I’ve been remiss in posting “comments of the day” of late; it is not a reflection on comment quality, which has been excellent, but rather on my own distractions. Here is a new one at last, from new commenter Kathryn. It appeals to me because it nails the subtext of the original post, and like most Comments of the Day, takes the original topic to the next stage of analysis. I hope we hear more from her. Here is Kathryn’s Comment of the Day on the post, “The Idiot, the Ex, and the Consequences.”
“I am waiting, perhaps overly optimistically, for culture to catch up with information availability and develop new ways of handling privacy outside of responding to information when it is made public, regardless of the source or context for that information. Everyone says/does something particularly unwise/unwell/without grace during their life. Technology is getting to the point that these moments, rather than being forgotten or a story told among friends, are fairly permanently in the public record. (The Internet is public, whatever Facebook settings attempt to convince you.)
“As people, we’re going to have to figure out how to deal with this – our elementary school teachers are adults with adult parts of their lives, our pastors get tired and can say something snippy, the sound bite that cannot be taken out of context has not been invented yet. We have to find a way to compartmentalize this information and better store it in ourselves logically rather than respond emotionally every time something from a private sphere of life leaks to a public one. The information is going to be out there, on everyone, for everyone. We have to figure out better ways of handling that.
“In short, an idiot saying something idiotic should get a quick once over by the Secret Service (they have to check) and then roundly ignored by everyone else. If she spouts racist, idiotic threats at work, yes fire her. If she is only a racist idiot on her own time, the consequences should be limited to social consequences. As such, I am sure I do not want to invite her for dinner.”
Ethics Alarms 
I disagree with everyone that says she should or should not keep her job. You can’t dictate this stuff to companies, managers, and business owners. Every employment situation is unique and with new information, that situation changes. In this case, she lost her job. I think the business knew that was necessary, or at least prudent given what her perceived employment situation was and how this new information changed that situation.
Now, you can ask the business why they decided to take that course of action in this situation, and if they decide to provide the reasoning behind their decision, you can evaluate whether or not you would have arrived at the same conclusion. However, it’s impossible to look at the bare facts from a macro view and damn or praise the business decision.
I don’t see how your complaint is related to the comment. The comment is talking about what society as a whole should do with one-off moments. If society didn’t blow them up, then not firing her would be appropriate.
Well her comment included this gem:
” If she is only a racist idiot on her own time, the consequences should be limited to social consequences.”
And now your comment:
“If society didn’t blow them up, then not firing her would be appropriate.”
If I’m a small business owner and she was hired to become my trusted employee that I was grooming to become a more involved employee, someone who could be a manager, and I already had enough staff that were worker bees who didn’t make this remark, and now I have to hire someone else to groom to become my trusted employee, who should I fire to make room?
1. You pulled the quote out of the context where the world doesn’t care. In the proper context, the statement doesn’t seem out of line to me.
2. Does the employees statement actually affect the employees suitability to work environment in question. If yes, then firing is appropriate. If not, then no. In the specific case you created, it’s a no. You might as well be saying that if you’re grooming someone to be a manager and then you find out they’re a democrat, you should take them off the promotion track.
1. She has 3 paragraphs. Paragraph 3 starts off “In short…” as in, in summary. A summary of her previous paragraphs where she says that “As people, we’re going to have to figure out how to deal with this…” which I agree on the social part and disagree on the business part.
“As people” we don’t need to make business decisions about her employment because “As people”, we are a collective of different ideas. I’d say a lot of black Americans would side with firing her and a lot of racist white Americans would side with not firing her. Business decisions don’t need to be made in the public sphere. They need to be made by the business, which is not us, the people.
I agree that there are social consequences and those are up for society to dream up. But don’t get all high and mighty on the business that made a business decision about whether to retain her services. 6 one way, half a dozen the other, and we “as people” don’t have all of the information to make a determination.
2. In the specific case I created, it’s a yes. It’s a yes because part of her job duties was to become a person of trust. If this statement takes away the ability to be trusted, then she’s not suitable for the position anymore. Disparaging a person in this way and hoping for their murder is enough to remove trust. It’s not political speech and it’s not about being a member of a political party. It’s personal and shows a flaw of character. If you want to employ the people of the best character, then this person would have to go because she’s not suitable to the culture you desire to create.
1. The business decisions have been justified because of how society reacts to the company employing the person. If society didn’t make a big deal out of the person, the general justification is gone.
2. How is being racist in private life a reason not to trust someone with business dealings?
Do you realize that you’ve just argued that anyone with any flaws is not a suitable employee. Clearly, if they’re flawed, they don’t have the best character.
1. Did you just argue that society shouldn’t make a big deal about anyone’s personal conduct ever?
Regardless of how big society makes an issue (no matter how small the issue) once it’s out there and the information is known, then the company needs to make a business decision. It should never be based on what society wants the company to do (fire her, keep her) it should be based on her existing employment situation and how the new information affects that situation…in their own judgement. If you don’t think a company should have the right to make employment decisions, then we can’t discuss this anymore. That’s not the country I live in.
2. Seriously? and, do you realize I didn’t? Also, if a person’s private racism becomes public, then it’s public. Regardless if she was a closet racist in the past, she’s a public racist now.
1) No, I didn’t. I followed the commenter’s logic that one-off personal life statements aren’t a big deal.
The next paragraph is one big sigh. How society reacts to a situation can directly affect the person’s job suitability. Past that, nobody is saying that companies shouldn’t have the power to make their own decisions. We’re just, properly, judging those decisions.
2) You absolutely did make that argument: “It’s personal and shows a flaw of character. If you want to employ the people of the best character, then this person would have to go because she’s not suitable to the culture you desire to create.” The same logic applies to any possible character flaw, where character flaw is a subjective opinion of the employer.
She’s publicly racist in her private life. Again, why does that mean she can’t be trusted with business dealings?
1. How can you properly judge those decisions if you don’t have all of the information?
2. I don’t know why she can’t be trusted with business dealings, that’s not for me to say. I can hypothesize any amount of reasons that might surface as a result. And this brings us back to #1, we don’t have all of the information to determine whether it’s suitable to retain her employment. The person who does have that information, decided to terminate her employment.
1. We’re in speculation land where we’ve set up all the necessary information. Pretty simple
2. Please hypothesize me some reasons. Note though that the second you add in additional negative behavior, you’ve left the scope of the problem.
1. So it’s worthless BS. Got it.
2. Real people have real facts and made real decisions. I don’t feel like writing worthless BS. Get it?
I don’t follow your argument. It appears to be that talking about abstract ideas and situations is worthless, but that’s pretty obviously stupid, and you haven’t shown yourself to be stupid, so I suspect I’m missing something. Can you help me out here?
Would people stop this hopeless arguing with tgt? It’s of no use. He is not open to others’ ideas, just wants to prove them wrong and make them look like idiots. He is in no way a real contributor to the dialogue on this blog. Ignore him.
Seriously? This is the pot calling the country kitchen walls black.