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Subscribe by EmailBloomberg’s Solitaire Termination
Originally uploaded by BoBBj.
The mysteriously anonymous Editor of Blawg Review, a/k/a Ed., just sent me this lovely story. Thanks, Ed.
New York Mayor Bloomberg was visiting a city office. While making the rounds with his photographer, greeting workers, and posing for pictures, he noticed a $27,000-a-year city employee engaged in one of white-collar America’s most common goof-off pastimes — computer solitaire.
“[T]he eagle-eyed mayor — a billionaire former businessman with a certain idea of how offices should be run — said nothing . . . , but later told an aide to give him the ax.”
The terminator defended his decision: “The workplace is not an appropriate place for games . . . Bloomberg said. It’s a place where you’ve got to do the job that you’re getting paid for.”
The terminatee defended his conduct: “It wasn’t like I spent hours and hours a day playing, because I had plenty to do . . . . If I had been working at something exhaustively for two hours, I might get a cup of coffee and play for a minute but then go right back to my work. . . . It’s not like I’m the only one that ever did this.”
The fired employee said he wasn’t angry with the mayor but wished he had been warned or reprimanded for what he called a first offense.
Read the whole story at Newsday.com: “New York mayor fires worker with solitaire on computer screen”
Legally, if an at-will employee, the solitaire player has no claim. That is, assuming he is a white male under 40 with no disabilities who has not recently engaged in protected whistleblowing.
On the other hand, if a member of a legally protected category, the solitaire player could always claim discriminatory termination, which could get a bit more interesting.
He would look for evidence of other employees not in the same protected category who engaged in the same offense but were not treated so harshly.
The city would come back with the contention that none of the others were truly similarly situated because none of them were caught by the mayor himself. Therefore the difference in treatment would not be evidence of discrimination.
Under these relatively unique circumstances, the city might well have a summary-judgment-winning argument.
But if the employee was fired by someone who knew that other employees not in the protected category were also playing solitaire, the city might be in trouble under employment discrimination law.
Further, as a wise mentor of mine taught me years ago, in making such employment decisions, “what can I do legally” is only the first part of the inquiry. The other part is “what should I do” from a business and human resources management perspective.
Do you want to send the message that you are a tyrannical boss whose impulsive actions everyone should fear — which may have a negative overall impact on employee morale that saps productivity and increases turnover?
Or do you want to send the message that your disciplinary response is measured, in which case you merely give a first offender a documented reprimand unless the offense is extreme in nature and/or severity? Will the latter course have a sufficient deterrent effect?
Do ya think Bloomberg thought about any of this? Dunno . . . he sounds very old school and Trumpish.
(Thought I coined a new term there, “Trumpish,” but no such luck.)
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