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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.
Break them up, don't let them merge so that the abuses can continue.
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.
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.
Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
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.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
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.
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.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
It might be hard to sue the employer but he could sue Comcast for tortuous interference.
No, time to fix your ridiculous employment law.
In any sensible country this guy would take his ex employer to court and win big.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
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.
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.
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.