"Think I just hit a cyclist. But I'm late for work so had to drive off lol."

CountyHurler

The Bould Rabbit wrote: »

Right it was a stupid joke, not funny, (well not very funny) and in poor taste.

And it's not like stockbrokers and the like are renowned for their maturity...

dmc17

RobYourBuilder wrote: »

Self important f*ck. The cyclist could of been his gaffer. Not that's important. It's basic human empathy to check on and ensure the person that you hurt is ok. A few weeks ago I was teaching my nephews and my lad how to cross the football. I launched one and hit a women in the back. I sprinted after to see if she was ok. "I'm so sorry let me walk you home."

I put a €150 voucher for Fire, beside the Mansion house, in her letter box.

I'd say they're still none the wiser!

major bill

Stegral wrote: »

He should be allowed make jokes on twitter without being fired.

Freedom of speech and all yea ok

kneemos

The Bould Rabbit wrote: »

......and thanks whoring attention seekers.

Apparently .

The Bould Rabbit

The Bould Rabbit wrote: »

Seems to me like his employers were just waiting for any excuse to get rid of him and the eejit handed them their chance on a plate.

I think Plates post below confirms my initial suspicions.

Plates wrote: »

Three pages of replies and no one has commented on the guys Twitter name yet. Ray Pew, really?

I didn't pay much attention to his twitter name myself but now that I see it I have no sympathy for the arsehole.

I wouldn't give him a job shovelling shít.

conorhal

Lingua Franca wrote: »

Seems like overkill and he'd have good grounds for an employment tribunal.

Indeed.
What I get up to in my own personal time outside work is none of my employers business. If I tweeted this on company time with company resources, fair enough, but the encroachment of employers entitlement to discipline me for what I get up to outside work is worrying. I hope the odious little dick takes his employer to the cleaners.

Venus In Furs

Has to be more than just a joke on Twitter that got him fired? Maybe a poor record as an employee prior to it?
Adult with Twitter handle Ray Pew... gobshyte.

Strong Life in Dublin

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

Bit of a contradiction there?

Guy hits cyclist, doesnt stop - unlucky to lose job.
Woman hits cyclist, doesn't stop - "deserves whatever she gets"

Can you even read? He never hit anyone, it was a joke :rolleyes:

The Bould Rabbit

conorhal wrote: »

Indeed.
What I get up to in my own personal time outside work is none of my employers business. If I tweeted this on company time with company resources, fair enough, but the encroachment of employers entitlement to discipline me for what I get up to outside work is worrying. I hope the odious little dick takes his employer to the cleaners.

Chances are, there is a clause in his employment contract relating to behaviour that might reflect poorly on the firm he worked for.

And as this tweet related to him being late for work, it could be interpreted that his employers were ok with him knocking people off bikes as long as he got to work on time.

Furthermore, if he was late for work then the chances are, he was tweeting on his personal twitter account on his company's time.

And given, his twitter name, it would appear that he is not someone to be taken too seriously.

I reckon any employment tribunal would draw the same conclusion.

Venus In Furs

Strong Life in Dublin wrote: »

Can you even read? He never hit anyone, it was a joke :rolleyes:

Given the fact there are three posts already advising that poster of same, your first question above is kinda funny.

Grayson

Unless he was using a work account I don't think it was grounds for dismissal. Maybe some disciplinary action if his account is linked to work somehow (has multiple business contacts as followers) but dismissal seems excessive.

Koobcam

Good spot there by Plates on the Twitter name-'Ray Pew'?? I would suggest he deserved to be fired just for that. Between that and the 'joke', I'm finding it hard to muster any sympathy for this guy.

seamus

Grayson wrote: »

Unless he was using a work account I don't think it was grounds for dismissal. Maybe some disciplinary action if his account is linked to work somehow (has multiple business contacts as followers) but dismissal seems excessive.

It really depends. If he interacts a lot with clients, then potentially anything he publishes on social media has the potential to backfire, and client facing staff need to be extra vigilant about not being stupid publicly.

There's also the angle that his tweet gives the impression that his employer would rather be get into work on time than stop for an accident. Which reflects badly on the employer.

But yeah I would say they were itching to give him his marching orders anyway. Similar happened to a guy in my place. He'd been creating friction all over the place and generally being an ass. Then he had a generic rant on facebook about stupid colleagues. His boss flew into Dublin the next day and basically told him to pack up and leave. They were delighted to be rid of him

Grayson

seamus wrote: »

But yeah I would say they were itching to give him his marching orders anyway. Similar happened to a guy in my place. He'd been creating friction all over the place and generally being an ass. Then he had a generic rant on facebook about stupid colleagues. His boss flew into Dublin the next day and basically told him to pack up and leave. They were delighted to be rid of him

I've seen people in work be asked to remove posts they have made about the company. That's as far as it's gone though.

jimgoose

Many employers these days are using the likes of Twitter and Ye Booke of Faeces as a highly effective idiot filter. So it goes. :cool:

Grayson

jimgoose wrote: »

Many employers these days are using the likes of Twitter and Ye Booke of Faeces as a highly effective idiot filter. So it goes. :cool:

Something like 40% of companies in the US said that they would look at prospective employees on social networking as a final stage in their hiring process. And there was even a case of a guy who had set his to private but the prospective employers demanded their passwords.

jimgoose

Grayson wrote: »

Something like 40% of companies in the US said that they would look at prospective employees on social networking as a final stage in their hiring process. And there was even a case of a guy who had set his to private but the prospective employers demanded their passwords.

Yes, so I hear. I don't think much of that carry-on, but there's no helping the type who does the equivalent of photocopying his arse at the office party on-line with little or no security enabled. :pac:

whisky_galore

Plates wrote: »

Three pages of replies and no one has commented on the guys Twitter name yet. Ray Pew, really?

A classy handle for a classy guy.

A Primal Nut

I hope none of the people saying he should have been sacked listen to Frankie Boyle.

Offensive jokes are always the funniest.

nc6000

Sounds like they were just looking for an excuse to get rid of him.

Vincent Vega

I'm of the opinion that anybody who works in stocks is at the very least a latent psychopath.

Good to see they erred on the side of caution... :pac:

Mousewar

In a certain context I see the tweet as mildly amusing. That context is of it being a satirical commentary on a society of increased self-importance and personal urgency illustrated here by a hyperbolic image of someone knocking down a cyclist and then rushing off to work lolling about it.

But then I read his twitter name and I think I may be giving him waaay too much credit.

percy212

This actually happened to me many years ago in big city far from here. I got doored by a woman exiting a taxi. She scuttled off into her famous name private bank while I lay on the ground. That ankle still hurts!

ScumLord

Within reason I don't think a company should be able to pass any judgements on what you do in your personal life. If he had committed some violent crime I'd say fair enough you don't want someone prone to violent outburst in the workplace and you could be seen to be protecting your staff. If he had been posting negative comments about his work place or was a mouthpiece for hate speech I wouldn't have a problem with the company firing him. But firing someone for one offhand remark is just out of order I think.

Jawgap wrote: »

Plus you'd have to say that it showed poor judgment and would you really be trusting someone like this to manage your money, make trades and provide advice?

I wouldn't be surprised at all if talk like that or much, much worse happened every day in their workplace. They've got a load of alpha personalities in the one place and they all act civilized, respectful and never tell any off colour jokes? I don't buy it.

This is a company that's used one of it's employees as a scapegoat to make them look like a nice company. They shouldn't have the right to punish someone for telling jokes they don't like, the company brought the whole affair to the medias attention so to me it's clear they've turned a non event into a scandal for publicity.

UCDVet

This strikes me as very stupid.

I don't see anyway an employer could determine that he had tweeted the message. Presumably he didn't use company equipment to do it. If that's the case, it was a personal Tweet, using private hardware, on a personal network. Beyond that, they certainly can't know if he did it, or his roommate who hates him, or someone he bullied 15 years ago who created a fake Twitter account. And, even his employer could PROVE that it came from his cell phone/laptop they almost certainly could never prove that he actually wrote it.

I can write a program that, if you were to execute, would monitor your activity, waiting for you to type your twitter credentials, and then send malicious messages from your account.

I'd bet 100 quid, someone asked him if it was his account and he said yes. HUGE mistake. If someone at work asks me about my Twitter account, Facebook account, boards.ie account I'll truthfully answer, 'Oh - I never use any of that at work'

Nothing more, nothing less. Unless it's a co-worker I'm friends enough with to trust. This is 1000x more true if it is someone from HR or someone higher up than you.

If my boss asks me about a Tweet I wrote, 'A tweet? No, I'm sorry, I've never Tweeted at work'. And that's it. If they press the issue, that's still all they get. 'Last night? Did I send that tweet last night? Well, to be honest, I'm not really sure. I'm familiar with Twitter and I do a lot of things outside of work, both online and off. I'm afraid I'm not sure how this relates to work....'

What I do OUTSIDE of work is not their business; unless they are paying me a lot more than they currently pay me. They get 40 hrs per week, not my life.

Jawgap

Only in Ireland do people get hung up on the technicalities of the proof of guilt and what people can and can't prove.

It's not a court of law.

Presumably his employer wants to be viewed as a serious firm, not one that employs idiots. So I'd say he got done for bringing the firm into disrepute and as such that was judged to be gross misconduct.

And, yes, I don't doubt that much worse is spoken in the workplace, but it's like people getting done for funny (but ill conceived) emails - as soon as you write it down and put it out there it becomes a problem.

As they say, Facebook is forever!

ScumLord

Jawgap wrote: »

Only in Ireland do people get hung up on the technicalities of the proof of guilt and what people can and can't prove.

It's not a court of law.

So anything outside of a court of law doesn't matter and facts don't apply?

Presumably his employer wants to be viewed as a serious firm, not one that employs idiots. So I'd say he got done for bringing the firm into disrepute and as such that was judged to be gross misconduct.

How does this tweet have any bearing on his quality of work? He wasn't even at work when it happened. The company got into the private life of one of their employees, found something they didn't like and jumped on it. It's not something that happened to them, they went out and found a problem, highlighted it to the world and then punished they employee for the world knowing about it.

BetterThanThou

I personally see a little humour in it, but if the guy is a stockbroker, he should know that his public image is very important, I've seen people in similar enough jobs get in trouble for someone simply tagging them in something on Facebook and them not deleting it quick enough. I think it's an over-reaction, but the guy should've known not to do it.

UCDVet

Jawgap wrote: »

Only in Ireland do people get hung up on the technicalities of the proof of guilt and what people can and can't prove.

It's not a court of law.

Presumably his employer wants to be viewed as a serious firm, not one that employs idiots. So I'd say he got done for bringing the firm into disrepute and as such that was judged to be gross misconduct.

And, yes, I don't doubt that much worse is spoken in the workplace, but it's like people getting done for funny (but ill conceived) emails - as soon as you write it down and put it out there it becomes a problem.

As they say, Facebook is forever!

I can't access his Twitter anymore, but from what has been shown - his twitter used an alias (Ray Pew, that's not his real name). And the account description only mentioned that he went to Cardiff University.

In the tweet, he claimed to be late for work, but he didn't say WHERE he worked. He wasn't tweeting as a representative for his company. Just like I have a job, from my post you wouldn't know which company I work for.

Ironically, a big part of why this became news is because he got fired. So, now I know, for a fact, that Hargreaves Lansdown hires immature people who tweet nonsense for entertainment.

Had he not been fired, I wouldn't know that.

Now, I'd change my mind completely if he regularly commented on his job at Hargreaves Lansdown or something. Where people following his twitter would know he was an employee there. But as it is, it seems pretty ridiculous to me. Potentially even illegal, but I don't know much about that stuff.

Jawgap

ScumLord wrote: »

So anything outside of a court of law doesn't matter and facts don't apply?

How does this tweet have any bearing on his quality of work? He wasn't even at work when it happened. The company got into the private life of one of their employees, found something they didn't like and jumped on it. It's not something that happened to them, they went out and found a problem, highlighted it to the world and then punished they employee for the world knowing about it.

I'd be willing to bet he fell foul of his firm's social media policy.

the tweet, daft as it was, showed poor judgement - if you are in a business sector where judgement and professionalism are important then tweets like that are a problem or at least his employer thought so.

If he feels hard done by, off to the Industrial Tribunal with him where he can have his rights vindicated.