Posted on 10/28/2004 3:39:56 AM PDT by ozguy
A US airline attendant is fighting for her job after she was suspended over postings on her blog, or online diary. Queen of the Sky, otherwise known as Ellen Simonetti, evolved into an anonymous semi-fictional account of life in the sky.
But after she posted pictures of herself in uniform, Delta Airlines suspended her indefinitely without pay.
Ms Simonetti was told her suspension was a result of "inappropriate" images. Delta Airlines declined to comment
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...
I don't agree. Nobody has the "right" to work for a particular employer. She can always try to find an employer willing to let her keep her blog.
That would be like one of us getting fired because a coworker happened to see what some of us post on Free Republic.
The analogy is flawed. She posed for a cheesecake photo in what her employer considered to be an inappropriate way while wearing her employer's uniform. That's a call they get to make, and they made it. If my employer suddenly made the call that posting on FreeRepublic was cause for termination, I would be out the door the next day and would go to work for somebody else.
I'll shed no tears for her today. Let her find another job.
She better capitalize on those gams (and whatever else). She's not much in the face department, IMO. Should have kept her day job.
Who's the tomato?
I haven't been to her site, nor do I intend to go. So I will continue the fine FR tradition of posting bloviations when I have no idea what I am talking about. If her site is like most employment related sites I have seen it is a mix of salacious "true stories" about sexual exploits with a healthy dose of "my boss is an idiot". Add it general criticism of airline procedures and safety, and you have a website people will visit and run up the counter.
But I could see why that would give Delta an itchy finger on the firing hand. Posting her picture in a Delta aircraft in a Delta uniform gave them the cause.
No it wouldn't.
That dame got me off the ground faster than a lightly loaded 727 on a short runway. She had the kind of legs that made a guy want to sit on the aisle seat...
I agree with that, but once someone IS employed by a company, they shouldn't have to worry about losing their job because of what they do on their OWN personal time. Unless there was something specifically addressing something like this as cause for termination or it was something in her contract with the company, then at most, she should get a warning, and if that isn't the real reason they fired her, then somebody needs to have the guts to tell her what the real reason is.
"She posed for a cheesecake photo in what her employer considered to be an inappropriate way while wearing her employer's uniform."
Not all people automatically know what an employer might consider inappropriate. If she was not given a given a warning, her termination is at the very least, unfair.
And tell me how it's different. If someone I work with happened to look at FR to see what kind of stuff I posted, they might discover not only that I support certain political candidates, but what I think of some our departmental procedures and even, by inference, some of them. Are you saying that would give them the right to to file a grievance with my employer to have me terminated. Where the h*ll is my right to a life apart from my job? And again I ask, what would be the difference? The only difference I see is that here there are more people voicing their opinions, and on a blog there is basically just one.
It sure looks like she was on the clock when the cheesecake photo in question was taken. Unless she built a full mockup on her own dime of the passenger compartment of an aircraft at her home (which is unlikely), she was wearing the employer's uniform and presumably aboard one of the company's aircraft.
Last time I checked, Texas (her putative place of employment) is an "at-will" employment state. Except for very narrowly-defined criteria such as racial discrimination, an employer can let you go for cause, because they're having trouble meeting payroll, or because you wore brown pants to work on a particular day. There simply is no "right" to employment.
Take a look at your employee handbook. 99.9% of all companies have a clause for detrimental behavior. Positive Delta has one. No Excuses! Bye Bye!
One small problem. AIA requires the Flight Attendants to purchase their uniforms (looking for confirmation). If this is true, then they CANNOT punish her for wearing it.
She was not speaking on behalf of her employer.
AIA may be in the wrong here...
[I]"She can always try to find an employer willing to let her keep her blog."[/I]
Is it your position that an employer can control her, or any employees non-work activities that do not violate law or federal regulation?
"AIA"? I thought she worked for Delta Airlines. (But I could be mistaken).
She was not speaking on behalf of her employer.
No argument here.
AIA may be in the wrong here...
AIA (or Delta) may be. I guess we'll find out, depending on how lawyered up she gets.
Is it your position that an employer can control her, or any employees non-work activities that do not violate law or federal regulation?
There's a boilerplate "morals clause" in 99.99 percent of the employee handbooks out there. I don't think that an employer can "control her", but I also don't think that anybody has a "right" to a job. And if that photograph was taken while she was on the clock aboard a company asset, she's toast in my opinion.
Did I miss your avatar where you are in uniform on company property, or standing at your place of business smiling and waving under the corporate logo?
If I wrote "semi-fictional" stories about my workplace on Free Republic and then identified my workplace to the general public, I would fully expect my employer to fire me if they found out.
There is language in all airlines governing behavior while in uniform and she knew damn well that cheesecake pose in uniform would be cause for termination. No industry has more stringent guidelines for behavior on/off duty than the airlines.
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