is not provably accurate. If you give a reason but can't prove it - or even worse, your reason can be proved wrong - you have opened up yourself to a wrongful termination lawsuit regardless of "protected class" (though that would make it even stronger).

As the (attorney) lecturer for the class on employment law that I took said: "this is an at will employment state: the employee or employer can terminate employment at will with or without reason. And the exceptions make up 98% of the law."

In this case, firing someone for an undisclosed email sent by Comcast that "summarizes" an interaction that the employee believes is incorrect completely opens them up to a lawsuit. And a lawsuit would definitely force disclosure of the email, so if his side of the story is accurate it could be interesting...

Re:At will employment != Right to work

[Shadow99_1]

We have very specific reasons for wage floors. The big reason for those is that we (as a people) believe every person should be able to meet basic requirements for life in our country. Things like food and some form of housing. We have pretty much said we would like to avoid having people living on the streets as much as we can. A wage floor is meant to guarantee some level of access to these things.

Re:At will employment != Right to work

[digsbo]

Except that if I set myself a wage floor of $200/hour, I'd be out of work, because it's not worth it for anyone to pay me that much. Wage floors, whether people can measure it accurately or not, are believed by me (as a person) to create unemployment. And I think that's worse than minimum wage.

Thank you for a civil and issue-based response, by the way. I do appreciate it. I just happen to disagree that it's in the best interest of people who are marginally employable to set wage floors.

Re:At will employment != Right to work

[l0n3s0m3phr34k]

true, eventually though if you file for unemployment the employee has to give them a reason. Then if your denied, UI does an investigation, asks the employee, and usually sides with the employee unless they really went pear shaped.

Re: Time To Occupy Comcast HQ?

[roc97007]

"And the government, who are ostensibly supposed to protect us from the kind of abuses you're talking about, was a party to it."

In what way is the government party to this?

I can't tell... Are you kidding? Cable TV/Internet has traditionally been a government sponsored monopoly.

And what's the problem ?

[matthekc83]

Caller: I work from home and really need to get this resolved. Comcast agent: Where do you work? Caller: Conal... Without any proof we have no idea what happened, but I'm betting it wasn't that... for a call center to bother to waste their time to reach out to your employer.

Sad Statement on the World

[Seumas]

It is a sad statement to have to make, but I have been hesitant to speak ill of companies that I have a terrible experience with for years, now. On one hand, I am a paying customer and consumer of various companies just like anyone else. On the other hand, we operate in a world where large companies have associations through all sorts of ways that could potentially impact you for speaking ill of them, even from the point of view of a citizen or consumer. A lot of people work for companies that have policies which restrict you from talking about companies that your company does business with. Imagine if you're a company like Microsoft or IBM. Who *don't* you do business with? That kind of forces you to second-guess being vocal about anyone you ever have a bad experience with. That isn't even taking into consideration possible situations where executives know guys at each other's companies or are even on each other's board. The last thing you want is to complain about your shitty phone service or mistreatment by people at your phone company's support line and get a talking to from your boss who got a talking to from his boss who got a talking to from the CEO who got a complaint from his buddy.

(Note: This has never happened to me, whatsoever, but it seems a reasonable concern in our current landscape).

Too big to complain about

[wcrowe]

We've gone from "too big to fail," to "too big to complain about."

Re:Too big to complain about

[The New Guy 2.0]

He was allowed to complain to customer service. He was fired for calling the accounting office.

Fishy?

[pr0t0]

Smells like a mermaid's asshole to me!

But I'm not talking about Conal's story. After actually RTFA, I think Comcast went WAY out of bounds on this. It sounds to me like he pissed in petunias of someone in Comcast's accounting department, and they didn't like having threats of the PCAOB lobbed their way. So in a knee-jerk, you're swimming in deep waters young man fashion; they contacted Conal's employer. It could also be that they really do have something to fear from the PCAOB, and discrediting the accuser is the first step of the defense.

If someone billed me for $2000 worth of gear I didn't order, and then sent me to collections for not paying it, I'd be making legal threats too. I guess if anything, that's where Conal went wrong. He tried to work within the Comcast system to get it resolved. I probably would have just contacted the state attorney general, particularly if I had expertise in the field in question.

Re: Time To Occupy Comcast HQ?

[dywolf]

the mistake is in thinking that capitalism and free markets are the same thing.
they are not.

the closest their relationship comes is in being the two different axis of a graph. IE, "relative freeness of market" is one axis, and "ownership of the means of production" (of which capitalism is merely one extreme) is the other axis. must like the like the political spectrum which is better represented by an XY plot (right/left vs anarchy/totalitatrian) than a single left/right line.

And in all honesty, capitalism is government sponsored, at least in our system, with all the laws we created to protect and foster companies and economic growth/competition. The corporation itself, the very idea of it which is a fundamental legal fiction, wouldnt exist without laws to allow its existence.

Re:Time To Occupy Comcast HQ?

[Anonymous Coward]

How do you propose we do that? It's obvious our government is corrupt, completely. Only thing we can do is hold our nose and vote out the incumbents.

There is no proof he name dropped and he denies it

[bigsexyjoe]

He says he did not name drop his employer. Comcast will not release the tapes. And the email to his employer was not released to him.

Re: Time To Occupy Comcast HQ?

[saloomy]

Mod parent up!

Comcast enters into agreements with various municipalities to have an effective monopoly for a type of service in that area (coax). The original ideals of these arrangements helped the cable co. justify the costly process of installing the coax network, as it would be assumed that X% of lit locations would then subscribe, making the service feasible.

The problem here is you don't have the rules that regulate LECs to ensure competition, yet still provide effective monopolies on a class of service backed by local government regulation. LECs must resell (or lease) their lines to other carriers at fair market value. So you can order say a T1 line or a POTS line from other carriers, and they can deliver that service to you via the wires of the LEC, which will terminate in the 3rd party carriers datacenter.

Coax works different: The company installs the coax network in a neighborhood, and are guaranteed exclusivity in those neighborhoods. No other entity can install Coax (or sometimes anything else, e.g.: fiber; depending on the local agreement). The right answer is to remove exclusivity deals, as I'm not in favor of either government provided service, or regulations from the government. Both would yield a worse situation than what we have now in terms of
1. customer service (just visit your local DMV office for something to compare it to)
2. price (look at the cost per student of your local public vs. private schools)
3. privacy (google Edward Snowden).

Re: Time To Occupy Comcast HQ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not natural monopolies? How many different sets of copper do you think should be run to the same address? How many different water or sewage lines?

A natural monopoly doesn't stop being a natural monopoly because it's regulated. It stops being a natural monopoly when the space restrictions and barriers to entry go away.

He worked for scumbags.

[Lumpy]

Any "firm" that would do this is dishonest.

Honestly he is better off working elsewhere, but I hope he does not work in a "right to work" state so he can sue them.

Re: Time To Occupy Comcast HQ?

[Duhavid]

What does the business ComCast is in have to do with them getting the complainant fired?

Re: Time To Occupy Comcast HQ?

[The Technomancer]

The only way the government is at fault here is by not requiring Comcast to allow competitors to use their lines (thereby bringing a market back into play) or strictly regulating profit due to the lack of natural competition. It's less about protecting us from companies, and more about the idea that in any competition, there needs to be a referee. Adam Smith realized this, and while government in this role sucks, there hasn't been (and there likely isn't) a more effective option. Beyond that, I make my living at a corporation, I have plans to start one here in the near future, and in areas of the market with acceptable risk involved, they are by far the best option available for their spot in the market. Finally, it's a matter of governments, in many cases, not a government, as the franchise agreements are signed by municipalities, and city councils are relatively cheap to purchase.

Re: Time To Occupy Comcast HQ?

[roc97007]

I see what happened. The thread had slipped into Comcast's business practices in general, not this particular case, but I think I could argue that in general, the practice of granting cable companies de facto monopolies in geographical markets naturally leads to abuses of which this particular case is an example. As someone else pointed out, Comcast no longer even tries to maintain an image, because really they don't have to.

I want to know who this accounting firm is

[bigsexyjoe]

I hope we find out who the accounting firm is, so we know not to work them. It's very important to avoid employers who will fire you arbitrarily.

Re: Time To Occupy Comcast HQ?

[Rick Zeman]

Not natural monopolies? How many different sets of copper do you think should be run to the same address? How many different water or sewage lines?

A natural monopoly doesn't stop being a natural monopoly because it's regulated. It stops being a natural monopoly when the space restrictions and barriers to entry go away.

And if the barrier to entry is the government? "Sets of fiber" and "sewage lines" are straw men when government regulations even preclude other technologies (see Google fiber, other municpal broadband) from being used in a monopolistic territory. Yes, sewage is a natural monopoly. Cable and internet aren't.

Yeah, consequences

[CauseBy]

The article submitter is a troll: "Be careful next time when you exercise your first amendment rights."

Yeah, obviously, because lo and behold behavior has consequences. If you take an action it can have consequences. Whether you are legally allowed to take the action is irrelevant unless you are prosecuted for a crime.

You have the freedom to be a douchebag to your cable company, and thank goodness because I think we all agree they deserve it. But if you're a douchebag sometimes it comes back around to you.

Headline misleading

[Anonymous Coward]

That makes sense. If someone called me (IT/server admin) about a problem with one of the products we sell, I'd refer them to the technical support numbers. If he persisted and made a nuisance of himself and therefore irritated me enough to take action, I could call his work and ask why this guy can't follow simple directions.

I've never DONE that before, but I could.

What I HAVE done before is contact the supervisor of an abusive person. One of my folks was helping a customer (and I listened to the recording, too) and the customer almost immediately started in with foul language and personal attacks. I wasn't looking to get this person fired (and I don't think he was) but I was trying to get someone to pull him up by the short and curlies and let him know his behavior was not acceptable.

Re: Time To Occupy Comcast HQ?

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the biggest issues with the Austrian school of economics is that they ignore the mathematical proof of certain monopolies being more efficient than a competitive market.

Would you please link to this proof for me?

Re: Time To Occupy Comcast HQ?

[Duhavid]

I see what you are saying, and sure. But, it is my personal belief that corporations will seek monopoly without requiring government assistance ( indeed, even in the face of government resistance ). And that corporations with or without monopolies can abuse employees, the environment and, even customers/clients/consumers where the perception is that profitability lies in that direction.
So, I see nothing intrinsic about the government established monopoly and the abuse.
I.E., it's not the "monopoly" side of the equation, the abuse stems from, but the power ComCast has.
Or, another way, if there were competition in this market, but ComCast had something like this kind of power, I believe something like this could still happen.

Accountant here

[gueryjones]

First time poster here. I work for one of the large accounting firms as an auditor. Reading between the lines, I wonder if there is something going on that is not being captured in the article. Let me play devil's advocate for a minute.

Accounting firms are held to strict independence rules. Some are very black and white, and include not investing in the companies you audit, not having loans from them, not performing certain services outside of audit, etc... Other rules are more grey, such as being independent both in fact and in appearance. It can be interpreted based on the situation. The intent of the rules is to ensure that the relationship between auditor and client is as objective as possible. Doesn't always work 100% since any rule can be circumvented if you try hard enough, but that's the intent and it gets you a lot closer than not having the rules at all.

If you call up the company's Controller (who usually reports directly to the CFO) and start trying to throw around your weight and that of your firm, it's not hard to make the case that you are in violation of independence rules. Even if the customer was not being belligerent, if I were the Controller, the first person I'd call is the partner to ask why some peon is calling my office over a billing issue. Who does that? Nobody, that's who.

If he was being belligerent, which is entirely possible since we all know how frustrating Comcast's customer service is, that's a major problem. It's a pretty easy call for the partners to cut him loose. Independence issues are taken seriously, and nobody wants the regulatory bodies investigating their firm over something so trivial. Was he being obnoxious? Who knows? Did he throw out the name of his firm? Again, without recordings nobody knows.

As a side note, the PCAOB does not investigate companies like Comcast, as is implied in the article. They are the oversight board for the accounting firms that audit publicly traded companies. Either Conal is not very knowledgable about his profession, or the author has his facts wrong.

More than meets the eye....

[Anonymous Coward]

Disclosure: I am a Comcast Employee. I work in Network Operations, this is why I'm posting AC

There had to be more than this guys side of the story. The sad truth is, name dropping with Comcast works. My team takes escalations that are jumped way up the order of importance simply because of the company or individual that's reporting the issue. Yeah, sometimes, it's a manager or executive using their clout within the company to get their problems fixed first, but more often than not, it's one of those individuals who's been made personally aware of an external clients issue that generates all-hands-on-deck moments for the stupidest of things.

Re: Time To Occupy Comcast HQ?

[Anonymous Coward]

And there's no way capitalism trends toward this at all, just ignore 200+ years of history!

Re:lawyer up. you can own that firm.

[drinkypoo]

You've never worked? That explains a lot.

Since this is not my first time around the park with you, I know that integrity is not your strong suit. Hence your disingenuous nonsense.

Even when I worked temp jobs or summer jobs (in a "right to work" state), I always had a contract.

And yet although I have worked a variety of jobs, both hourly and salaried, both before and after the age of majority, I have never had an employment contract. There have only been terms of employment which I have been required to follow. That is not the same thing.

Oligarchy

[Luthair]

Its like the good (from the perspective of an oligarch) old days where you could have blacklists, collude on wages, etc.

Re: Time To Occupy Comcast HQ?

[Anonymous Coward]

And if the barrier to entry is the government? "Sets of fiber" and "sewage lines" are straw men when government regulations even preclude other technologies (see Google fiber, other municpal broadband) from being used in a monopolistic territory. Yes, sewage is a natural monopoly. Cable and internet aren't.

Claiming that Comcast is in the business of "internet delivery" and competes with all other "internet deliverers," has implicitly granted Comcast its natural monopoly over "coaxial cable communication." Comcast and AT&T are competitors much like Ford is a competitor of Electro-Motive Diesel: you can use their products to deliver the same stuff, but they're fundamentally different things. If the only way to "compete" with Comcast is to introduce a substantially different technology, carried by a different medium, then you are facing an impossibly high barrier to entry. Unless you're a telephone company and already have a technology and medium for delivery.

Your cable company is a natural monopoly, regardless of government influence, for all sensible definitions of market.

Wrongful termination

[AkkarAnadyr]

Does that count as wrongful termination?

Re:Wrongful termination

[PPH]

I'm out of mod points. But that deserves +1 Funny

never Identify your current employer

[Anonymous Coward]

I never identify my current employer on social media sites.

Re:never Identify your current employer

[roc97007]

Can't used Linkedin at all, then.

Re: Time To Occupy Comcast HQ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I would say this is the opposite of capitalism. Lack of consumer choice, paying off politicians to achieve an unquestioned monopoly, no need to provide a decent service because there's no competition. That's more like a government sponsored monopoly.

Monopolies are the ultimate prize of capitalism. It's only the fact that governments generally hold monopolies as "illegal" that prevents them. In the case of Comcast, the open market strategy of putting large amounts of money into lobbying and scoring a former lobbyist as the head of an agency has likely prevented any serious governmental anti-trust investigation.

They're both wrong

[slashmydots]

Comcast hires a bunch of angry, vindictive, evil employees who can and will act like an asshole 8 hours a day. But did anyone else read this as some asshole lawyer throws his firm's name around to try and scare people with thinly veiled lawsuit threats and then gets fired for it? He ABSOLUTELY deserved it. Last time some lawyer threatened to sue me, I told him where he can shove his lawsuit and nothing came of it. I should have called up his company and tell them what he was doing. Next time I will.

Re:They're both wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Last time some lawyer threatened to sue me, I told him where he can shove his lawsuit and nothing came of it.

STDH.txt

Re:lawyer up. you can own that firm.

[AK Marc]

There have only been terms of employment which I have been required to follow. That is not the same thing.

Yes, it is the same thing. Did you sign their copy of the terms? Then it's a contract. A contract is agreed upon terms. You indicate you had that.

sue them

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, my f*cking god, this guy needs to sue the sh*t out of them.

Side note: record EVERYTHING when you talk to customer service reps on the phone.

Disturbing

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it ridiculous. You're an idiot. There are more important things. You've lost your perspective. All the utilities are going to fuck you. The gas/electric company will fuck you with endless rate hikes; the water/sewer company will similarly explore your rectum with their bulbous phallus. Suck it up. It's one of the joys of home ownership.

Re:Time To Occupy Comcast HQ?

[budgenator]

What's strange about this is Comcast is usually like "sorry about your problem Sir, here's HBO free for 6 months no go away and pretend I helped you", but this guy got then to turn vicious; maybe it was the threat to turn it over to PCAOB!

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) is a private-sector, nonprofit corporation created by the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002 to oversee the audits of public companies and other issuers in order to protect the interests of investors and further the public interest in the preparation of informative, accurate and independent audit reports. Since 2010, the PCAOB also oversees the audits of broker-dealers, including compliance reports filed pursuant to federal securities laws, to promote investor protection. All PCAOB rules and standards must be approved by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Public Company Accounting Oversight Board

Makes you wonder if the people running Comcast get nervous about being personally responsible for their corporate activities.

As a result of SOX, top management must individually certify the accuracy of financial information. In addition, penalties for fraudulent financial activity are much more severe. Also, SOX increased the oversight role of boards of directors and the independence of the outside auditors who review the accuracy of corporate financial Sarbanes–Oxley Act

My magic eight ball says the Sarbanes–Oxley Act scares the shit out of the people running Comcast. With Comcast's "stellar" billing and customer service processes, have to sign a statement that the accounting reports are true and accurate to the best of your knowlege under penalty of law has to be pretty un-nerving.

Linked article is poor..

[jbburks]

The linked article is very poorly researched.

It gives the person's last (or first) name, but not the complete name. Just starts quoting by name in the middle.

Also, it lists Comcast by name but just says "employed by a large accounting firm". Looks like they could have spent five minutes more on research so we know who to blame.

Tortious Interference?

[Culture20]

Did he have an employment contract with his employer? Did Comcast purposefully interfere with this contract? Also: Libel, Slander? He can actually prove monetary damage, which is more than most libel cases.

Re:lawyer up. you can own that firm.

[drinkypoo]

Yes, it is the same thing. Did you sign their copy of the terms? Then it's a contract. A contract is agreed upon terms. You indicate you had that.

You don't even know what an employment contract is, which makes it clear that you've never actually had one. How hilarious.

Re: Time To Occupy Comcast HQ?

[EuclideanSilence]

...[capitalism] breaks down, either due to unlimited demand as in a health care market, which is effectively buying life, on which there is no price too great to overcome the natural will to live...

The exact same argument can be applied to buying food in a grocery store. So by isomorphic substitution it must be a wrong argument.

The difference isn't demand, it's supply. Very few hospitals, lots of people wanting health care. Maybe we should be looking at how much training institutions charge for their government-granted privilege of choosing who gets to practice medicine. Put some price caps on health care licensing organizations, and watch the supply go up and the price go down.

This is why we blow up people!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

If someone would ruin my life I don't make threats, I get justice and those people will no longer have a life either.

Re: Time To Occupy Comcast HQ?

[The Technomancer]

Just because food is plentiful here doesn't mean it's plentiful everywhere. If you can't afford food, you steal it, steal the means to acquire it, or expire. Fortunately, we generally don't let people starve here, much like we don't deny them health care when they're acutely ill.

The issue is hardly providers in health care -- the bills get run up on acute issues or illnesses requirement expensive treatments, not visiting your GP for a checkup. Being acutely ill also severely impacts the amount of supply you can access -- it's not like you're going to change ICUs once you're in one, or frankly, that you give a shit what you're being charged as long as you live.

If you do have such a monetary price (or, even easier, a percentage of your income) that you're unwilling to pay to keep yourself or a beloved family member alive, please let us know what it is.

If there isn't one, thank you for making my argument for me.

Re: Time To Occupy Comcast HQ?

[TapeCutter]

Good point, they are often seen as the same thing.

"relative freeness of market"

Nitpick: The "free" in "free market" says nothing about regulations it simply means anyone is free to trade in the market. An economic market is not a place or a thing it's a set of regulations governing trade. Fox News has sold Americans an oxymoron, unfortunately a great number of them have bought it and spread it across the globe via mass media. Now that they have bought a false assumption about a key concept in economics, it distorts their reasoning about economics to the point where they often argue against their own best interests.

Village bartering is often held up as an example of a "natural free market" by romantic libertarians, but at a minimum there must be some form of property law for it to exist. Also bartering doesn't scale very well, which is why we invented currency in the first place.

Yes, corporations are a "legal fiction", but at the end of the day, so are markets, free or otherwise.

Re: Time To Occupy Comcast HQ?

[The Technomancer]

Any proof of a subadditive function will suffice, mathematically.

The more precise answer is that a natural monopoly is any market where increasing output decreases the average cost per unit because the marginal cost doesn't increase as the firm produces more output for all reasonable values of output, and introducing competition ruins the economy of scale where that is true, thereby increasing the cost per unit if competition is introduced.

In the case of telecommunications, adding capacity to a pre-existing network is far, far, far cheaper than building out a brand new network, which is what any competition would have to do, and the overall addition to total network capacity lowers the cost per bit delivered for the original monopoly company.

Anonymous - hello?

[Anonymous Coward]

This sounds like a job for Anonymous... Have a massive hack attack against Comcast.

Re:Anonymous - hello?

[messymerry]

Oh PLEEZE!!!,,,and not just Comcast, but all the asshat corporations that refer to their customers as consumers. You can observe the direct correlation between the rise of the financial cartels and the rise of the horrible term, "consumer".

Re: Time To Occupy Comcast HQ?

[towermac]

A utility service is only a monopoly, natural or not, if it is a private company.

If the utility was not a company, but rather a public entity, owned by the city/state/people; then that whole problem goes away. It would be the same monopoly that the city has on our streets and sewers. I don't think you call that a monopoly, just government services.

Electric power has been standardized for a long, long time. Government control of electric utilities would not unduly hold back innovation or progress. And we have places where the electric is either government owned (voter owned) or a co-op (customer owned), and they love it. Independent companies 'providing' power to a region is the biggest crock of shit ever foisted upon the American people.

A lot of people throw around capitalism and free markets any way they want, and the terms end up meaning whatever the speaker wants them to.
2 things for a free market: Freedom, and a market. You have to have both of those things to have a free market.

In the case of electricity, there is no freedom. You have to have it, and you have to have exactly 240 volts at 60 Hz. There is no freedom to buy it or not, nor is there freedom to buy a cheaper or different kind of power.
Nor is there any market. You have to buy power from the wires that are strung to your house. Whatever name is on the bill is irrelevant.

The internet is almost there, or got there recently. It is my opinion that a decent fiber optic cable to your house should be good for whatever internet we have for quite a few years into the future. if that is true, then it's time for government to step in (not necessarily Federal, although it may take their encouragement) and provide internet to every domicile in the same way that water, power, and road access are now. (And take back the damn electric while you're at it.)

I'm a small government conservative btw, if that matters.

Re:Time To Occupy Comcast HQ?

[TapeCutter]

Most multinationals now train ALL their staff on SO act and give a mandatory refresher once a year. Although the training is a drag, it's a great piece of "international legislation". It forces the executive level to push an anti-corruption policy from the top down. Since once you have been trained the responsibility falls on you to behave ethically, Joe Office Worker is now far more likely to expose a corrupt manager than cooperate with him.

As for TFA, which I didn't read, if the guy was threatening someone in a personal dispute and using my name/property in an attempt to legitimise the threat, I would sack him too.

Re:lawyer up. you can own that firm.

[AK Marc]

I have one on my desk right here. I have multiple from multiple states filed at home. A "contract" is an agreement. Even a verbal agreement is a contract. But most employment contracts are written, because the verbal ones get people sued, even in right to work states.

Re: Time To Occupy Comcast HQ?

[The Technomancer]

Outside of pedantic quibbles that have little to no bearing on your post (it's still a natural monopoly if government run, it's just subsidized so that profit is no longer a factor), I have zero disagreement with your assessment, and I'm a bleeding-heart California liberal that views capitalism like Churchhill viewed Democracy. It's the worst economic system out there, except for everything else we've tried.

Mod parent up, please.

What about Mozilla?

[tsotha]

I find it pretty amusing the same people who cheered the firing of Brendan Eich are outraged over this case. Let's not be hypocritical here.

Re: Time To Occupy Comcast HQ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't the ex employer a law firm? Even if they're in the wrong, they are likely to have a sufficiently good legal team to make that option unappealing.

Re: Time To Occupy Comcast HQ?

[towermac]

Well, the government itself is a monopoly. And thinking a little harder, that is the definition of a 'natural monopoly'.

When something is new, and some company makes a fortune providing the new thing to everyone; well that's just great. But if things become incorporated into society, and become part of what we consider a basic standard of living, then that thing becomes public domain. Politics and business be damned.

Now, the government can't be aggressive in these things. Edison had his chance to make his fortune. When nobody had electricity, you obviously didn't need it to live. But at some point (the 50s?), it passed that threshold and became a 'right', if you will, to have electricity strung to your home. And it was the same way with water, and printing, and roads...

Nobody had internet 20 years ago; you surely didn't need it to live, and I'm glad we didn't step in early and standardize on ISDN. If I'm wrong, then fiber optic is going to suck 10 years from now, and I'll be glad the government let Comcast go where they are going...

I don't think I'm wrong - the internet is a public utility, and everybody has the 'right' to be on it. You and I might have to vote for the same guy to make that happen. One of us will have to hold our nose and do it. Is that possible?

Re: Time To Occupy Comcast HQ?

[towermac]

"An economic market is not a place or a thing it's a set of regulations governing trade."

No. That's like layer 2 or something. The very basic requirement of an economic market, or any other market, even a fruit market; is to have more than one seller.

'Market' means multiple sellers, and I think that is overlooked often. In this particular case, we don't even get to your regulations being good or bad; because it's just the one dude that gets to name his price.

Just, you know, in the spirit of nitpicking.

PS. Fox; the News portion, and all the rest of it, sells viewership to advertisers. For better or worse, they are only in it to make a buck. They care not about oxymorons or economics or fair or balanced or anything like that. If you really consider that, it should make you feel both better and worse at the same time. :)

Re:Time To Occupy Comcast HQ?

[Anonymous Coward]

How do you propose we do that? It's obvious our government is corrupt, completely. Only thing we can do is hold our nose and vote out the incumbents.

Do what your government always call people in other corrupted countries to do -- start a revolution and overthrown your government.

That's too hard for you? Then suck it up.

Can You Say...

[Unknown74]

Evil Empire?

If this is true ...

[Anonymous Coward]

... Comcast is looking for one hell of a lawsuit.

Re: Time To Occupy Comcast HQ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Crony Capitalism is still Capitalism.

I'll add an example to the above poster's point

[dbIII]

Government control of electric utilities would not unduly hold back innovation or progress.

I used to work in a building that had "City Electric Light" over the door - it was a power station that was run by a private company that just sat on their assets and did not innovate or progress in any way. It was only when a fed-up government bought out all the tiny little power utilities and started putting together a network with economies of scale that there was any sign of progress (but not a change to the sign on the door over the next fifty years). Private monopolies have no need to progress but government run ones are subjected to other forces, so they often do innovate and progress. See also the slow suicide of the US steel and sugar industries as protected private monopolies that do not progress.

It depends

[dbIII]

It depends - in some cases "incompetent" is code for refused to work extra hours for no extra pay, looked at me funny or is not one of the "right people" due to race, nationality, religion, politics, hobbies or who they associate with.
You'll probably find it's just a case of needing more than one person to make that call to remove it as an excuse instead of actual incompetence.

Re:It depends

[TsuruchiBrian]

How to determine whether a particular teacher is incompetent is a separate issue. The issue I'm talking about is that a teacher (assuming they are incompetent), can't actually be fired. As long as the teachers show up to work and don't assault anyone they get paid. The school district can remove them from the classroom, but that just means they get paid to sit in a room for 6 hours a day to not teach.

Maybe all the teachers being paid to sit in a room are all perfectly good teachers. Maybe there is no such thing as an incompetent teacher (unlike every other profession). School districts are really going out of their way to get some perfectly good teachers that they just don't like away from teaching children, even if it means they are paying them to surf the internet and read books.

I understand his employer

[Anonymous Coward]

Accounting firms need to be absolutely above reproach. No matter what he actually said, the fact that Comcast knew who his employer was and brought this to his employer's attention means Comcast was concerned. That's more than sufficient reason for the accounting firm to fire his employee.

If you're working for an accounting firm, your best bet is not to do business with your employer's customers. If you do, you need to tread extremely carefully.

Re: Time To Occupy Comcast HQ?

[The Technomancer]

Well, the government itself is a monopoly. And thinking a little harder, that is the definition of a 'natural monopoly'.

No arguments here.

When something is new, and some company makes a fortune providing the new thing to everyone; well that's just great. But if things become incorporated into society, and become part of what we consider a basic standard of living, then that thing becomes public domain. Politics and business be damned.

Now, the government can't be aggressive in these things. Edison had his chance to make his fortune. When nobody had electricity, you obviously didn't need it to live. But at some point (the 50s?), it passed that threshold and became a 'right', if you will, to have electricity strung to your home. And it was the same way with water, and printing, and roads...

True that -- the only problem I'd see is that it behooves us in the interest of efficient government to ensure that it's simply not serving the economic purpose of subsidizing risk while simultaneously privatizing the profit.

Nobody had internet 20 years ago; you surely didn't need it to live, and I'm glad we didn't step in early and standardize on ISDN. If I'm wrong, then fiber optic is going to suck 10 years from now, and I'll be glad the government let Comcast go where they are going...

I don't think I'm wrong - the internet is a public utility, and everybody has the 'right' to be on it. You and I might have to vote for the same guy to make that happen. One of us will have to hold our nose and do it. Is that possible?

I agree with this stance. Hopefully I'm not taking too many liberties with your thought process when I interpret this to mean that if someone takes the risk, they should make a profit, and if it's truly life/world-changing, it should be co-opted by the public. The people that took the risk make their money and reap their just, earned rewards -- just not in perpetuity, which seems to be the case nowadays.

As far as the voting bit? I'd hope so. Politically, I like to view myself as a pragmatist first, a liberal second, and someone who votes Democratic not because I think they're always right, but because I often just feel they're less wrong, or at least more likely to fuck up in the people's favor. At the end of the day, though, we have to compromise sometime if we're going to go forward as one people rather than two diverging nations. I think too many people on all sides of the political question get caught up in either treating it like a team sport, treating it like a religion, or treating it as a panacea for society, where in reality, no idea or ideal works 100% of the time, no -ism has all the answers, and one-party rule generally leads to worse outcomes than power-sharing in some shape or form.

I'd like to think that people in our respective political positions are far closer to each other than I am to the far left wing of my party or that you are to the right-wing...and both of us probably about the same distance from libertarians as well.

Re: Time To Occupy Comcast HQ?

[Anonymous Coward]

What do you think an advanced directive is? My wife knows that as much as i love her and the kids, id rather die and see them taken care of than saddle then with medical bills after Im gone.

Re: Time To Occupy Comcast HQ?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's "goverment will fuck up things anyway so lets give natural monopoly to some private company that will surely handle it better. why? because capitalism and free markets!"

Which, as everyone can surely see, makes absolutely no sense. Owning the physical parts of the network and maintaining it is a monopoly because it's just stupid to build several competing pairs of wire. That part should be done by the evil government. Yes, they might be ineffective. That just means they employ slow people who would otherwise be on the dole anyways. Just rent the access to end users cable to the party the END USER wants to deal with. So there could actually be several companies offering service. The rent price would cover the maintenance of the cables.

It's simple

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, I'm not american, so explain it to me like i'm ten. Why would my employer care if I have some financial disagreements with some other company? Around here they legally wouldn't even have the right to know such things.

Yeah right.

[defaria]

Sorry but this doesn't pass the sniff test to me. Do we have anything other than this Conal characters statement that this stuff happened? It doesn't seem like we do. We have to trust that what Conal said was exactly what happened. As they say, there are two sides to every story.

"Do or don't! There is no try!" What the fuck do you mean "attempted to cancel service"? It's like that other video on Youtube or something with some guy trying to cancel service to Comcast. You don't need to try that hard. Just do this - "I'm canceling service. I suggest you take me off your books. I won't pay another dime" then hang the fucking phone up. That's all you need to do. I know, I've done it several times.

I would take that $1820 bill and send it back with a note: You send your shit here. I suggest you pick it up by the end of the week or I'm fucking tossing it. I wouldn't lift a finger to return it. Not my mistake? Not my problem to fix.

If you schedule an appointment with a service like Comcast and they don't show up within the allotted 4 hour window you can sue them for wages lost. I know. I did it. Won $500 too.

If what this bozo is saying is really true then he has an excellent case against both his former employer and Comcast.

His conversations between him and Comcast are irrelevant to his employment. If his former employer really said that and he has proof then he'll be one rich man as he should sue the shit out of them. What I do in my private life between me and businesses of which I become a customer is no fucking business of my employer at all!

Re:Time To Occupy Comcast HQ?

[defaria]

In this sensible country he too can take the employer to court and win big. What' your not seeing here is that this guy Conal's story is pretty much bogus, which is exactly why he will not take it to court and will not win.

Gee

[Anonymous Coward]

Now that Conal is fired, unemployed - I guess Conal can quit comcast service.
Comcast just loose a paying customer.

Yeah - Comcast is slow like hell

1984

[Anonymous Coward]

Americans should start kicking ass for this sort of behavior, or risk to slip in Georege Orwell's 1984-like state controlled everything. So you keep on joking about USSR, however, what is happening in the states nowdays is waaaay worse...policing structures got tech and military power.

  just a comment from a friend.

Re: I'll add an example to the above poster's poin

[steven.db.clark]

Steel died because of short horizons. They stopped doing long term investments in technology and processes. Some on here will try to blame the unions (fair warning, I was a member) but it was more the fault of the stockholders demanding profitable quarters. The milling machines I worked on had vacuum tube based controllers in the 1970's. The Japanese were all CNC.

Re:Time To Occupy Comcast HQ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hah. You sound like Fox news.

Re: Time To Occupy Comcast HQ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Capitalism is not the same thing as anarchy. Capitalism includes laws to try and maintain a fair market. It always has included such laws. So many people try to claim that it doesn't and that it is really Anarchy, which is the state of being devoid of laws.

If we are going to discuss things, we should at least start by knowing what we are discussing.

Re: Time To Occupy Comcast HQ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you kidding me? That's the first thing a successful company does. Build an artificial barrier to entry to quell any future competitors.

Is the guy really legit?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmmm...no, I can't imagine a pissed-off lawyer threatening someone with a lawsuit. That's too far over the top. And we all know lawyers never lie.

Look, I realize it's Comcast but if this guy called up and went all lawyer on them, i don't blame Comcast for calling his firm. You reap what you sow.

Re: I'll add an example to the above poster's poin

[dbIII]

They stopped doing long term investments in technology and processes

As a protected industry they thought they never would have to. Just sit on their assets, let the money roll in and put the idiot nephew in charge of the plant.

Re: Time To Occupy Comcast HQ?

[Anonymous Coward]

PCAOB oversees audit firms not reporting companies like Comcast. The SEC would enforce SOX violations if they existed.

Re: Time To Occupy Comcast HQ?

[HornWumpus]

Please look up 'proof'.

What you supply is 'arm waving'.

That a monopoly has lower _costs_ of actual delivery proves nothing. Being a monopoly, they can just hire bunch of nephews and costs are out of control. Monopolies grow fat and sloppy, every single time.

Re: Time To Occupy Comcast HQ?

[HornWumpus]

Rights are things that cannot be taken from you.

You have no right to take things from others.

Re: Time To Occupy Comcast HQ?

[The Technomancer]

Please look up "not being a dick when being wrong." In the case of a natural monopoly, they absolutely do get fat and sloppy, but still manage to be able to deliver the service at better rates/higher efficiency than a competitor, hence the need for nationalization or profit capping/other form of regulation. This is not a controversial concept. Plenty of books on it, scholarly articles, etc. The controversy comes in ideologues arguing whether government should regulate them or not, not over whether or not they exist. Asking for the proof on this is the economics equivalent of asking for a proof that the sky is blue. Don't be surprised when you're told "Look up, yo."

Re: Time To Occupy Comcast HQ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe the government should require it's citizens to house soldiers. Or require all businesses to rent their services out to competitors. An exaggeration, yes. But Comcast did build their infrastructure and connected it to every home. Now, if they rent it out, who pays for maintenance and isn't that going to be more? This is an efficient model and until a better system is devised and implemented (wireless with fiber backbone), it is what it is. All of you play a game. Look into the details of providing Internet service. Pretend you actually know something about business and do the numbers. Now go back 15 years and do the numbers. Comcast ended up being lucky to leverage their cable system for digital data. Lucky as fuck.

Re: Time To Occupy Comcast HQ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Most techies do not study economics, finance, or social science. Don't expect the to understand it.

Re: Time To Occupy Comcast HQ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey now. Cup and string communications is a big deal there. And it doubles as a clothesline.

First amendment

[Anonymous Coward]

> Be careful next time when you exercise your first amendment rights.

The first amendment is no defense against being fired as a result of your speech -- unless you're employed by a government entity.

Re: Time To Occupy Comcast HQ?

[TheRealLifeboy]

Really, you're not just uninformed, you can't spell either!

Clickbait

[MooseMiester]

Comcast maintained that Conal used the name of his employer in an attempt to get leverage.

No reason to read further. Comcast probably records all calls.

Re: Time To Occupy Comcast HQ?

[HornWumpus]

You continue to assert, but have so far only provided arm waving.

You claimed to have a proof. I don't think you know what a proof is.

Re:lawyer up. you can own that firm.

[david_thornley]

Strange. I've never seen an actual employment contract, and I've worked several places. Are they common in some parts of the US? They don't seem to be where I'm from.

Re:lawyer up. you can own that firm.

[AK Marc]

Where are you from? I've worked outside the US, and they are less common in some areas because the contract terms are mainly set by the govenrment. The contract was "we agree to employment under the Employment law of 1984" or whatever.

Strange. I've never seen an actual employment contract,

So you never got in writing the amount you would be working for? I've never worked a place where that wasn't in a contract signed by both people, 5 states, 3 countries.

Hidden data in spreadsheet

[RockDoctor]

FTFA :

When Conal returned all the equipment to Comcast and, being an experienced accountant at one of the nation's most prestigious firms, even prepared a spreadsheet detailing every charge, overcharge, payment and credit on his account for his brief time as a Comcast customer.

There's a fairly high chance that, if he prepared the spreadsheet at work (e.g. in his lunch break, or at the weekend after taking work home on a company-issue laptop), then there would have been hidden components of the spreadsheet such as macros, style sheets or logos, which included ownership information such as "Copyright (c) VeryBigAccountingCo. Contact ITSecurity@VeryBigAccounting.com if you have received this file in error."

When I use the client's computer to process data - as spreadsheets or word processing documents - they're riddled with data like this, which also comes out in the PDF forms of the document. They also reveal that these parts of the presentation standardisation haven't been updated since 2008. It looks a bit odd when I send in my direct employer's monthly paperwork with this mess attached, so I use LibreOffice as a PortableApp to circumvent the dreck.

Re:lawyer up. you can own that firm.

[drinkypoo]

I have one on my desk right here. I have multiple from multiple states filed at home. A "contract" is an agreement. Even a verbal agreement is a contract. But most employment contracts are written, because the verbal ones get people sued, even in right to work states.

Well, all I've ever had was an offer of employment which I could accept. Upon accepting the offer letter, I was officially an employee of whoever, at which point they were legally bound by whatever laws applied in the state in which I worked at the time. They're not employment contracts. A contract offers you something not already offered to you by law.

Re:lawyer up. you can own that firm.

[AK Marc]

So you've never worked anywhere with benefits, or any policies unified into the "offer letter" or other first-day signing pile? Those have been in the contracts I've signed. Retirement benefits, medical benefits and such are not offered by law, and have been with nearly all jobs I've had.

Re: Time To Occupy Comcast HQ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I would say this is the opposite of capitalism. Lack of consumer choice, paying off politicians to achieve an unquestioned monopoly, no need to provide a decent service because there's no competition. That's more like a government sponsored monopoly.

So this topic appears as the Slashdot beta UI. The markers for all the logic appear in low contrast making them hard to parse visually, even with zoomed fonts. I'd say that slashdot as run by dice.com is afaist effective communication the closer the UI gets to Facebook.

I am going to quit slashdot and I urge others to do that as well. The result will be that dice gets a bunch of marketing types with no technical knowledge who say "yes", "yes" to a bunch of rhetorical questions. The UI makes a discussion forum into a social media blog and that is a degradation.

Re: Time To Occupy Comcast HQ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I just noticed that the beta UI failed to embolden the quote. I am leaving slashdot.

Re:lawyer up. you can own that firm.

[drinkypoo]

Retirement benefits, medical benefits and such are not offered by law, and have been with nearly all jobs I've had.

I have had these benefits, but they've never been unified into the offer letter, which has only outlined the amount of compensation for the term of employment (approximately 40 hours, as needed, with termination at will of either party.) They're simply standard benefits offered to all employees of the places I've worked, and therefore those benefits were covered under their own contracts for which I signed entirely separately from acceptance of the offer letter. Also, since these benefits were only presented as part of full-time jobs, some of these things (medical benefits) were required by law. In California, at least, you have long had to offer your full-time employees health insurance.

My understanding is that only employees who are not at-will (that is, they have some stipulation in their contract that they cannot simply be let go except under extreme circumstances) regularly have full-fledged employment contracts. These employees may also have additional specific obligations tied to their departure, and are generally corporate officers. But there's nothing precluding any employee from having a contract which includes any unusual stipulations which are not already in accordance with the requirements of law, as my health insurance was. And for all I know, some states may require it. Most of what I know is applicable to California. I lived in Texas for a while, but my only brush with the law regarded speeding tickets.

Not a problem for me

[Anonymous Coward]

My boss hates Comcast more than I do... I actually think they are not the most evil (yes, I'm looking at you CHARTER!) but we all agree they are evil.

Re:lawyer up. you can own that firm.

[AK Marc]

those benefits were covered under their own contracts for which I signed entirely separately from acceptance of the offer letter. Also, since these benefits were only presented as part of full-time jobs, some of these things (medical benefits) were required by law. In California, at least, you have long had to offer your full-time employees health insurance.

I've always had these not be "their own contracts" but collected into a single contract per employee, and that one contract per employee was called "employment contract".

My understanding is that only employees who are not at-will (that is, they have some stipulation in their contract that they cannot simply be let go except under extreme circumstances) regularly have full-fledged employment contracts.

Maybe you always work hourly or something. I've almost always been on salary, and I've always (even on my few hourly jobs) had an employment contract. Even when I worked as a security guard where I gave my notice before my first day (I wanted to work over Christmas while in college for more money), I had an employment contract. Though, that temp hourly job was for an insured, bonded job, with uniform and weapon rules, so there was lots of paperwork. That was my shortest job, and still had a full contract, even with zero benefits (not even health insurance for a full-time position).

I lived in Texas for a while, but my only brush with the law regarded speeding tickets.

Back before I left Texas, Texas was the last state where a speeding ticket was a crime. It's now an infraction, as are all states. Did you get a criminal summons for the misdemeanor of speeding? Or an infraction notice?

At least when it was a crime you could get a jury trial for speeding and there were no "points". Now that they are infractions, points are given, and there are fewer appeal options.

Re:lawyer up. you can own that firm.

[drinkypoo]

Maybe you always work hourly or something.

Most of my jobs have been full-time, monthly (since yearly employees are covered by different rules.)

Did you get a criminal summons for the misdemeanor of speeding? Or an infraction notice?

I got a cop knocking on my door when I failed to appear. Naughty, naughty. They dragged me into court and extracted some money from my wallet, then I left the state (not for those reasons) and AFAICT (From searching their databases) there's no warrant out for me, so I must be past the statute of limitations or the case was dismissed in the interest of removing it from the books. I also have no plans to revisit.

Re:lawyer up. you can own that firm.

[AK Marc]

I didn't know there were different rules for "monthly" and "yearly" employees. I've only seen "temporary" and "permanent" (orthogonal to full-time and part-time). Some offers/contracts have listed monthly pay, others annual pay, and there was no difference in the contract or rules between the two I could see. Some had the offer as annual and the contract as monthly. Some listed as monthly or annual also specified 2-week pay schedule, 2-per month (1&15), or monthly pay. Also unrelated to how they listed the total remuneration.

I got a cop knocking on my door when I failed to appear.

That could happen for either. I left in 2001, but I think it was 2002 to 2004 when they changed to infringements, but I can't be arsed to google it.

You've been mislead by words of weasels

[dbIII]

I'm talking about is that a teacher (assuming they are incompetent), can't actually be fired. As long as the teachers show up to work and don't assault anyone they get paid

That sounds incredibly unlikely and like something written up by a political intern to be spewed from the mouth of someone who has decided to define their politics by crusading against "lazy teachers" of similar weasel campaign. I'm sure, especially now with everyone in "think of the kiddies" mode, that there is a very long list of misbehaviour and shortcomings that will get a teacher fired - far more so than back in what you probably think of as "the good old days" when teachers could theoretically be fired at will but sex offenders were quietly moved around to avoid a scandal.

Maybe all the teachers being paid to sit in a room

That's an old trick in many workplaces of the people who are too gutless to fire someone so they just make it so the employee feels useless and hopefully quits instead of having to be fired. Sometimes it saves a large payout, but even then it's somewhat of a "dick move". Most people will move on after a "we really think you should go" talk so such mind games are a waste of time and money.
What should be obvious is that an low level employee does not get to choose their assignment to get paid to sit in a room. That gets done by a manager either incapable of reassigning them to a task they can cope with or without the guts to fire them. So the manager has to talk to someone from a big scary union? So what? Being able to justify your actions is what being in a position of responsibility is about. It's not about being a weasel taking all the benefits without any of the responsibility.

Re:You've been mislead by words of weasels

[TsuruchiBrian]

That sounds incredibly unlikely and like something written up by a political intern to be spewed from the mouth of someone who has decided to define their politics by crusading against "lazy teachers" of similar weasel campaign.

I'm not saying teachers are lazy. I am saying that, like every group of people, it's impossible that 0% are lazy, and I think it's crazy that we can't fire the ones (however many or few they are) that are.

What should be obvious is that an low level employee does not get to choose their assignment to get paid to sit in a room.

What should be obvious is that large groups of people being paid to do nothing is a sign that it is too hard to fire someone.

Re:You've been mislead by words of weasels

[dbIII]

What should be obvious is that large groups of people being paid to do nothing

No. The two instances I've heard that very verified as far as a courtroom were a government department run by cowardly bureaucratic pricks and a large multinational resources company with a division run by cowardly bureaucratic pricks while other divisions had no problems at all firing people. There's plenty of other rumours but how do we really tell them from fiction?

is a sign that it is too hard to fire someone.

No. If it's too hard to fire someone that is incompetent then it's a sign that the person with the authority to fire is operating beyond their competence level themselves or is scared of "office politics" consequences, such as firing the bosses nephew.

Think back a bit. We've seen a teacher fired for a "drunken pirate" costume party photo on Facebook. We've seen plenty fired on "moral" grounds if it's suspected that they are gay just not devout enough for some religious schools, and that's just the stuff that makes it into the mass media. How do you reconcile such incidents with "too hard to fire someone"? You've been misled by hype from some professional weasel going after a soft target to build popularity.

Re:You've been mislead by words of weasels

[TsuruchiBrian]

There's plenty of other rumours but how do we really tell them from fiction?

You can never know for 100% certain. So I suppose the only rational thing to do is to assume that *every single* teacher that ever existed was competent, and that any allegations of teacher incompetence are actually administrative incompetence. /s

Think back a bit. We've seen a teacher fired for a "drunken pirate" costume party photo on Facebook.

So your argument is that if one person is wrongly fired, it means that every person who is fired is fired wrongly?

You've been misled by hype from some professional weasel going after a soft target to build popularity.

Should I instead believe you that there is no such thing as an incompetent teacher?

Re:You've been mislead by words of weasels

[dbIII]

So I suppose the only rational thing to do is to assume that *every single* teacher that ever existed was competent

Ah yes - the "hey look I'm far too stupid to breath" approach. How about you try again after you have calmed down, or just say you don't give a shit about the issue and don't wish to discuss it rationally.
The "So your argument is" and "Should I instead believe you that there is no such thing" stuff is just pure mindless strawman insults in the same pretended stupidity mould. You are not so clueless as to misunderstand so badly, we both know it, and nobody else here gives a shit so you are not fooling anyone. You may hate me intensely but putting words in my mouth does nothing other than bring yourself down.

It's not hard to fire people at all, even with very little cause. The "hard" bit is taking responsibility for doing it afterwards, which is why it's all too hard for those that like to dodge responsibility.

Re:You've been mislead by words of weasels

[TsuruchiBrian]

Your position is untenable. Just give up.

Re:You've been mislead by words of weasels

[dbIII]

Really? What position is that? I can't even see a position there - I'm pointing out the lack of foundation of your own which appears to just be based on mindless propaganda of weasels going for soft political targets.

Re:You've been mislead by words of weasels

[TsuruchiBrian]

Really? What position is that? I can't even see a position there

The position that whoever the teacher is, they are innocent of accusations against them, and that whoever the administrator is, they are guilty of petty vendettas but too gutless to actually fire any teachers.

Also, even if we assume administrators are doing a terrible job (and I don't doubt that in general they are), this doesn't imply that there are no incompetent teachers nor does it imply that the teachers unions are a doing a good job.

I'm pointing out the lack of foundation of your own which appears to just be based on mindless propaganda of weasels going for soft political targets.

I'm not exactly sure who the soft political target is. It's not teachers. I actually suggested we double their pay.

I am taking the very reasonable position that some administrators are incompetent, some teachers are incompetent, some people in every profession are incompetent, and it should take 3 years and half a million dollars to fire someone that is incompetent, regardless of whether they are an administrator, a teacher, a policeman, or whoever.

Clearly you've been brainwashed by teachers' union propaganda. It's not like I have been listening to Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh. I listen to the "weasels" at NPR and PBS.

Left ComCast Years Ago, Now With Dish

[PoliteTia]

I had issues with ComCast years ago. A former acquaintance got a job there after I ended a relationship with him. He would call me from this ComCast telephone, to discuss the breakup, and I would see ComCast on my caller ID. I would see the caller ID and think something was going on with my service. It was him. I telephone the company to complain and nothing was done about this. This went on for 3 weeks. I cancelled my ComCast and told my family members. We all have the Dish Network now, for years. ComCast attempting a monopoly, very scary.

How many times

[morgauxo]

>>How many times a day do Comcast reps hear a customer say something like “I’m a lawyer” or “I’m a big shot at [fill in the blank]“? How many of those result in Comcast going out of its way to contact that customer’s employer?

I used to work in tech support for Comcast. (long enough ago to feel safe in saying this). It wasn't uncommon for people to say stuff like that. Let me tell you.. when I heard it I was never impressed. (unless you dropped the name of one of my bosses) If you had real issues (as it sounds like this guy did) then I already wanted to help you. Honestly I did everything within my power to fix your problems although often my hands were tied by crappy corporate beurocracy. It didn't matter if you were rich or poor, powerful or not. If you told me you were important to impress me though... then you must be an asshole. Now I DON'T want to be helpful.

If you had been through the kinds of problems this guy had been through I might forgive you. You are angry (and rightly so) and lashing out. Just let me try to work and get it fixed though. However, usually people who pulled lines like that were doing so for much less forgivable reasons. What really stands out in my mind was a guy who kept telling me I needed to cancel someone else's apointment in order to get his house serviced earlier because he was a big shot who made $200k/year. If he is such a big shot then let him pay an acting troup to come entertain his more-important than someone else ass in person! I gave his modem number to a few friends and we reset it randomly several times a day for the following few months.

Re:lawyer up. you can own that firm.

[david_thornley]

Minnesota. I'd be informed of how much I was making in writing, and I've signed some forms, but never an actual employment contract. I know what I'm supposed to do, and I do it, and they pay me and give me other benefits. If one of us doesn't do our part, the other is free to end the employment relationship.

Re: Time To Occupy Comcast HQ?

[Anonymous Coward]

(I'm the guy who asked for proof, checking back later after having read your discussion with HornWumpus)

Ok, if you think it's obvious like the sky is blue, then don't claim to have mathematical proof. If it requires multiple books and articles to prove (which I must evidently find myself), then it seems much more dubious.

If you're trying to sway people against Austrian economics, I suggest you choose your words carefully and actually back up your arguments instead of calling people dicks. All you've done is make me question whether or not these guys are indeed as crazy as the mainstream economists claim.

Re:lawyer up. you can own that firm.

[AK Marc]

https://www.revisor.mn.gov/sta...
https://www.revisor.mn.gov/sta...

So in MN, there is a minimum list of information, and that information, agreed upon, is an employment contract. If there is no contract, then the employer accepts increased legal risk. So I'd presume that every job in MN has an "employment contract" as defined in the first link. That you don't think an offer letter defined in MN law as an "employment contract" is an employment contract doesn't change reality, or MN law.

fired for complaining about comcast???

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't this situation exactly what the Constitution promises as Freedom of Speech?
Now bullying loyal, paying customers is hitting an all time low.
We are all - people AND corporations - supposed to be on the same side working together to build our society. ...Not tearing people down.
Unbelievable!

Re:lawyer up. you can own that firm.

[david_thornley]

Legal requirements are not a contract. I have to agree to a contract, but laws apply whether I like them or personally consent to them or not. I have no agreement about firing, just that Minnesota is an at-will state. I don't have an agreement that says what I do on my own time off work premises with my own stuff is mine; that's specified in (IIRC) a 1982 statute. What there is of a contract can be ended at either time by either side.

I have never signed an employment offer. My acceptance has always been oral, and oral contracts do have their limitations, last I looked.

In short, I think you're stretching the idea of "contract" here.

Re:lawyer up. you can own that firm.

[AK Marc]

Almost no companies hire solely on verbal agreements, as they have all of the responsibilities, and no protections. They put it in writing.

Given that the law specifically states that an employer employing without a written contract has reduced legal rights, I would think that nearly all companies would require written contracts, as per MN law.

In short, I think you are confused or lying (or only worked odd jobs, never a regular full time job with a large company, as most people do, and what people think of when they hear "job").

Issue?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're wrong on that point. According to an article that appeared in the mainstream press Conal wasn't being an asshole-well he wasn't being an asshole while Comcast was doublebilling him, not sending tech support to his house and not making good on their promises. As long as he sucked it up and paid, they (Comcast) was happy.

He made a call to Comcast's Controller during which he said

"During this call, he says that he mentioned that ComcastÃ(TM)s billing and accounting issues should probably be investigated by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), a private-sector oversight operation. This ultimately led to two service calls where no one ever showed up and no explanations were given."

Given that an investigation by the PCAOB would shut down operations until a judgement is made and any illegal practices are corrected Comcast had to act. Here's the URL for the story here http://consumerist.com/2014/10/06/unhappy-customer-comcast-told-my-employer-about-complaint-got-me-fired/

Next time I suggest he use Softbank http://www.softbankusa.com/

What is this "First Amendment Rights" you speak o

[Anonymous Coward]

Surely you refer to times prior to the Patriot Act ?

Re:lawyer up. you can own that firm.

[david_thornley]

In short, I think you are a jerk.

I have worked regular full-time jobs with several companies. There was never anything recognizable as an employment contract, in the sense of a single contract that lays things out. Typically, I'd get a letter with an offer, call, and come in. Shortly after, I'd go to HR and sign various papers, none of which looked like a conventional contract.

Re:lawyer up. you can own that firm.

[AK Marc]

You've never seen an conventional contract, but are sure that nothing in the pile you signed looked like one.

In short, I think you are a lying jerk. I've never heard of any reasonable sized company that didn't have employment contracts. And I don't believe you when you say you've worked several full-time jobs and never seen a contract. You'd be the first, and the liklihood over the Internet is that you are much more willing to lie to win the argument than tell the truth and "concede defeat".

Caller ID Anyone?

[fluffy99]

He might not have had to name his company, if he called from his office. Caller ID would have revealed that. His employer could fire him for conducting personal affairs using company resources, which might also include using company privileged info to find out Comcasts Controllers office phone number.

Re:lawyer up. you can own that firm.

[david_thornley]

I've signed contracts in my life. They were the main instruments covering what each side was required to do and pay, and they were fairly comprehensive. I haven't seen such a thing in employment. An application isn't a contract. A job offer letter isn't a contract (if it were, I'd have to accept it). A verbal acceptance followed by showing up for my first day is arguably a contract, but it isn't something I can actually see. Inevitably, I sign several papers when showing up. For my current job, for example, I signed a reasonable non-compete agreement and a few other things, including a receipt for the employee handbook. (A reasonable non-compete is one that has hardly any effect on my future employment.) Arguably, these were contracts, although they usually didn't have explicit consideration for both sides. There was never any sort of specific individual contract saying I was going to work for them in exchange for money.

If you search Slashdot, you will find that some people have said similar things. I'm not the first.

Re:lawyer up. you can own that firm.

[AK Marc]

A job offer letter isn't a contract (if it were, I'd have to accept it).

I don't understand how being a contract would bind you to accepting it. Can you explain this? I think you are unclear on what a contract is, and I'd guess that you've dealt with people that use an accpeted offer as a contract.

Most of the time, when they have separate employment contracts, they don't care what you do with the offer letter. But if they don't have a separate employment contract, the offer letter is the employment contract, and they required it signed and returned before you can start. Since I've only had contracts, I've never returned a signed offer letter to the company extending it, but that was never an issue for starting on the agreed date.

Protected Class!

[Anonymous Coward]

As a white guy, I was never part of any "protected class", so they could always fire me at whim.

However, I am now a grand juror - it's illegal to fire people for jury duty, so for the length of my term (one day per week for 18-24 months), if they try to fire me for bullshit, it's going to look an awful lot like they're doing it because I'm a juror.

Re: Time To Occupy Comcast HQ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Advanced directives generally kick in when the quality of health drops to the point where the value of living isn't better than death. It doesn't kick in when cost of medical care exceeds a threshold.