#FHRITP

That hash tag comes from an incident that happened at a Toronto FC game last week where a bunch of drunk guys were shouting shit at a female reporter. Specifically, the phrase "fuck her right in the pussy" was mentioned. This was caught on camera, broadcast and the reporter went on to say that it made her feel threatened and unsafe. The Toronto FC came back with a statement that said if they identified the men in question, they would be banned for life from Toronto FC events.

Anyway, one of the guys who was on camera worked for Hydro One and was identified by coworkers. He has since lost his >$100K/yr job because his behaviour was "not in line with the Hydro One code of ethics". Begging the question...

Focus: This guy wasn't some celebrity or sports figure. He's just some guy on the street who had a few beers and thought he was being funny, and now he's unemployed. Is that how we are now, your employer has the right to fire you over the behaviour you exhibit on your own time? Do I no longer have a right to my own time without worrying that my actions may cost me my job? Was Hydro One in the right to bend to popular opinion and fire him or have they overstepped their bounds as his employer?

 

Aye. It's easy to see why he was fired. No business wants that kind of media attention. Want to keep your job? Don't "harass" a woman on live TV where people can identify you. On one hand, it's stupid to ruin your life over a really lame joke not intended to contain any real malice. On the other hand events like this should force people to be more creative. If anything this guy should have been canned for being a hack.

Now, what if he made these remarks to a female co-worker after hours? Still think he should keep his position?

It's also funny that if Hydro One waited a week, the entire thing would be forgotten. The saving grace to this fuckshit shaming culture is the people involved in it are too flakey to care more than a few days. Or until the next outrage pops up.

So what if it wasn't a sports figure. Think about it, Charles Barkley probably would have been canned if he was playing today. And Mickey Mantle? Dude played pretty much every game between 1955 and 1965 completely shit housed. My God, think of the chilrins! These guys aren't Pat Tillman. Let them get crusty, makes for a better legend.

 

Yes.

Feel free to do whatever you like. Always be prepared to accept the consequences.

The framing of the question is, of course, implies in its asking that they a)bent to opinion and 2)overstepped. I don't know enough about what the opinions were to know if they bent. (Although, since Jameis Winston said that and got suspended for it, it's not like Hyrdo One was setting any precedents.) But, they didn't overstep their bounds.

Hydro One, just like the fhritp employee has to be willing to also accept the consequences of their actions, though. They must weigh the risks of losing a good employee (?), possible public backlash that they were too harsh, litigation from the employee, etc.

 

I feel like if you're not actively representing your company, it's a bit weak for them to can you over doing something that's legal. At the same time, I don't have sympathy for drunk idiots.

I think it'd be funny if guys started mimicking the phrase, super aggressively, with something sweet. "Hug her right in the torso!" or "Love her right in the heart!", and see what happens.

Or if girls started saying "Fuck her right in the pussy." That'd be hilarious.

 

I don't know if I necessarily agree with him being fired, as he wasn't representing Hydro One at the time, he isn't a public facing Hydro One executive, and the only tie to him and the company was his coworkers narc'ing on him. I get it when its public figures who directly represent their employers, but here it was a bit soft.

As for the reporter, I don't really know about feeling unsafe and threatened, but I absolutely applaud her for going after these unfunny idiots. Its beyond tired and played out at this point. Their defense was even stupider and less funny that the original videobomb. Drunk verbal muscles like you read about.

Finally, I need to move to Canada and work for Hydro One if they are paying 6 figures for mental midgets like this. Not that we haven't always been the best decision makers when inebriated, but he genuinely seemed like an absolute moron.

 

Random drunk dude yells FHRITP, gets fired from his job.

Jameis Winston yells FHRITP, goes #1 in the NFL draft.

 

That was painfully unfunny.

But, no, he shouldn't be fired. No, companies shouldn't give a flying fuck what you do in your off hours. Yes, it's only going to become more common.

On another note can we drop the part where we care whether a woman 'feels' threatened, unsafe, uncomfortable, etc. I don't give a fuck if someone feels threatened unless they actually were.

 

How are we supposed to develop a soccer - sorry, football - culture in North America if soccer hooligans are going to get fired from their jobs?

Also...

It does not beg the question.

 

Companies hire people for one reason: to help them make money. If you do anything at anytime that effects how much money you help them make, they will give a flying fuck. Whether or not it was a fireable offense, or whether or not this in some way effected or potentially effected their bottom line is for them to decide. Since it got him fired, it's possible he was already a shitty employee. If he was worth anything to them, they could've just disciplined him in some way with a pay dock or decrease, note in his file or whatever. They could've then released a public statement that indicated he had been disciplined if they were worried about their image.

I have hired people. I have interviewed candidates that were remarkably similar in every way on their resumes. But, I hired the one that I thought had better character. If you do shitty stuff when you're off the clock, as an owner, why wouldn't I expect you to do shitty stuff when you're on the clock? "Hey, man, I lie and steal and cheat (or denigrate women) when I'm in my off hours, but I'm totally solid (and not sexist at all) at work." Right.

 

Nope. Can't see why it'd bother you either, unless you're the type that wants the ability to go around and make misogynistic threats against women without any consequences.

 

Sometimes, it's difficult to tell the difference between a guy who is saying something to be funny and a guy who genuinely would like to do the things he says and may go as far as to force himself on you in order to fulfill his wishes. That's what it means when a woman says she "feels" threatened, unsafe, or uncomfortable. This is not an accusation on the man as an individual. This is something that women are taught from the time they hit puberty. We are given speeches about not walking alone a night because the night is filled with rapists just waiting to pull you into an alley, being careful of the way we dress because the young man sitting next to you in math class might not be able to pay attention when he can see your back and shoulders, and to not get too drunk in public because someone might take advantage of you. I am not saying these things to accuse you of anything. I just think it's important to understand this particular side of the argument.

 

I agree with this. If a guy is treating me like a human being I don't go around assuming he has ulterior motives. I'm talking about guys who say shit like "fuck her right in the pussy" and then are surprised when a woman feels threatened. In the context of the constant warnings I have outlined in my first post, statements like that are genuinely terrifying. The people telling young women these things aren't innocent in this scenario. It leads to terrified young women and frustrated young men. It can also be argued that these warnings are necessary because there are people out there who take advantage of drunk girls and assault women who go out after dark. In that case, the solution is a complete cultural shift that eliminates these threats. It's a really elaborate issue with no easy fix.

 

Generally speaking, people don't have the right to feel comfortable. Thats not to say that they aren't allowed to be comfortable. But its not my job to make sure your feefees don't get hurt. I've noticed the last few years that people are becoming more and more sensitive to inane bullshit and trying to force people to adhere to language and thought policing the moment a group of angry-about-nothing people(with an obvious and biased agenda) feel that the asshole of the moment needs to publicly apologize and be shamed.

I think the FHRITP joke is stupid. But I also think playing the "makes me feel threatened and uncomfortable" card is used way too often and with little cause. If you need your "safe space" with no trigger warnings where everyone is living in some sanitized bubble complete with thought policing, I'm sure theres a feminist blog with your name on it. And I'm sure you have an awesome sense of humor too.

As for that guy losing his job...

Theres nothing that says he can't lose his job for what he says or a stupid thing he does. It just means he can't be criminally prosecuted for it unless he commits an actual crime. We can thank the internet army for that. In order for a company to save face sometimes, they have to remove the problem, regardless of how the information surfaced or how stupid the thing was.

 

Fair point and this wasn't the best example for me to bring that up, but the dongle joke we discussed recently comes to mind. Granted that was at a conference, but I would say it still fits.

 

I'm of two minds about trigger warnings. On the one hand, everyone has their crosses to bear in life and I think anyone who's seen tragic or traumatic things has certain things that remind them of those difficult times, and people can be unintentionally cruel when casually discussing or making jokes about certain subjects. I can't tell you how many times a day people joke about wanting to blow their brains out when it's a rough day at the office, and this is a workplace that's had a suicide in the last year - some of us remember more than others. And so when I read sensationalist news articles that discuss sexual assault in unnecessary detail, I consider that there are a number of people out there (more than we'd like to admit) who are victims of sexual assault and who are made particularly uncomfortable by these news articles, or jokes, or offhand comments, and this is made worse when you consider that there's really no need for it. So in that way I am more sensitive than I used to be about it, and consider that there are a number of subjects that understandably bring up a significant amount of pain for some people and unless I have a darn good reason for it, there's simply no need to talk about - say - dead children, because you never know who's listening, especially in a workplace.

On the other hand, you have stories like this where law students are protesting including the subject of sexual assault in the curriculum, and one student told her professors that they mustn't include phrases such as "does this violate the law?" on an exam because the world "violate" is a trigger. I hate to say it, but them's the breaks. If you're suffering so much that you can't bear to read the word "violate", you need to take some time out, find a therapist, and focus on getting better. Asking people to refrain from intentionally hurtful statements is one thing, but you can't have the whole world accommodate itself to you. A germophobe doesn't get to show up to a microbiology class and ask the professor to not discuss bacteria.

 

But why do we as a society accept this? Why are we always so concerned to protect the rights, privileges, and feelings of shitheads? It's like every time something like this happens, where some asshole gets called out on his assholish behavior and suffers some consequences there's always an uproar over whether or not it was right that he got punished. Why don't we even consider the idea that people should have the right to be treated with dignity?