IBM Sued for Firing Alleged Internet Addict 341
globring sent us a link to a CNN article covering a trial with a unique defense. James Pacenza, a 58 year old Alabama man, has been fired from his position at IBM for visiting adult sites during working hours. The man is now suing the company for $5 Million, alleging that he is an internet addict. The plaintiff claims he visits these sites as a way of dealing with traumatic stress incurred in the Vietnam War. He claims that while he is addicted to sex and the internet, he never visited adult sites at work. Age-related issues, he says, are the cause of his filing. IBM, on its part, says that Pacenza was warned during a similar incident several months ago. Pacenza denies this as well.
Unique Defense? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:WTF? (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course, either way, this guy is screwed: it's not illegal discrimination to fire someone for mental issues, especially when they affect work performance or atmosphere. The whole point of anti-discrimination laws is to stop people from firing others for stuff that doesn't affect those things.
Just to move away from the precise issue for the (Score:3, Interesting)
On the current criteria, I'm slightly bemused as to why 'being thick' isn't allowed to count. It's not your fault, it puts you at a disadvantage, you can't change it etc.
Could anybody tell me why it's OK to discriminate against people being stupid in the workplace, but it's not if the mental/physical disability has a nice name?
Re:Someone's lying here... (Score:5, Interesting)
Addition to not working | un-workaholism (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Frivolous suits (Score:4, Interesting)
The law may not define alcoholism as a disease, however, Merriam Webster defines the word as follows:
2 : a condition of the living animal or plant body or of one of its parts that impairs normal functioning and is typically manifested by distinguishing signs and symptoms : SICKNESS, MALADY
3 : a harmful development (as in a social institution)
As for 2, alcohol is known to encourage the release of endorphins and dopamine, and I'm sure you know the functions of both. At some point, without alcohol, one cannot keep endorphin and dopamine levels high enough during sobriety to function correctly, ie, with a clear mind and without physical tremors.
As for 3, alcoholism causes many problems, what with decreased economic productivity, many many many problems in the family, and increased burden on the health system, regardless of whether the alcoholic has a job or not: If he does, it increases health insurance premiums, if he does not, it increases stress on government- and institutionally-funded health care programs.
Alcoholism IS a disease, being a drunk is not. There is a point of no return for a drunk, however, and THAT is when it becomes a disease.
Re:What about visiting Bible sites or /.? (Score:3, Interesting)
So the boss is the boss, right?
By your logic, the company could also legitimately discriminate on the basis of politics, colour or religion. After all, it's their computer, right?
Hmm, our logs say you visited a Hindu website last month. Sorry, this is a Lutheran workplace; you're fired for abuse of work resources.
If an employer wants to make a rule that work computers can only be used for work, then fine. If an employer wants to make a rule that you can't stop work to read a newspaper at work, then fine. But if they start applying these unevenly, allowing employees to waste time all day on personal e-mails, irrelevant websites and tabloid newspapers, and then only jump on the employee visiting a site or reading a paper they don't like, then that's illegitimate control.
There is another aspect too: I used to work for Coca-Cola Italy. There a top-ranking manager told me that logs indicating visits to porn sites were something they specifically trawled for and then kept on file. Then, later in that person's career, if the company wanted to give him the boot without the usual legal and financial hassles, they could simply declare they had just discovered the logs, and according to the employment contract the guy's job was immediately terminated.
Re:Someone's lying here... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What about visiting Bible sites or /.? (Score:2, Interesting)
This kind of shit disgusts me. I started working in a steel mill in Buffalo in the 1950s. You should have heard some of the stuff that basically everyone there would say. It was some of the raunchiest, dirtiest, filthiest motherfucking stuff that you could ever imagine.
But you know what? Nobody went stupid about it, and got "offended". Yeah, you'd hear things that you didn't like to think about. People would say mean things. But like the old saying goes, sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. I'd like to extend it beyond words, to pornographic pictures on a co-workers computer. You may not like seeing a woman getting bukkaked or taking four dicks at once. But even if you do see such an image, it won't hurt you.
In any case, it's disgraceful that the typical American workplace has become so sanitized and pussified. Not speaking your mind is not what America is about. America is about saying it as it is, even if it makes some people feel like crap. America is about freedom of expression. My father took bullets in France so that people 60 years later could speak their mind whenever they wanted, and not so they could go to work everday in fear of saying the wrong thing or looking at the wrong web site.
I'm damn glad I'm retired. I'm sure I'd get in a whole heap of shit for pointing out the stupidity of subordinates, or just for looking at some good, wholesome titty on my lunch break.
Re:Might have a Case with the punishment different (Score:3, Interesting)
The first would, under the policies that IBM seems to be following in this case, result in first a warning (possibly a transfer at the same time to avoid sexual harrasment issues with employees who witnessed the act) and then termination, if the behavior continued. The second would likely result in prosecution by local authorities. The third generally results in transfer regardless of where any supporting acts occurred, in order to eliminate the conflict. It would also probably constitute a warning, so if they break up and one of them ends up in a similar relationship with a superior/subordinate it's the boot...
IANAL, this is all rational inferrence from my own companies manuals and sexual harrasment training (yes, thats what it was called, and yes, it should have had 'recognition and prevention' in the title to accurately represent it's content).
Re:Someone's lying here... (Score:3, Interesting)
And you're mssing the disadvantage of DB pensions, which is that this benefit is pretty ill-defined.
If I make it 20 years, I won.
More like, "If your employer doesn't fire you to dodge paying benefits when you inevitably get to the point where the pension is worth more than the value of your additional labor AND the pension is fully funded and never raided", you won. Looking at the last 30 years, those are bigger if's than you may have thought.
Now, I would want to be working for something as huge and conservative as IBM to know that my company won't be bought out and my pension fund raided, but that is a side issue.
A side issue? Not really. It's the central issue. You're relying on the money being there, and it can disappear based on managerial incompetence. How do you know which companies are going to screw it up, in advance? The steel companies and airlines were "huge and conservative". What happeend to their pensions? If you don't have control over the account, don't expect it to be there.
That is how society worked years ago. People got a job and kept it for 20 years. I think we should go back to doing that. Find a good company and stick with it for a lifetime.
I can understand why someone would want to work for a company for his lifetime. I cannot understand why someone would want to have the option of leaving severely punished so that his employer can treat him like dirt as his magic year approaches.
Here's what I would have done if I were an employer 50 years ago: Offer a huge pension with zero vestiture until 65, at which point it kicks in 100%. Oh, and fire anyone right before 65.
Cause apparently, people fell for that.
I feel bad for people who find a company that's worth spending 20 years working for, yet has to fill out the 401k paperwork every year.
Yeah, I'm sorry that responsibility for your own life comes with so much of that dreaded paperwork. The lifetime paperwork involved in 401k plans is probably 1/20th of a mortgage application, but I guess the later is different because that's "the American way".
And if you're at the same company, there is no new 401k paperwork each year, so I'm not sure what you're talking about. You mean rebalancing? There are target date funds in which you don't have to rebalance. Even so, 15 minutes every year could never hold a candle to mortgage/home-ownership paperwork.