Fired for downloading OpenOffice.org
On my second day in a new job as a tech support person, I started a download of OpenOffice.org, a free alternative to Microsoft Office. Midway through the process, the system administrator came up to me and asked what I was downloading. When I told him, he stated that “we use Microsoft Office. We sell software, and we support other software publishers.”
I’m not one to take dictation from anyone, and our disagreement became rather noisy and ugly. This was on a Tuesday. Two days later, my boss called me into a conference room and fired me. Why he didn’t fire me immediately? Because he sent an email asking me to talk with him to the wrong email address, and because he chose not to sacrifice a day working at home on the Wednesday.
This post was submitted by Tim Carmell.
May 6th, 2010 at 6:18 am
Three days? That’s not laid off, that’s FIRED. Maybe you should consider ‘taking dictation’ from the people that sign your paychecks.
May 8th, 2010 at 6:55 pm
You basically committed suicide here with your attitude concerning how you are “not one to take direction from anyone.”
Get a clue from this–you are working FOR THEM, not the other way around. They have rules, and you need to follow those rules and not throw a hissy just because their requirements as an employer don’t match up with your pre-concieved notions of how things should be done.