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This is Bull!
Sorry, I haven't posted on the CGS board in a while, but I need to vent.
I do the Comics Radar Podcast.
My cohost, Matt, has been in the hospital for the past few weeks and just got out the other day. So I was looking forward to getting back to doing the show. Well, while he was in the hospital, the comic shop he works with hired on some additional help to run their south store. Well, that person also does a podcast. He (and people that do the show with him) told the comic shop owner because we're critical of comics we were negatively effecting sales in the store, despite the fact that we never mention what store he works at and don't promote or denigrate the store in any way. (Granted, there is only one comic shop in the whole county, so it's easy to figure out where he works if you try.)
The store owner told Matt that it was a conflict for him to work on a podcast when the other guy works there as well, so now Matt can't do the podcast any more.
I've always been nice to said other podcaster, offering to help him when he started his podcast and to improve his sound quality.
To be backstabbed in this way is so utterly middle school bullshit, I just can't stand it.
I know Matt will be doing one more goodbye show, then I don't know what I'm going to do from there.
I do the Comics Radar Podcast.
My cohost, Matt, has been in the hospital for the past few weeks and just got out the other day. So I was looking forward to getting back to doing the show. Well, while he was in the hospital, the comic shop he works with hired on some additional help to run their south store. Well, that person also does a podcast. He (and people that do the show with him) told the comic shop owner because we're critical of comics we were negatively effecting sales in the store, despite the fact that we never mention what store he works at and don't promote or denigrate the store in any way. (Granted, there is only one comic shop in the whole county, so it's easy to figure out where he works if you try.)
The store owner told Matt that it was a conflict for him to work on a podcast when the other guy works there as well, so now Matt can't do the podcast any more.
I've always been nice to said other podcaster, offering to help him when he started his podcast and to improve his sound quality.
To be backstabbed in this way is so utterly middle school bullshit, I just can't stand it.
I know Matt will be doing one more goodbye show, then I don't know what I'm going to do from there.
Comments
I am not a lawyer, so take all this with the caveat that it comes from a layperson. But I did work in recruiting (not HR, but certainly in an HR-facing role), and at one point I worked in a place that did require me, as an employee of the firm, to have my outside work activities approved. For example, as I was continuing to audition as an actor for commercials at the same time I worked for them, it was explained to me that they approved that so long as I did not appear in a commercial identified as an employee of their firm. And, here's the thing, that part of my contract- their ability to get to consider and sign off on such outside activities was articulated in my employment agreement. That is why I even had (or even tolerated) a conversation about how my acting life might have anything to do with my day job life. It is only because I chose to sign a contract that included such stipulations that I accepted such an intrusive relationship from my employer to be acceptable or legal.
Because I believe it has to be negotiated ahead of time. Arbitrary attempts to abridge the outside activities and speech of your employees with them agreeing to in it in advance is bullshit. And, I would guess, actionable.
So while that other podcaster sounds like a jerk, the person truly at fault here, and the person who should understand that they are putting themselves in legal jeopardy by treating an employee this way, is the shop owner.
But yeah, they're both bastards.
Anyway, I think a better solution would have been simply for your friend to maybe talk-up the positive reviews of comics he likes, and maybe mention the shop he works at as a place to purchase them. I'm not saying he should have done free advertising, but rather just mention the shop in the casual way that some CGS guys will mention Golden Eagle.
I certainly take your point that proving discrimination can be difficult. But the fact is, it sounds like that is happening here. And that behavior should be challenged, otherwise it is enabled to continue to happen. I mean, of course it is easier for me to say something like that at a distance than to have to be the one risking employment to stand up to it. But there may be an employment lawyer down there that would take a meeting (sometimes a first consultation is free) to better inform your friend if he has an actionable case, as well as to advise him as to how he could go about gathering the proper evidence to pursue it.
Still, though, at the end of the day there are state and federal laws to protect all workers, even outside of unions or even working for a very small or even family business, against discrimination and wrongful termination. Are these hard things to prove? Yes. And that is something that employers take advantage of all the time. But just because something is hard to fight or prove doesn't mean that there is no recourse, or no one to seek help from when your rights are being violated.
It seems to me that if the owner's not going to have a consistent rule regarding outside of work podcasting, then he shouldn't be involved in the situation at all. I can't imagine why a supervisor would even waste time getting in the middle of what sounds like a pretty minor disagreement between two employees.
For the most part in Indiana, an employer can fire you for any reason at anytime but that does not protect the employer from wrongful termination suits. An employer has to have a paper trail leading up to the termination. The company I work for is notorious for letiing people go with no warning. They get taken to court a lot, and they lose a lot.
Most of this has to do with the nature of contracted security and dry spells where there are more officers than work sites available. If a contract ends and another location is not available, you have thirty days left with the company if work is not found for you. As long as you get 8 hours of work in, the thirty days reset. However, you are sent a letter stating that if work is not available for you within thirty days, the company accepts that as your voluntary resignation. Yes, you read that correctly. I see this go to court and unemployment hearings constantly. It never holds up.
I have been involved in a few cases where employees were fired, both deserving and non, but because they did not have any kind of paper trail leading up to the terminitaion, the company lost.
In general, employees are hired "at will." This means you can quit whenever you want and you can be fired whenever the employer wants. In general, you can be fired for whatever reason the employer wants. For example, "you wore blue to work and I hate blue" is a valid reason for firing someone. Also, "you did a podcast dissing comics" is a valid reason.
The only time an employer at will CAN'T fire someone is when he does so because of a prohibited reason. Discrimination is such a reason. But it can't be just any discrimination. It has to be discrimination against what is called a "protected class" - that is a certain group of people that the courts have recognized have been traditionally discriminated against and we, as a society, do not approve. So "people wearing blue" are not a protected class. Neither are "people who do podcasts dissing comics." Race, gender, and in some (most?) states sexual orientation are all protected classes. Typically, the prohibition against discrimination against particular classes is codified in the laws of a particular state (or federal laws - ie., law of the US govt), in which case you don't need the courts to have determined the discrimination is illegal, it's right there in the statute.
So bottom line, while that comicshop owner might be an asshole, the chances of prevailing against him based on a wrongful firing appear to be remote here.
Class dismissed! :^)
e
L nny
Thanks for dropping the knowledge.
But the whole thing shows you have a terrible employer, and you should get a resume done and start firing it off. Life is far too short to spend a third of it dealing with an ass clown at work.
I don't want to sound too negative about anyone who works in a comic shop, or works in retail - I worked in retail myself for many years - but in most cases, those jobs are not what you're going to be doing for the rest of your life, so when the minuses outweigh the pluses, it shouldn't be that big of a deal to just cut loose and look for something else.
Honestly, is this job really worth the headaches, or taking legal action?
e
L nny
Thanks again for taking the time to explain all that. (And not billing it!)
Now when the govt. is involved, it's a whole other story. This is YOUR govt. it has no business telling you what you can or can't say. In fact, the document that governs it's operation explicitly protects your right to say what you want. So THAT is where you're protected - and that is where it is most important for you to be protected. Because if you can't say what you want, you can't speak out against what is wrong (at least in your view).
e
L nny
And while I take the point that we shouldn't be forced to continue to employ people we don't want to employ (even if that dislike is not about their work, but about unrelated to work things, like their politics). . . somehow the behavior of this shop owner, which is not to fire someone for their activities outside of the job, but rather that THREATEN to fire for it, and therefore attempt to use the threat of termination to try to affect or control what their employee does on their own time?
Well. I suppose in the long run it is better to not even work for someone like that. I wish him hungry funnybook termites. (Or that Midtown Comics will set up a booming branch in wherever he is.) May Karma exist.
And I agree - while I hate to see ANY comic shop bite the dust, this guy's shop demise wouldn't be all that bad! (or perhaps he runs it into the ground and sell dirt cheap to a good comic shop guy who builds it into a booming concern! :^)
e
L nny