Thread: Packers necktie gets car salesman fired

Originally Posted by dabears54

Packers necktie gets car salesman fired

January 24, 2011 10:15 PM | 8 Comments

By Dawn Rhodes

John Stone said that when he went to work Monday morning at Webb Chevrolet in Oak Lawn, he decided to wear a Green Bay Packers tie he's had for years to honor his late grandmother, a huge Packers fan.

Little did he know that the seemingly innocent gesture would cost him his job, Stone said. Stone said that when he showed up at work, general manager Jerry Roberts called him over to his office and then ordered him to take off the Packers tie or else he would be fired. Stone said he thought Roberts was joking and went back to work.
An hour later, Stone said, Roberts came to the showroom floor and again demanded he take off the tie. When he didn't, he was fired, Stone said.

vid:

http://www.chicagobreakingsports.com...man-fired.html

Oak Lawn was my hometown when I lived in Illinois. The moral of this story is; "Never fvck around with a Southsider, especially if you're a Packer Fan. LMAO!!!

Originally Posted by BearFan51

Loki, I've been in the position of having been wrongfully terminated, and the onus is 100% on the employee to prove.(hint=very difficult)

You must have missed my comment about the use of the word "competition" being a poor choice.



This was the main point. The guy should have better picked his battles. The end.

This is the first time that I've read this entire post so I haven't seriously commented on it as of yet. While there are valid points on each side, and I believe that the salesman will find an attorney willing to take the case if he decides to pursue it, when it comes right down to it what BF51 has posted is essentially correct.

I live in Colorado, which is an at-will employement state as well. When an employee is asked to perform a task even as little as to just make an adjustment in his or her attire, unless what is being asked is either physically impossible or illegal, if that employeee refuses any employer has the right to fire the employee for insubordination. Here is one of my own experiences with just such a thing.

Some years ago while doing contract work for a large insurance brokerage firm they sponsored a golf outing for it's agents and the firms corporate and high net worth clients. One of the agents showed up wearing a golf shirt with the logo of an annuity company which the firm did not promote or even have the ablility to sell. The firms GM politely asked the agent to remove the shirt and asked that he wear the one he was given promoting this firms chosen annuity products. The agent (an independent contractor) was offended and claimed that because he was an independent contractor he was free to promote or sell any annuity product he chose. Naturally he wore the shirt all day even though he was playing with some of the firms best customers.

Needless to say, his status as an independent contractor was terminated the following day. He filed suit for the wrongful termination of his contract and lost. The court held that even though he would ordinarily be entitiled to dress in any fitting manner that he chose when working independently, in this instance he was attending a company sponsored event representing the company and expected to represent the company and the annuity products it promoted in a professional manner. So obviously promoting the annuity products of another did not meet those criteria.

The court also held that any act by him, in any capacity, as a representative of the firm that may have resulted in a potential loss of income, good reputation or caused an embarassment to the firm was just cause for the legal termination of the contract. The sidebar to this is that this decisions also opened him up to a countersuit by the firm for his actions based on the above.

I don't know exactly how closely the employment laws of Illinois compare or contrast with those of Colorado but if I were this guy I'd sure investigate them thoroughly before he files a suit from which the tables may turned on him with a countersuit filed by the Webb dealership. He was asked by his boss to comply with a simple request which he knew to be reasonable if he at all considered the potential impact the tie may have had on the dealerships business and reputation. By refusing he essentially caused potential harm in both of these ways and most states would find the termination legal and that his actions caused potential damage which means he could be sued instead.

I comment on this through what knowledge I have of these situations gained as compliance manager and HR representative in the financial services for over 20 years. My personal opinion however is what kind of an idiot would do what he did claiming it was to honor his dead grandma (doesn't pass the smell test to me). Then he refused a direct order from his boss of a Chicagoland auto dealership to remove a Packer tie claiming he thought the guy was joking (that doesn't pass the smell test either). How could he not know that wearing that tie would probably rub salt into most Bears fans wounds following the loss to the Packers? Did he think that most of Webb's customers were Packers fans and would appreciate the gesture?

Anybody who's that inconsiderate and stupid would get fired from any company I owned as well!

You're a compliance manager in the financial services industry? And here I used to like you...

Originally Posted by blinddeafmute

You're a compliance manager in the financial services industry? And here I used to like you...

I didn't come from the legal department like a lot of compliance officers. I was a producer as well so my understanding of what it's like to be self-employed and in field always tempered my judgement. The whole thrust of a good compliance officer should not be to prevent production but only to keep the producers from getting sued or sanctioned.

I'm not Wall Street oriented, I'm Main Street oriented. Some of the utter crap that I've seen come down from the big Wall Street houses in the last few years though should have landed a shit load of people in jail. I've been on the sidelines for over two years because of it. Some of that shit and the fallout cost me my job when companies had to cut back.

I'm just giving you a hard time. I'm a producer myself, and compliance can really make it hard for me to do my job sometimes.

Originally Posted by blinddeafmute

I'm just giving you a hard time. I'm a producer myself, and compliance can really make it hard for me to do my job sometimes.

I knew that BDM. Nice to have a brother financial advisor around. DB54 put his time in there as well. Sorry about your issues with your compliance boys. I had my share issues with them over the years as well so I decided if I couldn't beat then I'd join them. I tried never to block a deal but since I'd learned to document everything in order to keep my ass out of trouble I pretty much required them to do the same.