Biggby Coffee Terminates Michigan Teen Employee After 'Horrific' Trayvon Martin Tweet

[malaise]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/18/biggby-coffee-trayvon-martin-employee-tweet_n_3616768.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular
<snip>
A teen who tweeted an offensive statement about Trayvon Martin learned the hard way this week that social media can have professional consequences, when a Michigan company took immediate action and terminated her before she had even begun her new job.

The 17-year-old, who had been hired at a Biggby Coffee franchise in Livonia, Mich. but not yet begun training or started working reportedly tweeted: "I want to thank god... for that bullet that killed Trayvon Martin," according to CBS Detroit.

Shortly after, offended individuals tweeted at the company and filled its Facebook page with messages condemning the company for hiring a "racist" employee and pledging not to patronize the shop.

Bob Perry, owner of the Livonia store, told The Huffington Post he found his would-be employee's tweet "horrific."
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What a moron -words have consequences

[CakeGrrl]

1. Social media:

Exposing idiots all the time.

[malaise]

2. How dumb do you have to be to write racist crap

for everyone to see.
Racist pig!

[Archae]

3. Paraphrasing old radio saying...

"If you want to tell the world that you're a horse's rear, just put your fingers on a keyboard, and everyone will hear!"

[The Straight Story]

4. Ok, I have a problem with this

I am guessing this was on her own time.

So now we want those who hire us to be able to judge not just what we do (pot/drinking/smoking) but also have free reign to fire us for our beliefs (political/religious/etc) that we expound upon on our own time?

For folks who are ok with this - please print out and hand over anything you have said online to your employer so they can check it out.

[Robb]

6. Thank goodness someone will speak out to defend racism in the workplace!

[The Straight Story]

8. Oh, I am sorry, did not realize she did it in the work place

thought it was on her own time. My bad.

[Ruby the Liberal]

7. Damn far cry difference between smoking pot

and being out-n-proud neo nazi spewing bigoted racist comments into the ethosphere.

I would have fired her too. If this is all the more common sense this young woman has, I don't want her representing my franchise.

[The Straight Story]

9. Well then, let us judge all people that look for jobs equally:

Bring print outs of everything you have ever said online (or to someone else). Ask the NSA to release any calls you have made that might be of interest as well.

This way those in power can better judge who is worthy to work for them and make a living.

Used to be progressives got that there was a difference between personal life and work.

Betting we would love companies that fired hippies who protested wars and such.

[Ruby the Liberal]

11. You are reaching

but your defense of outright racist bigotry being on the same playing field as protesting war or smoking pot has been duly noted.

[The Straight Story]

13. pfft not defending racism, but a cute (though desperate) try

Talking about a bigger picture - let me ask simply this:

Do you think your employer should have access to what you say, your beliefs, etc in your off time?

If so, please continue and give them all your postings and such so that they can be sure your personal beliefs line up with theirs.

I have worked for chase, verizon, mc graw hill, enron, apple - and my own beliefs have not always matched up to theirs.

But what I did on my time was my own business, something which I used to think progressives believed as well.

Guess only sometimes.

[Ruby the Liberal]

16. You did note that the employer was not digging through her trash, right?

SHe posted some vile racist crap (probably mere days after cluelessly announcing her shiny new job) and concerned people contacted the employer to say "hey - you really want this to be the 'face' of your business to your customers? Chick sounds like a loose cannon" (or similar) - and dude changed his mind.

You have added about 14 elements to this story that don't even exist.

[Ruby the Liberal]

17. And I will add another thing

I don't care about your religion, your substance habits (as long as they don't impact your job) or your politics.

If I find out that you are a die-hard nazi - you just lost your job in my right-to-work state. I can put up with a lot of stuff that I don't agree with, but I will not continue to employ an outspoken race bigot. Sue me and see where it gets you.

(Hint - race is a protected class, racism and racist beliefs are not).

[Fumesucker]

10. Oh, I think email would be adequate or even superior

You'd probably need to strip a small forest just for my printout, not environmentally sound at all.

And besides, they can search an email for keywords, can't do that with text on paper.

[The Straight Story]

12. Guessing our govt does that now to find undesirables

Govt, employers - let's let them have all the power. In the meantime what they say and do is off limits.

Sad thing is - we back em all. They always want everything we say and do to be transparent but what they do is 'secret'.

Go to a company and interview and ask them for copies of their emails and profiles on those running the company.

Yet they ask for passwords for FB and such (which I thought people here were against) to see what you say/do in your off time.

[Robb]

5. We have a DUer

... Who chastised him for "bringing skittles to a gun fight."

There are idiots nearly everywhere.

[malaise]

14. Are you serious?

Damn

[Robb]

18. Yup.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=3285014

[47of74]

15. Good.