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

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.

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.

[MouseTheLuckyDog]

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

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.

[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]

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.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, there are only two options here.

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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

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.

[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.

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.

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

[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

[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.

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.

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.)

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.

don't do this.

[Nukenbar]

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

This is not a first amendment issue.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

[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.

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.