Now In Beta At Google: Microsoft-Style Hubris

You Can't Fire Me Because I'm Addicted To Sexually Explicit Chat Rooms!

from the and-now-you-owe-me-$5-million dept

Tue, Nov 21st 2006 9:32am — Mike Masnick

We've had fun over the years joking about all of the random technology-related addictions psychologists seem addicted to creating. However, it looks like some workers are trying to use these classifications to their extreme advantage. A worker who was fired from an IBM research facility for accessing a chat room that included sexually explicit content during work hours on a work machine is suing the company, claiming that it needed to be more sensitive to his internet chat addiction, which he claims is a disability just like drug or alcohol addiction. He notes that IBM offers treatment programs for such things, but didn't offer a treatment program for his internet chat addiction -- which he claims is a form of "self-medication" to deal with post traumatic stress syndrome from his time in Vietnam. Oh, and of course, the firing added to his problems, which means he believes IBM should pay him $5 million for his troubles... all because he went into a chat room on work time and participated in sexually explicit talk for the sake of "self-medication." Somehow, we think that IBM may succeed in its attempt to have this case dismissed.

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33 Comments

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Evil_Bastard, 21 Nov 2006 @ 10:01am

Offer him a choice then, his job or his nuts. Fucking tool. he is whats wrong with America. Waste of carbon.
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Ryan, 21 Nov 2006 @ 10:02am

hmm
If he was an acoholic and he left work to go to the bar... would he be protected from being fired?

Addicted or not, he wasn't working when he should have been - just like I'm doing now.

Hmm.... gotta go.
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- DittoBox, 21 Nov 2006 @ 11:08am
  
  Re: hmm
  Exactly. If you can't do your job when you're payed to do it, how is that your company's fault?
  
  Deal with your own problems, don't expect your employer to do it for you.
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SimplyGimp, 21 Nov 2006 @ 10:10am

Agree
If he were addicted to any illicit substances, he'd be canned and that would be that. Simply because it effects his job performance. Now he wants protection against being addicted to the chat rooms?

Screw that, if you don't do your damn job, you're fired. I wish us Americans had the work ethic of Japanese. We wouldn't see this bullcrap come around, though we'd see more suicides!
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Scheffy, 21 Nov 2006 @ 10:19am

Riiiiight....
So which is it: an addiction or self-medication? He's "addicted" to chat rooms, but his form of self-medication for this addiction is chatting in chat rooms. And at work, no less. Isn't it the general assumption that an addiction is to something that is affecting your well-being by getting too much of it or spending too much time doing it? So how does getting even more of it help the addiction?
So if this guy's right, I can claim to be an alcoholic, then self-medicate myself by drinking more alcohol, and if i decide to go to a bar to get my "medication" during work hours I can't get fired. Brilliant!
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Faz, 21 Nov 2006 @ 10:30am

did he not break the IT rules by accessing the material during work, same as office rules for no alcohol in office
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Lazy, 21 Nov 2006 @ 10:34am

No Work! More Pay!
Well now I have a reason to stay home and my Job to pay me for it. I'm addicted to Laziness and my post traumatic stress syndrome from a divorce causes my addiction to not wanting to goto work. So to help cure this addiction I think my job should let me stay home and pay me for doing nothing.
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ANONAMoS COWARD, 21 Nov 2006 @ 10:46am

It is IBM's Fault
They invented the PC or this would never have happened.
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- Anonymous Coward, 21 Nov 2006 @ 10:53am
  
  Re: It is IBM's Fault
  LOL! That's karma for ya.
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- HEHE, 21 Nov 2006 @ 1:49pm
  
  Re: It is IBM's Fault
  Nice one, but actually it was first and foremost NASA
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  - MELISSA, 7 Oct 2013 @ 6:07pm
    
    DREW CAREY
    I LOVE DREW CAREY
    I WILL MERRAD YOU YES I WILL
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Baddog357, 21 Nov 2006 @ 10:48am

I'm rich!!!
If this guy gets $5 mill for chatting in a sex room at work then I'm a fucking gizillionaire. Where do I get my check?

BTW SimplyGimp America is the largest producing nation in the world! Just because your company brainwashes you to believe that work is more important then family or your health doesn't mean you have a good work ethic it just means your another mindless ant serving the queen.
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Amerin, 21 Nov 2006 @ 11:40am

Does this make anyone else go hmmm
I been in many tech orientated workplaces, that block all kinds of internet based feed, from streaming music and video, chat rooms, IM's, doesn;t it strike anyone as Odd, that Uptight IBM, would not have such things blocked?

I have found in most of these cases it was just some thing that that could be used as an excuse to fire this guy. we will never know the whole story...
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Adam, 21 Nov 2006 @ 11:48am

Seinfeld or Drew Cary Episode
This would have made a great Seinfeld or Drew Carey episode.

Castanza could have been the one who decided to give it a try. Kramer would have come up with the idea and even be George's lawyer (since even in TV Land no lawyer would represent such a proposterous case), Seinfeld would have been a witness (that George has some "problem") meanwhile they're tyring to keep this all hush hush from George's parents.

I'm telling you this could have been great! Oh well... Seinfeld's off the air, and so should this guy's chances of making any money from this.

Adam
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Disgusted, 21 Nov 2006 @ 11:54am

Funny
Thing is everyone that posts here should be fired cause we all shouldn't be doing this during Bus. hrs... We are all slacking right at this moment...
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Disgusted, 21 Nov 2006 @ 11:54am

Funny
Thing is everyone that posts here should be fired cause we all shouldn't be doing this during Bus. hrs... We are all slacking right at this moment...
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- mark, 21 Nov 2006 @ 12:12pm
  
  Re: Funny
  not me... I am only wasting class time that would otherwise be spent sleeping.
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  - Disgusted, 21 Nov 2006 @ 12:19pm
    
    Re: Re: Funny
    Hell yeah kid...
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Nov 2006 @ 12:10pm

Oh good grief. ADDICTIONS ARE NEITHER DISABILITIES NOR DISEASES, YOU MORONS!!! I fail to comprehend how our society actually wants to support idiots like this, who only drag us down into their morally-bankrupt lives.

If you work at a company, you have to agree to live by their rules. If you break the rules, you are subject to discipline, up to and including termination. Take it or leave it. Anybody with half a brain knows that it's not ethically right by any standard to be on any non-work related chat rooms while at work. Nobody deserves to get paid for wasting time.
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Nov 2006 @ 1:15pm

haven't there been studies that linked alcoholism to certain genes? and if that's the case, is down's syndrome a disease? that'a a genetic defect (just like alcoholism from the study) and it's called a disease, so why no the alcoholism?

next, if employers allow workers to smoke (i.e. smoke breaks, smoking locations) why not allow for alcoholics to drink? sex addicts to have sex/porn chat? funny how you might say no to the sex/porn and alcohol, but would have no problem with the smoking. i'm not a smoker, and it sucks that i have to work a full shift, while smokers get 5 minutes every 1.5 hours they work (or else they get nic-fits) that's not fair.

so why say one addiction is ok, but another is not? if they won't let drinkers drink, and sexaddics do their thing, smokers should be banned too. equal treatment. that's all.
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- DJ Twizted, 21 Nov 2006 @ 7:02pm
  
  Re:
  man are you retarded. You get the same breaks as those workers do too. YOU choose not to take them. And I believe YOU agree to the policy of no alcohol when working. Lets get toasted and tell our customer to fuck off then try to hug them in appology because wer are lit. I'm glad idiots like you don't make the rules. Your logic of thinking is so skewed that you would probably bitch about child porn being ok next. Next time you have a comment you think is inteligent...don't bother. Expecially if you can't even put a name. Go lay by your dish moron.
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  - Anonymous Coward, 22 Nov 2006 @ 5:36am
    
    Re: Re:
    yeah, i'm retarded. good one. it's not that i choose not to take breaks, it's that i DON'T get them. because i don't smoke, i don't get breaks.
    
    about blazing up and being stoned out of your mind talking to customers, WTF? i never mentioned illegal drugs. Alcohol is legal. Pornography is legal.
    
    now, why are certain vices "ok in the workplace" while others aren't? smoking is just as dangerous as drinking alcohol. porn can damage a company as quickly as drunkards answering the phone. come on...
    
    i put a name, you dumbass. why don't you leave an email? oh yeah, that's right. you don't want to be bothered. same here.
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    - DJ Twizted, 22 Nov 2006 @ 8:15am
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      That's right. It's your story, you tell it as big as you want. You have such a problem with your fellow coworkers then bring it to the boss. Oh thats right you're a pussy.
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- ebrke, 22 Nov 2006 @ 7:22am
  
  Re:
  Mainly because smoking doesn't make people unfit to do their jobs--alcohol, on the other hand, does.
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Paul, 21 Nov 2006 @ 2:49pm

Employment Laws
Employers in California are required to give employees a certain amount of 10-15 minute breaks depending on their work shift. These breaks are when smokers are supposed to have their "smoke break" although I've worked at more than one establishment that gave smokers more breaks than they are supposed to have. These 10-15 minute breaks are when the "addict" can go endulge in whatever.

Does the company have a rule about no sex chat or porn on their machines? Better being a laptop.
Do they have a rule about no sex chat or porn being downloaded on their internet connection? Better get one of those cellphone-internet cards for the laptop.

If the guy was doing this on company time (not on a break) and the company had rules set against it then he should be fired. If he truly had a problem and he feels he needs special attention for it then he should have brought it up before his employers previously and made a case of it then, BEFORE he got fired for it.
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DJ Twiztid, 21 Nov 2006 @ 3:56pm

Most companies have a zero tolerance policy for graphic content. I worked for a major company that needed access to the internet for research. I fired many people for "endulging" or "self medicating" their perverted needs. It's spelled out in the employee hand book and drilled in your skull during training. Only one fought me firing her for looking at porn during work hours. Yeah that's right I said her. It was a simple open shut case. It was spelled out and I caught her looking at lesbian porn. Gawd that's hott. But doesn't make it right. Rules are there for the prudes of America to get their way. To bad I had to fire her...she was definitly eye candy. But I do agree with the company in this battle. You're there to do a job. Chatting in a room while we are paying you for it does give you the right to get fired. We are paying these people to do the job we expect. Not get paid for screwing around. Speaking of which I need to get back to work before my boss get's home. Damn midget porn is everywhere...anyone know how to delete from ie.5content folder?!

Just kidding. I love being the boss of an iT firm.
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- Yakumo, 22 Nov 2006 @ 5:45am
  
  Re:
  yes, you clearly are the boss not one of the workers or you'd have known it's content.IE5 ! lol
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  - DJ Twizted, 22 Nov 2006 @ 8:12am
    
    Re: Re:
    Way to fine the sarcasim and misread it there bud. But it's funny none the less. Take it you never talked to the public when they think they knew what they were talking about. I get that more often then you think. But way to keep on the ball!
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Pete Carr, 21 Nov 2006 @ 9:39pm

There are plenty of chat rooms targeting Vietnam Veterans, depression and PTSD. Why did he chose a chat room that was sexually oriented rather than one that would offer real help?

Case dismissed due to lack of intelligence on the part of the plaintiff.
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Nov 2006 @ 9:40pm

Geeeeeeeez, people are PANSIES nowadays. I mean COME ON! Where's your integrity? It's like anybody can sue anybody for amount of stress they recieve.

I'm just waiting for the day when I can sue the punks who would pick on me back in elementary school for causing me emotional stress back then.

Sheesh...gimme' a friggin break.
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Donald Duck, 22 Nov 2006 @ 1:18am

He got it all wrong
They fired him because he was an idiot talking about sex at work which could have offended a female employee, which could have been his boss.
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Anonymous Coward, 22 Nov 2006 @ 8:31am

pussy? is that what you come upw with? boy aren't you a big boy? throwing around words like that. i bet you are one bad ass mofo, am i right?

having a cig in your hand or mouth is just as dangerous as a drunk on the job. there is possibility for accidents. (just a thought) also, i've seen smokers who complain more than working because they don't have their smoke. nic-fits reduce productivity.

as for sarcasim, it's hard to distinguish here in print. no other indicators to alarm that something might be offkey.

get your story straight pal.

i bet you have a huge harley and a huge truck, just to prove "you're the man"

good job pal. i'll enjoy my job, while you cry alone at night because no one loves you for "who you are"
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Anonymous Cow Word, 23 Nov 2006 @ 11:15am

Story like this two years ago, but it was a joke t
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/07/29/bofh_2004_episode_24/

The Bastard Operator From Hell, in this story, blamed the company for getting him addicted to porn. It was a funny story. Amazing that someone is trying it for real.
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