Adam Smith appears to have been caught on the wrong side of supply side economics. After the chief financial officer posted a video (below) of himself confronting a minimum wage worker at a drive thru window, his Tucson medical manufacturing company Vante fired him. The question is whether a protest that occurs outside business hours should be the grounds for dismissal.
Smith drove up to order a free cup of water to harass the company for its position on gay rights. In picking up the water, he proceeded to lecture the young person in window.
Most people agree that Smith was being a bit of a jerk to dress down the young lady in the drive thru. After all, this is not her policy and she remained calm and polite through the confrontation. I thought it was a bit boorish and if anything was likely to incur more sympathy for the company. I am not sure what Smith thought he was achieving by first lecturing the worker and then posting it on YouTube. I found it a bit over-the-top for a CFO of a company to tell a minimum wage worker that “I don’t know how you live with yourself and work here.”
It appears that CEO Roger Vogel had equal problems with the encounter and cashiered Smith. Vogel stressed “we hope that the general population does not hold Mr. Smith’s actions against Vante and its employees.” Smith had already removed the video before his termination but it did not help.
We have been dealing with an array of cases where employees — often public employees like teachers and police officers — are fired for their outside activities and associations. It is a highly problematic trend.
I tried to find how Smith was identified as part of this company. That would seem a key issue. If the company fired him upon learning of his participation in a protest, it would raise many of the same issues in the prior cases. Yet, from the company’s standpoint, he elected to post the video and, in so doing, threatened a backlash against the company. It is simple business. The company did not want to lose customers based on the conduct of one of its employees. From a free speech angle, private companies are not limited by the first amendment in such actions since the Constitution protects us against government denials of free speech. However, there remains the public policy question of the right of employees to engage in expressive speech. As a senior member of the company, Vogel clearly views this action as threatening a serious backlash from customers.
What do you think?
Source: Fox
I did wonder if he was at least closet gay. He made such a point of telling the girl that he was completely heterosexual.
As against that, he didn’t inquire where the water was still or sparkling. (Note: I’m just stirring it here 🙂
Speaking of stirring, I read “Chick fil a” and somehow a little voice says “Fill a chick”. Maybe it’s all that biblical begatting with their first (and only) wives.
Anyhoo, I think they fired him because his jerkiness became overly obvious. Whatever about public opinion of the company, any festering discontent amongst his underlings would have been brought to the boil.
Maybe they fired him because he was gay. If he was in a protected grouping and complained about prejudice against the protected group, then the firing would be seen as employment discrimination based on race, sex, ethnic group, but here Vance is free to fire him for his off the job rant against Chicks at the Filet. The person at the drive up window was stellar. The Klan meets at the Chic Fil A in my neck of the woods to discuss strategy. It is a nice, safe environment for them.
The really interesting question here is why Vante had to wait until this incident before getting rid of him.
It would be bad enough having someone who behaves like this as a work colleague. Having them in a position of authority would be a nightmare.
Yes. I know that such people are in positions of authority all over the world.
It’s just interesting the the “good guys” can’t get rid of them.
gbk,
I see it as part of the anti-intellectualism encouraged by fascists and others interested in dumbing down Americans to further their oligarchical and tyrannical agendas.
gbk,
It is the old theme..greed is good. At least for some.
Get out the pistols and shoot at the branch.
Gene,
The most insidious Propaganda at work … as gbk wrote, “ignorance being lauded as wisdom”.
Blouise,
Thank you. I missed your succinct opinions in my brief two week hiatus.
Had to clear my head out, went to the woods and fasted, read much, and thought for two weeks. There has to be another model of human cooperation than what we are experiencing now. There has to be, because there is really no other option in the end except cooperation.
Gene,
“Some people are simply better at ignoring cognitive dissonance than others, be it through their innate ability to be willfully ignorant, lack of ability to cogitate or simply being psychologically and emotionally comfortable with contradiction as long as they benefit or think it successfully rationalizes their devotion to greed and selfishness as a virtue.”
Obviously. My concern is that ignorance is being lauded as wisdom; that we as a species are ignoring the long and hard won history that brought us all to this moment in time. We are pissing on the brilliance of human thought at its apex.
I despair due to this.
gbk,
Some people are simply better at ignoring cognitive dissonance than others, be it through their innate ability to be willfully ignorant, lack of ability to cogitate or simply being psychologically and emotionally comfortable with contradiction as long as they benefit or think it successfully rationalizes their devotion to greed and selfishness as a virtue.
“American fool; unaware that the quality of your life is sustained by war, blood, and economic deceptions at the expense of others.” (gbk)
Those are some of the truest words ever written on this blog and I would entitle it: “The Real American Dream”.
Right on, gbk, honest to God, right on.
umm.. because i don’t minister. but i have given food, water and clothing to those who needed it.
Bron,
“As far as binary thinking? Color me black and white.”
I’m not surprised at this proud trumpeting of your inability to consider shades between the extremes of human thought.
As you said here:
http://jonathanturley.org/2012/04/17/appellate-judge-writes-opinion-denouncing-limits-on-cowboy-capitalism/#comment-362635
you think, “[t]he Enlightenment is fading.”
This is only so because you, and many others of your ilk, see no other options but the zero-sum of cultural encounters, and if one doesn’t think like you they are fools.
There are seven+ billion people on the planet now — if you expect all to adhere to an economic system that you subscribe to without dissent then you need to do much better with your arguments as they can’t be based on hamburgers, lasik surgery, or illusions of “free market” when this phrase means privatization and exploitation to many.
You strike me as an American fool; unaware that the quality of your life is sustained by war, blood, and economic deceptions at the expense of others.
Pete
They sure would be. However, since you seem to notice those who are homeless, why don’t You make that Your ministry.
huuf arted
if you’re going to post contact info for others why don’t you post your contact #’s below it.
just for fairness, doncha know
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i wonder if chik-fil-eh would be so kind with free ice water on a hot day to a noticeably homeless person.
This guy demonstrated to America the kindness of Chick Fil A workers.
Bron,
“I did not change the subject, I merely used an example.”
A fabrication of dentists and child molestation — this is not an example; this is fantastical hyperbole not based on any real world facts.
Your incessant inability to discuss/argue positions without digressing to simple and usually false scenarios that you invent out of whole cloth is something you should consider.
“And no I have not changed my mind about wall st., they provide a necessary service although they could do it with more transparency and honesty. But then their lack of those virtues probably stems from immaturity.”
Transparency is not a virtue. Honesty is, but this seems lacking from both our government and Wall Street in our present times; don’t you agree? And would you also agree that the lack of “virtue” stems from greed not immaturity?
As usual, you miss the point of my postings — have you integrated your new-found perception of Wall Street being, “a bunch of immature jack wads” with your beliefs of free markets?
Because it’s difficult to believe in free markets and at the same time refer to the arbiters of said as, “immature jack wads.”
Just curious, really, in how you reconcile the obvious contradictions of your world view.
As Americans, we have very few legal protections for our jobs, He was justly fired by Vogel in accordance with a written company policy. Smith is a sanctimonious a-hole and certainly deserved to be fired. Why he chose to display his own intolerance so publicly can only be described as well… Idiotic.
If he treats other companies low level employees this way one can only imagine how he treats his own employees. Like Jo said, he should have asked for a manager; managers get paid to take s*** both coming down from above and from the bottom up, that’s their major job. Nobody works in fast-food unless they need the job and the lowest level of worker having to listen to complaints that only the highest level of management can resolve (if they so choose) is just cruel. Has he never heard the response, ‘sorry, that’s above my pay grade’?
Here’s a look at the controversy from some of the minimum wage workers:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/01/chick-fil-a-anti-gay-controversy-employees-speak-out_n_1729968.html?tw_p=twt
E Nowak doing his Oliver Stone conspiracy theory smear. Very intelligent.
gbk:
I did not change the subject, I merely used an example.
And no I have not changed my mind about wall st., they provide a necessary service although they could do it with more transparency and honesty. But then their lack of those virtues probably stems from immaturity.
As far as binary thinking? Color me black and white.