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So you see a family that is walking around "looking homeless", as you so put it. You later see, or think you see, the same family dressed in nice clothes shopping in the mall. Do you:
A) Shrug it off, 'cause you don't know their circumstances.
B) Quietly judge them as scammers and then move on with your life, or
C) Whip out your cell phone, turn on the camera, and start stalking them around the mall and telling them they should be ashamed of themselves, then post the video publicly on Facebook bragging about how you "called them out" because you feel everyone else should shame them.
If you chose "C", congratulations, you are the douchenozzle in my town who decided to harass a family that, get this, was not even the same family he thought it was (not that it makes it that much better). In fact, the mother who was shopping in the mall with her two kids is a local realtor who happens to be family of one of my friends.
Said friend messaged me upset that someone would do this to her family, because the video was going slightly viral locally and the kids were being harassed at school about it (I actually saw the video pop up in my feed because other friends had shared it). The filmographer listed one of his employers as The Resort, so friend wanted to know if I knew him. I didn't.
In the video, he follows this woman and her two kids around for a full minute, just follows them, then he goes up to them and starts saying stuff like "Oh, look at all those nice clothes. You should be ashamed of yourselves. You people are disgusting..." goes on like that for a while before he walks off. And the woman just pulls her kids close and gives him a weird look.
Alas, this has a happy ending. For you see, realtors tend to have lots of "community connections". Not too long after friend messaged me, I started seeing postings up on the local "gossip group" page telling people that the video had the wrong family and to not share the video. From what I hear, the perp had his inbox flooded with people telling him to remove the video.
What really got the video down was the local PD paying him a visit, though. They told him that what he was doing was harassment and libelous and "convinced" him to take down the video, which it appears he did.
Where the pwnage really comes in though was at work. I mentioned he worked for The Resort. We have to sign a "social media policy". Now some companies have insane ones and that's an argument for Fratching, but ours is quite reasonable: if you list The Resort as your employer, don't post questionable or contentious stuff publicly; if you can't monitor what you post online then remove your public association with The Resort and post whatever you want. The Resort in particular has an image to maintain and is selective about what it wants posted online associated with it. But really, it's just common sense stuff.
Now the woman's neighbor was apparently BFFs with some management at The Resort. So this video and drama made it to The Resort.
Now, he no longer works at The Resort. Which seems a bit harsh, yes, but he was clearly a class A douchebag so I can't help but savor the pwnage. Maybe it was just the straw that broke the camel's back; I never met the guy at work so I don't know. From what I hear, he also lost his other job (at another local hotel), so apparently he violated their social media policy as well as whatever other reasons may have been piling up. (To lose not one but two jobs over a FB post makes me suspect he had other issues and they were waiting for an excuse to finally pull the pink slip trigger.)
So yeah. Gets police called (and presumably name attached to police report), loses two jobs, and gets publicly bashed on the community FB page. I think he got his.
A) Shrug it off, 'cause you don't know their circumstances.
B) Quietly judge them as scammers and then move on with your life, or
C) Whip out your cell phone, turn on the camera, and start stalking them around the mall and telling them they should be ashamed of themselves, then post the video publicly on Facebook bragging about how you "called them out" because you feel everyone else should shame them.
If you chose "C", congratulations, you are the douchenozzle in my town who decided to harass a family that, get this, was not even the same family he thought it was (not that it makes it that much better). In fact, the mother who was shopping in the mall with her two kids is a local realtor who happens to be family of one of my friends.
Said friend messaged me upset that someone would do this to her family, because the video was going slightly viral locally and the kids were being harassed at school about it (I actually saw the video pop up in my feed because other friends had shared it). The filmographer listed one of his employers as The Resort, so friend wanted to know if I knew him. I didn't.
In the video, he follows this woman and her two kids around for a full minute, just follows them, then he goes up to them and starts saying stuff like "Oh, look at all those nice clothes. You should be ashamed of yourselves. You people are disgusting..." goes on like that for a while before he walks off. And the woman just pulls her kids close and gives him a weird look.
Alas, this has a happy ending. For you see, realtors tend to have lots of "community connections". Not too long after friend messaged me, I started seeing postings up on the local "gossip group" page telling people that the video had the wrong family and to not share the video. From what I hear, the perp had his inbox flooded with people telling him to remove the video.
What really got the video down was the local PD paying him a visit, though. They told him that what he was doing was harassment and libelous and "convinced" him to take down the video, which it appears he did.
Where the pwnage really comes in though was at work. I mentioned he worked for The Resort. We have to sign a "social media policy". Now some companies have insane ones and that's an argument for Fratching, but ours is quite reasonable: if you list The Resort as your employer, don't post questionable or contentious stuff publicly; if you can't monitor what you post online then remove your public association with The Resort and post whatever you want. The Resort in particular has an image to maintain and is selective about what it wants posted online associated with it. But really, it's just common sense stuff.
Now the woman's neighbor was apparently BFFs with some management at The Resort. So this video and drama made it to The Resort.
Now, he no longer works at The Resort. Which seems a bit harsh, yes, but he was clearly a class A douchebag so I can't help but savor the pwnage. Maybe it was just the straw that broke the camel's back; I never met the guy at work so I don't know. From what I hear, he also lost his other job (at another local hotel), so apparently he violated their social media policy as well as whatever other reasons may have been piling up. (To lose not one but two jobs over a FB post makes me suspect he had other issues and they were waiting for an excuse to finally pull the pink slip trigger.)
So yeah. Gets police called (and presumably name attached to police report), loses two jobs, and gets publicly bashed on the community FB page. I think he got his.
I'm sure he thought everyone would agree and he'd be hailed as a righteous person who showed that these people were con artists. Then no one would fall for their scheme again, ahaha! Oh, wait, he was totally wrong and even if he was right it wouldn't have made it okay.
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