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Comment by nashashmi | Hacker News Reader

One protestor was fired after interrupting a CEO's speech.

I feel like interrupting a CEO's speech at a big conference is pretty well understood to be a social indicator of a high level of insubordination. I suspect the protestor knew that too.

The consequences were appropriate, even if I might share some of the protestor's concerns.

> insubordination

Are we talking about the military or some company?

I think that term can be / is used for individuals at companies.

US corporate culture has a stronger sense of hierarchy than many other countries. It is an environment where one can get fired quickly and suddenly and that instills a lot of obedience and discipline (if not outright fear) in employees.

I don't even think you need a strong sense of hierarchy. The meaning of the word would apply anywhere.

LOL. The military isn't the only organization with a hierarchy.

You feel that being fired is an appropriate consequence to interrupting a CEO?

When doing a presentation at a big conference, yes.

If it was an open discussion in a meeting with 5 people, no.

Interrupting a speech? Yes. It demonstrates a lack of maturity, decorum, and is completely unprofessional. Someone who pulls these shenanigans is unworthy of the role they were hired for. This isn't high school anymore. They were hired to perform productive work not be disruptive and play pretend activist.

You lost me at "pretend activist". This person put their job on the line for what they believe in, and in a public enough way that complete strangers are discussing it on the internet. That's real activism.

If they don't like it, they don't have to work there.

All these people hate on their employer and customers whilst simultaneously drawing a salary.

If they put their money where their mouth is, they can all quit en masse and let the company deal with customers without employees to support.

If they don't like it, they can voice what they don't like. And that is what happened here.

In general, continuing to get paid while being disruptive and forcing them to fire you is more activist than quitting.

You are trivializing what they did. This is not that they were in a meeting with the CEO and accidentally spoke interrupting him. They started yelling disrupting the CEOs speech at a large event. Name a single company that wouldn't fire someone for that.

If I interrupt the CEOs speech at a public conference, yeah, I fully expect to get canned. It’s not like this was an internal all-hands or summat.

If I did what the protestor did at an internal all-hands or summit I would expect to get canned as well. You can't go up yelling and interrupting the CEO. In an internal all-hands/summit situation you need to maintain decorum, if you have a point you wait until a QA session, then express your displeasure.

Oh, it was an event with custoners invited? Yeah, that's grounds for dismissal anywhere, I'd think. Even in countries with strong labor laws you could just show the court the video recording of an employee doing willfull sabotage.

Half the jobs I’ve worked, I’d be immediately fired if I interrupted a CEO’s speech. The other half, I’d be in serious trouble and I’d be first on any layoff.

I know a story of a guy who got fired for just talking to the CEO of his large company!

america sounds like such a hell-hole

that would be a nice compensation package in any first world country

You’re going to base an opinion on a third-hand story? That might not even be true just to illustrate a point?

I know a guy that passed BillG in a hallway and said, “hey, Bill, how’s it hangin’?” (Saw him do it; I was mortified.) Just a bottom-tier IC at the time. 20 years later, he still works there. Still an IC, though, so make of it what you will. :-)

So there, now you have another folksy anecdote to balance things out.

Well, not quite third-hand, the guy was working in my team. But not a US company, not in the US either though.

failure to use acceptable method of interdepartmental communication ?

Oh no, is the CEO ok?

You might have 1A rights as an American but it seems to me the manner in which this person protested would be grounds for termination in many jurisdictions.

1A doesn't apply to private entities anyway. 1A protects against government prosecution for your speech, and the government may make no laws "abridging the freedom of speech."

But your employer? They can put whatever rules and restrictions they want on your speech, and with at-will employment, can fire you for any reason anyway, at anytime.

You can say whatever you want, but you aren't free from the consequences of that speech.

This comment sums up well how the spirit of the law is not being upheld, given that the biggest players in government, finance, and the corporate world are working together hand in glove.

>”Corporations cannot exist without government intervention”

>”Some privates companies and financiers are too big to fail/of strategic national importance”

>”1A does not apply to private entities (including the above)”

>”We have a free, competitive market”

I find it very difficult to resolve these seemingly contradictory statements.

Literally nothing to do with 1A

That's because 1A only has to do with a limited subset of the actual concept of freedom of speech.

And?

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