

AOL CEO Fires Somebody for Pulling Out a Camera in a Meeting About Layoffs - hglaser
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/08/aols-ceo-just-fired-somebody-for-pulling-out-a-camera-in-a-meeting-about-layoffs/278541/

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rm999
Most of the comments here are missing the obvious point: it's bad form for
managers to publicly admonish their subordinates, let alone publicly firing
them (always a sensitive topic). The CEO could have said "no filming please"
and then fired him later. He could have even asked the executive to be removed
from the meeting if he was concerned he was a leaker.

IMO the CEO should have gotten the executive's side of the story before making
a decision like that. It's got to hurt morale even more to see how expendable
people at any level are.

~~~
mathattack
I think he was trying to make an example out of him. Perhaps he already knew
that Abel was leaking company information? (A fireable offense) This just
seems like a very well calculated move.

Anyone referring to a part of the organization as loserville isn't worried
about morale.

~~~
potatolicious
If indeed the individual was leaking company information, it would make this
an _even more poorly calculated move_.

Firstly, you may know this individual was leaking company information, but the
rest of your employees do not. So what is, to you, a righteous punishment
would seem to _everyone else_ as arbitrary and vindictive. A display of force
may be a calculated move, a display of force that appears random and
arbitrary, is just stupidity.

So you just rightfully fired someone while dropping morale through the floor
because it looks like you're out for random blood.

~~~
mathattack
I think he had a point that he was trying to get across, and did it very
efficiently.

I'm not defending what he did by any stretch, just trying to understand it and
propose an explanation. When work environments are hostile like that, you
either put your head very far down, or you get your resume onto the market.

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jcc80
Maybe I'm old fashioned but I think the story is that someone thought it was
OK to randomly start filming a company meeting - one where they were
discussing future layoffs & partnerships apparently.

edit: don't know if they were filming or taking still shots - either way.

~~~
russelluresti
Because two wrongs make a right? If you're a person with character, you handle
the impropriety of others in a mature and professional way.

Then again, if you're a person with character, you don't refer to your
business meetings as a "locker room" or use terms like "loserville."

~~~
jlgreco
> _you handle the impropriety of others in a mature and professional way._

Sure, and sometimes the mature and professional way is to fire somebody.

(Now, the execution of that was less than ideal, but a firing in general was
not entirely out of line.)

~~~
arkades
Execution and Result are not independent things. Firing someone in a
professional, mature, tactful way is a _different thing_ than what the CEO
did. They're not just different styles: the firing of a person is an act
intended to have a particular business outcome, and those different routes
will have _different_ outcomes.

To quote Steven Brust, "The relationship between ends and means isn't one of
justification, it's one of proscription."

~~~
jlgreco
I don't approve of the execution, but I cannot condemn the decision to fire.

------
DanBC
Please could someone with knowledge of UK employment law say what the
difference here would be? I'm guessing the guy is still firable, but with a
more formal process?

~~~
Sauer_Kraut
Why are open questions being down-voted? Is there something wrong with the
questions?

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ghshephard
Somewhat off topic, but I found it incredibly ironic the time (at our company,
not AOL) I was told not to take pictures of a slide deck being presented at an
all hands (I could barely make it out from where I was, and I would use my
iPhone to zoom in) - given that every single person (numbering in the
hundreds) on the conference call was able to just screen shot each and every
page of the presentation.

People are weird about camera's "visibly" in their presence. Have you ever
noticed how places like Starbucks will go absolutely batshit if you take out a
zoom lens (like a 70-200 on a Canon SLR), but not blink an eye if you snap
pictures with your iPhone.

I wonder if anyone in audience was wearing GoogleGlass at the time...

~~~
hnriot
"Have you ever noticed how places like Starbucks will go absolutely batshit if
you take out a zoom lens (like a 70-200 on a Canon SLR)"

no, not at all, maybe it's different in different parts of the country, but if
you start shooting with a long telephoto inside a coffee shop its pretty rude
to the people there.

If you want to take photos in coffee shops use a more discreet camera and a
35mm lens, not a telephoto, it will look less creepy.

~~~
hga
Extending this, a normal power lens by definition "sees" about what your eye
can see, a telephoto much, much more.

~~~
ghshephard
Inside a though, zoomed out, in dark light - my telephoto lens is pretty much
useless. People are just put off by the sheer physicality of the lens, not so
much what it is doing.

Likewise, (getting back on topic) - the poor guy fired at the AOL event wasn't
fired for what he was doing, so much as the fact that he was visibly doing it.

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stevewillows
It seems harsh, but in the same it's inappropriate to snap photos of a meeting
with so much impact.

~~~
rhizome
Isn't it reasonable to think that is a _most appropriate_ thing to
memorialize?

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scrabble
Is there a problem here? You shouldn't be recording a video like that on your
phone.

~~~
eterm
It's shitty behaviour by the filmer, certainly, but it is also terrible that
firing someone in that manner is even legal. (In the UK it would not be,
misconduct must be handled by verbal then written warnings. Only a narrow
range of "gross misconduct" can result in immediate termination - and even
then it wouldn't be handled with "you're fired.")

~~~
Jormundir
what a god-awful process an employer has to go through to fire a bad employee.
That's a terribly bureaucratic law that only protects bad employees.

~~~
smtddr
What's awful is that you seem to think you shouldn't have to do those things
to fire someone. Just a verbal, a written, then fire. What's so awful about
that? Do you want to be able to fire someone on less than 3 warnings[1]?

And yes, I understand there are some things - like maybe bringing a gun to
work or punching a co-worker is auto-termination on the spot. But besides
those outrageous things, you should be able to give a person a fair chance if
it's a performance issue.

1.Depends on what is a "warning". At $LARGE_TELECOM, you get 2 warnings. First
is verbal/email. The 2nd warning is in the form of a 6 month probation. That's
a 6-month-long warning. If you haven't figured out how to succeed by then, I
think you're now fair-game of getting fired.

~~~
CamperBob2
(Shrug) As long as it's legal for me to quit with no prior notice, it should
be legal for the company to fire me the same way.

I really don't understand the European notion that a private-sector job is
some sort of government-sanctioned entitlement.

~~~
smtddr
That implies that an individual person has the same resources as a Company. If
you just quit, it's assumed you know what you're doing. And I'm guessing
you're probably assuming a certain privilege that others may not have. If
you're on HN, you probably are among the people who are paid well, have
savings and can get another job in no more than 6 weeks. There are a lot of
people out there who aren't as fortunate; who will be stricken with horrible-
hardship if they're job just disappears.

You quitting without warning won't harm a big corporation as a whole, but a
bigcorp firing a person without warning has a chance of nearly destroying that
person depending on what job and situation we're talking about. Especially in
USA where health-insurance is connected to employment. A sudden dismissal can
really cause someone to die.

~~~
CamperBob2
_That implies that an individual person has the same resources as a Company._

No, just the same rights. "Privileges" should have no place in the law.

Put another way, as an employer, why should I lose my rights of free
association simply by partnering with one or more other people in a
corporation?

~~~
smtddr
Ah, then we simply cannot agree. The ability to exercise a right is just as
important as the right itself. The sudden termination of a job is more
difficult for the employee than the employer in almost all cases so the law
should help balance that out. Either it's harder to fire people or the
government needs to arrange for basic-income & healthcare for the unemployed.

~~~
smm2000
You should be able to get unemployment insurance for at least 6 month after
you are fired - in most cases it's enough to find a new job. There is problem
with very low cap on unemployment payout (~2k/month which is not enough to
live in many parts of the country) that has to be fixed but otherwise it's not
like you will starve the next day.

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throwaway420
That's really bad form by Armstrong. For all he knew, the guy was taking a
snapshot to post on the company blog as part of his job or something. Or maybe
he was just checking his phone.

At the very least, if you fire somebody over that, you at least announce "no
filming please" and fire him privately afterwards.

~~~
mathattack
I doubt that there is any business reason for taking pictures of an execution.
Armstrong would know if there was. He caught a leaker in the act. The question
is how do you handle it? If you want to make an example, you do it on the
spot. If you want to be professional, you tell him to put the camera down and
do it later.

If you refer to a part of the company as "loserville" then you're not too
worried about appearing professional.

~~~
johnbellone
> If you refer to a part of the company as "loserville" then you're not too
> worried about appearing professional.

He was citing the press they were getting, or at least that's how I took the
article. This is not the type of thing you announce on a public phone call
(that people _may_ get laid off) because all of your employees are now going
to be job surfing irregardless of what division they are in.

------
ivanbrussik
My cousin was in that meeting, apparently the back story is that he was
responsible for a design that everyone is against.

He says he was probably going to be fired anyway.

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kumarm
Wouldn't multiple divisions of AOL go ahead and publish the Photo if someone
took a similar picture of another company?

Take TechCrunch for example. Wouldn't they publish a Photo of MSFT having
layoff's if someone sent them a picture?

~~~
jlgreco
Why shouldn't they publish such a picture?

You are trying to suggest some sort of hypocrisy here, but I'm not seeing it.
Expecting loyalty from your employees and expecting loyalty from employees of
other companies to _their_ company are entirely separate issues. If somebody
gets a photo of MSFT layoffs, that is MSFT's problem, not TechCrunch's.

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IanDrake
Sadly, I probably would have had the same reaction. Between the stress of
things not going well and the stupidity of others, I start to get a short
fuse.

I'm not sure I would have fired the guy, but I suspect I would have at least
said, "Put that f'n camera away before I shove it up your ass". Actually,
saying that would probably be worse.

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mpyne
"You can't fire me! I'm being laid off!" (Though I'm sure there was more to it
than that...)

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INTPenis
My bet is that traffic to job postings increased dramatically from AOL office
networks after that meeting. :)

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fleitz
Isn't a meeting with 1000 people pretty much public anyway? Media reports
aren't making patch look like 'loserville', patch simply is 'loserville'.

~~~
fnordfnordfnord
It was a conference call. There is zero chance to keep it from being recorded.
The next one will still be filmed/audio recorded, but with a little more
discretion.

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afterburner
Maybe it's the new normal among the power elite/police forces/NSA.

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Sauer_Kraut
Was the person under NDA? Forbidden from filming beforehand?

The most of you seem to be leaping to the defense of the CEO for something
that could've been a personal action based on a perceived slight instead of a
corporate policy.

Out of the 1,000 or so there, wonder how many others started to record as soon
as that went down. To also start recording would've been my immediate
reaction.

~~~
azim
I don't know anything about AOL specifically, but I've worked for a handful of
BigCo's. All have required signing some sort of agreement at the start of
employment which explicitly forbids leaking confidential information. So it's
very likely that this person was under an NDA. What may be surprising to
people who haven't worked at a BigCo is that due to legal implications, often
times companies actually have guidelines about what should be discussed in
recorded formats versus in person/phone.

~~~
Sauer_Kraut
True that, from my POV I received requests on an event by event basis. Many of
these people probably had to sign as part of employment.

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Sauer_Kraut
AOL is a public company. It's actions at large events are public unless
explicitly noted otherwise.

What is large? Stagehand here, 1000+ is large. I've been made to sign
agreements for smaller venues.

Edit: To elaborate, smaller venues can easily close doors. Not so much in
auditoriums or arenas. Concession is selling goods, other building customers
are milling about right behind your event's curtains. Employees of the
building are milling about as well, waiting for your talking to be done with.

Pipe and drape is not a privacy filter. You are often in a private space used
by the public.

Rather pissed edit: Now that I think about it, this guy is at the helm of a
company that sells out people's privacy to anyone with cash and legal
assurances. He is firing someone for using a camera while booming his voice
over a PA[1] system much like those my friends and I have handled over the
years. Screw him.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_address_system](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_address_system)

