Is this firing justified?
 

For the five of you who know who he is, Adrian Dater, the beat writer for Avalanche hockey for the Denver Post since 1994, was fired today for being creepy to a girl on Twitter. You can check out the posts on her account here if you'd like, but the key screenshots she posted were these:

Post from May 2013 where he comments about her profile photo:


Post from October 2013 where he basically says she's not worth debating because she's a woman:


Recent post where he asks for an uncropped version of her (already suggestive) profile photo:


The interwebs seem to think that he's an evil bastard who deserves everything coming to him, but I honestly have trouble feeling like the guy should have been FIRED for this. So I figured I'd ask the undoubtedly female friendly CP how you all feel to get some perspective. ;)

The first two spoilers are the same thing

It's ridiculous. A man can't say anything anymore.

Fixed.

That's not worth being fired for.

The only thing that is relevant to me is the last tweet on the second spoiler. You just can't say that and expect to keep your job, especially when you work for a newspaper, which is a struggling business anyway. It doesn't matter whether you think he "deserves" to be fired or not, letting this moron go is the correct business decision. A newspaper can't afford protests and boycots.

link to the supposed photo?

What was the "suggestive" picture he wanted?

Looks like that was just a few of many things that got him fired.

Yeah, I'm going to agree with AL here. Telling someone you aren't going to argue with a woman, even if he means it literally, that he doesn't argue with women, still gives off bad pub.

In the workplace, or when representing my employer, I find it best to pretend that all humans are asexual beings. Also, the worth of someone's opinion should not depend on their membership in one social group or another.

Eh, there's probably some hr warning at some point where he was told to back off

Ah, I didn't see the photo. That is until now.

Now, I think he should have been warned or disciplined—not sure about firing him.

I don't even know the genders of the people who work with me.

So did somebody complain? And if so, was it the woman tweeter or someone else?

My answer isn't part of the poll: It's a private media company that is justified in terminating its employees if management decides that this person isn't representing their company appropriately. Either the company will suffer because the public responds negatively to the move, or the company is enriched because the public responds positively to the move. Either he will suffer because he diminished his worth in the marketplace, or he will be enriched because he increased his worth in the marketplace. Que sera, sera.

Hard to say, the guy may have some other history of being creepy to women. Wonder if he ever got the pic.

I know it doesn't change anything....but go check out the rest of her twitter pictures. Low cut tops....exposing cleavage.

Plus....what was with the "Good! Glad you liked it" when he first commented on the picture?

None of the choices encapsulate my opinion. I'm presuming an at will employment state, which nearly closes the book on the matter. But further, hitting on people in the workplace is henke enough. Doing it so you leave a record is playing with fire. Dismissing her opinion based on her gender isn't something I'd document either.

Put me in 'it's their prerogative' column.

I negotiated this dilemma by taking morality out of it and just looked at it from the standpoint of the employer. Would the employer be harmed by retaining this employee? If so, then I think its justified.

There's clearly more to it...

https://www.facebook.com/adriandater...89?pnref=story

Refreshing honesty. I wish him the best.

The young ones all seem to dress like that nowadays. Unfortunately, I couldn't believe a top my own daughter had on when she emerged from a classroom when I went up a few days early for the ND game.I have to always tell her to pull it up. It's nothing to them.

drunk-tweeting is bad, m'kay...

Always trying to keep a brotha down.

Oh so your workplace ethics match your personal & romantic life?

There is a time and place for o:-) and a time and place for :evil:.

Nothing that you posted comes close to a firing offense. That said, if he's in a right to work state without a contract, or he's dumb enough to sign a vague morals clause, that's the end of that.

so these were direct messages to her, so she must have filed a complaint?

the interaction seemed much more like friends to me than scribe/reader. Not that creeping your friends is right, but a different dynamic for sure.

i suspect they were aware of his other issues and this was a way of getting rid of him.

I don't think anyone disagrees that they have the legal right to do it. The question is just whether that's a good enough reason that a reasonable person would think firing is necessary.

Direct messages that she posted publicly on her Twitter account.

Reasonable person is a very fluid standard today, which is a big problem. No reasonable person would look at anything his said as being worth of getting fired. But reasonable people aren't working HR and PR for big companies.

She's claiming that he asked for nudes. Not seeing that.

was this his personal account, or a branded one?

What a creepster.

He was suspended earlier this season as well and he had this coming. If you follow the NHL closely you would know he's an arrogant prick and always has been, not too mention he's god awful at his job, i'm shocked he kept it this long tbh.

Here's why he was suspended earlier this season:

http://deadspin.com/denver-post-susp...ter-1643760909

Those DM's to that chick wouldn't be all that bad if he wasn't MARRIED ffs.

I work in HR for Wal Mart, thankfully not PR. From an HR perspective it's a good term.

Personal account (@adater) that was VERY widely used to post Avs news and commentary.

Nothing is 100%, and I'm certainly not singling you out, but HR is home to some of the most insufferable SJWs on the planet.

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When I saw this headline, I thought Rain Man had fired you and we were about to have the greatest thread ever.

Now that you mention it, I asked him for an uncropped version of his avatar once...

This. A very human explanation. Hits kind of close to home.

Those tweets display poor judgment, and poor judgment in social media gets plenty of people fired these days. Not surprised that this reflected deeper issues going on.

Sure it is. You are representing your employer in public, so whatever you do that might embarrass them in public could be grounds. I am sure he has such a clause in his employment agreement.

I'm pretty sure DaFace is a male. (if that helps).

Yeah, when I clicked on the link for him being suspended for arguing with fans and sending an email to a cowriter to **** off that's what I first thought. That's a lot like what the new NFL broadcaster Goldberg got released for this year.

I think her exposing his DMs is a bit iffy. The last one wasn't that bad. Dudes a human, if he was doing it with all sorts of women or harassing her constantly.. that's one thing but it never hurts to take a shot :)
The middle DM is the one that's rough

When he says he's not going to argue with a woman, it sounds like he might be trying to be polite. It's not like he says he's not going to argue with an empty headed puck bunny.

He probably shouldn't have pulled the show-us-your-tatas move, however.

Is this the guy who was cussing people out a few weeks ago on twitter?

I don t argue with women. I won t argue with a woman. And there is nithing wrong with saying so. Good grief

I'm in the probably category. It's different when you deal with the public, and the public is most certainly the paper's customer.

It's not all that different from a retail guy creeping on some chick wearing his uniform standing outside the store. He creeps on too many customers, it's time for him to go.

Or think about it this way, if after you hand a client their report, you catch them after work and say, "tits or GTFO," Rain Man is probably going to be upset.

"No more.... She was asking for it.

NO MORE."

Yes, there is something VERY wrong with saying that, as a columnist, representing a newspaper. You are basically saying that females are an inferior type of human or sub-human who can't be reasoned with, that they are unworthy of you debating an issue with them.

He didn't say "I'm not going to argue with you because you're a woman and you don't know shit". He simply said....I'm not going to argue with a woman.

I kind of read that as the same thing.

Agree with Rain Man 100%

I think what it comes down to is that he obviously had issues and probably crossed the line but this woman took it as an opportunity to blow it out of proportion and get a guy fired.

On the one hand, it's ridiculous that someone got fired over this. On the other hand, twitter is stupid.

Something tells me that there's probably more to it than just this.