Microsoft temp fired over a MAC

Unknown

According to a report posted on [link=http://slashdot.org/]Slashdot[/link], a Microsoft full time temp worker has been fired because the employee posted a photo and story concerning the software giants purchase of what looks like to be around 18 G5 MAC's.

[blockquote]"...Even Microsoft wants G5s, and the one that follows it. Microsoft fired the blogger, despite an offer to take the posting down. Note that this is not a free speech issue, even though the blog was hosted on a non-company server, because Microsoft is not, yet, the government. But it does present several other interesting issues, including that of the trade-off between the bad publicity that comes from the firing and whatever bad results follow when employees feel free to post such things." [/blockquote]
[link=http://www.michaelhanscom.com/eclecticism/2003/10/even_microsoft_.html]The Blog in question[/link]
[link=http://www.michaelhanscom.com/eclecticism/2003/10/of_blogging_and.html]The Blog that follows[/link]

Aranyic

Another quote from a slashdot reply I agree with personally:

This guy's mistake was mixing up his personal life and his work life.

Let's look at this from an ethics standpoint. If the guy had posted a picture of himself dressed as Mary Poppins frolicking in his yard, then it's not an issue for his work. If he published pictures of his personally owned Windows PC blue-screening and bitched about it in his blog, that's not cause for Microsoft to take action against him, either.

It's when you cross that line between home and work that it gets ugly. The guy took digital photos of his employer's non-public building areas while there as an employee. He identified himself as a Microsoft employee, in what department he worked, and in what building. He used poor judgement and he knows it. Microsoft didn't commit some horrible atrocity against the Mac community by firing the guy. They did not quelch his free speech rights. They fired some loose cannon who was wandering around the campus taking digital photos and posting them on his own web page. The whole story is just sensationalistic: Microsoft Fires Mac Fan For Blog Photo. It had nothing to do with his being a "Mac Fan." What's next?


Your Rights Online: Microsoft Fires Linux User For Exercising Constitutional Rights

somegeek writes "Microsoft has fired a full-time temp employee after it discovered that the employee was carrying a loaded Uzi submachine gun around the campus in his backpack. Microsoft fired the Linux user, despite the person's offer to put the Uzi back in his car...
Come on folks.

Who knows what he was fired for exactly, there is most likely a lot more he isn't telling us.