Pages

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Fired for What!? - Full Moon Fever

This is a story about a banking executive whose bad judgment cost him millions of dollars. Well, that hardly sounds interesting . . . . but wait, it's the way he lost it that makes it entertaining. When two people send me the same Fired for What!? tip, I have to oblige them (I'm a man of the people, after all).

The Bank of America executive in this story burst into a conference room full of executives from a company with which BOA was merging to speak his mind. As it turns out, he didn't have a whole lot to say. Instead:
Selch asked if he had a non-compete agreement, which on Wall Street is usually a way of threatening to quit and go to work for a competitor. After the executives said he didn't have a non-compete, Selch mooned them, told one of the New York-based executives never to return to Chicago, and left the meeting.
Pro tip: It's almost never a good idea to take your pants off at work.

Astonishingly, his boss didn't see a need to terminate him. Eventually, the powers that be made sure he was fired. The executive lost millions because his bonus package had not yet vested at the time of the termination.

The executive filed a breach of contract lawsuit, claiming that his termination was not "for cause." I'm guessing his contract did not have a one-free-mooning clause (something I'll keep in mind when drafting contracts in the future). The Court rejected his argument on summary judgment and an appellate court agreed.

HT: Donnell Thompson and Derek Bottcher (.vcf).

Lawffice Space Trivia: Donnell was my roommate freshman year at Penn State. I originally planned to call Lawffice Space, "Emplawyer" - it turns out Emplawyer was not even remotely original or clever, and had been used by a ton of different sites. I turned to Facebook to ask my friends what I should call the blog - Donnell came up big with "Lawffice Space."

No comments:

Post a Comment