choate oppression

[Anonymous <nobody@replay.com>]

At 06:58 PM 4/26/99 -0500, Jim Choate wrote:
>
>Hi all,
>
>I thought I'd share with your the latest example of the wonderful society we
>all live in...

So, what did *you* do about it?  You didn't argue your rights,
ask to speak to corporate law, etc.  

>I was going about my business today at work. My immediate supervisor comes
>in and wants to talk. Apparently somebody was upset about some comment I had
>made discussing guns, bombs, violence, etc. I was also given a nice
>appointment with an HR rep to talk about it. So I spend about an hour
>listening to him tell me how important it was to not say anything that might
>upset anyone. 

Did you explain that this meeting was terribly upsetting?

Did you ask what law prohibited speaking between employees?
(Try it in spanish, instead!)

>I was also told that while this was 'off the record' if I
>didn't comply I would lose my job. The rational was that a work environment
>that was threatening was not what my employer wanted. 

If your employer is big enough to have a HR droid, its big
enough to have a lawyer who might worry more than the droid
about false-firing suits.

I agreed and noted
>that now he had two such people that were concerned about the quality of the
>work environment. I asked that person to give me the name of the person who
>complained so that I could be sure to avoid them unless it was work related.

You should know better.

I 
>expressed the sentiment that I had no desire to talk with this person, I
didn't 
>want to try to convince them of my way of thinking and I certainly had no 
>reason to listen to their same old phonograph of why speech should be 
>controlled for the greater good. So far I haven't gotten the name. I told
them 
>that if the decision was not to tell me then I'd assume it was anyone at the 
>employers place of business. Pretty damn chilling.

You should have said that if precise language was not listed,
you had no idea what they were talking about.

>Note that this person apparently overheard a discussion I had with another
>person. They didn't ask us to leave the office or change the subject. If it
>was in a commen area there was no attempt by me or anyone I'm aware of to
>keep them from leaving the area and avoiding the discussion.
>
>The main reason behind the veiled threat was that "considering the
>situation" (re Colorado) talk of bombs, violence, politics thereof, and such 
>was not acceptable in the work environment, even in private conversations 
>since others might overhear and be upset. 

Wear a trenchcoat tomorrow.  Or keep your tail between your legs.