February 5, 2018
The ironic part is that New York wasn’t even in the Super Bowl.
The article reads, in part:
Solomon Chu, a 37-year-old Flushing, Queens, underwriter, was walking through the lobby of his Manhattan office last week when he saw a life-sized poster of the pretty-boy New England Patriots Super Bowl quarterback on the wall.
Thinking it was some Beantown prank, he, as any proud Jets or Giants fan would, ripped down the poster and tossed it in the trash.
Little did he know, he had just fumbled away his career. The next day he was hauled into the HR office of his company, National Debt Relief, and confronted about “destroying” Tom Brady. Turns out the poster had been placed on the wall by none other than the head of HR herself, Joanne Murray, who happens to be a huge fan of the Patriots — and Brady.
“Did you think you were going to get away with this?” Murray asked, according to Chu, while confronting him with the damning surveillance video.
Chu immediately began to grovel.
On Wednesday, after four months on the job, the HR bosses pulled a Belichick and fired him.
“They . . . told me I was leaving due to the Tom Brady incident,” said Chu.
While the article never explicitly states it, the real reason he was fired was likely destruction of property. This poster was in the lobby of his office, a public space. It is really no different than if he trashed a lamp he didn’t like or threw out a chair. It wasn’t his to destroy. I don’t think he deserved to be fired over it but he was definitely in the wrong.
However, the woman who put it up was clearly trying to be provocative. That poster has no place in the public lobby of a debt relief office. In her own office, sure, in a non-public part of the office, that’s fine. But a place where your customers enter? Totally unprofessional.
What Chu should have done was leave the poster in place, then file a complaint with HR for creating a hostile work environment. What New Yorker wants Tom Brady staring him in the face at work?
It could have been worse. At least it wasn’t Bill Belichick.
Of course, since the poster was put up by the head of HR this guy was screwed anyway, but at least he could have kept his job.
Football fans sure are passionate. Too bad Solomon Chu didn’t display the wisdom of Solomon.
Meanwhile…
I hope this gives Mr. Chu some consolation as he files for unemployment this morning.
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