Getting sacked for disagreeing with your boss f'rinstance.
Disagreeing with your boss? Or not doing what your boss says to do?
Both. I know a lady who was a disability advocate, basically a lawyer fighting for the rights of those with physical and/or mental disabilities: autism, PTSD, deafness, missing limbs, etc. She was fired from that job, a job she'd had for, as I understand it, most of her working life, because she dared question the morality of a decision made by someone that outranked her. Management, in many cases, has it in their head that any questioning of their decisions is a direct threat to their authority, a threat that must be dealt with quickly and brutally, to keep the peasants in line. I mean, after all, we should be
grateful that they give us a means to live in the first place. Who are we to question our betters?
Because most bosses I've worked for have no problem with disagreements. Pull them aside and say Hey Boss, I don't think this is right because of reasons. Most of the time, I've had it explained to me why. Pretty simple really, workers work better when they know why they're doing whatever.
You have, at least from what I've gathered, been quite lucky, then. The "loser dickhead boss" trope is common for a reason, after all.
Not doing it anyways comes dangerously close to insubordination. Now sure, I can't go to my social media site of choice and start blasting the company I work for. I signed a piece of paper saying as much when I was hired. I want their money, I follow their rules. Same reason I wear a shirt and shoes when I pop into the Kwiki Mart for a soda and a pack of cigarettes. I fail to see a problem with that. To that, we have a department who's sole job is to look at situations and see what rules and laws may have been violated. HR they're called. And at any point if anyone feels they were not treated right we can register a complaint with them and they talk to everyone who was involved, anyone who saw what happened, security cameras, and if there are any party problems with either party.
HR is basically the arm of corporate. In my experience, as well as what I've heard and gathered from others, they aren't there to help unless the problem directly affects the company's bottom line, somehow. So, your meathead coworker being a dickweed jock will only get a slap on the wrist, if that, whereas said jock sexually harassing Jan from accounting will have him in sensitivity classes and/or outright fired, because sexual harassment suits are expensive. If you snitch, there's also the chance that it'll blow back on to you. "Non-retaliation" policies are basically words and are rarely enforced, except against people of equal or lower rank to you.
When we're talking about platforms, there's always a platform available. The local homeless drug addict makes pretty good use of the street corner. As someone, I forget who, said you're free to start your own web page or blog. You can self publish your manifesto and third class mail it out to ransom addresses. Dial random numbers, knock on random doors, hire a sky writer, billboards, paint your car with bullet points of your message and drive around, print out a pamphlet and hand it out. The platforms are there. With a little imagination, you can reach people.
You can still get fired for those things, too. The problem isn't that you chose the wrong venue, the problem is that
you rocked the boat. Corporations don't want people on the inside potentially airing out their dirty laundry. They don't want people who might bring cause for change. Change is time consuming and, more importantly, expensive. Meek pushovers don't make waves. If you have pride or self-respect, you'd better be good at hiding it, because they will crush it out of you by force, or simply make up a reason to remove you from the corporate equation. Timid people, those afraid to voice their ideas, are less likely to effect change and are, thus, cheaper than assertive, dominant individuals.
General question to nobody in particular. Does anyone here feel that people must stop and listen? That people have to agree with you, or even take you seriously?
No. To all of them. You don't have to like me or agree with me or even think I'm a real person.
However, speaking on a social site, or any public forum, should not be punishable by losing one's source of income. What I do in my off time is
my business. It should not matter if I'm a racist, a sexist, or a rampant homophobe, so long as I don't cause undue grief on my coworkers and
get the fucking job done. If you smoke dope and listen to the Grateful Dead when you're not working, if I were your boss, I would not care. Its not my place to care. So long as it doesn't affect the quality of your work, so long as it doesn't create a hostile work environment, it should not matter.
