Let’s Sort Out the Issues in Fidelity Firings
Friday, December 18th, 2009
I suppose it’s inevitable that some readers of the “Fidelity fires four over fantasy football” story will skim it and come away thinking a few slackers got canned because they were wasting work resources on a pastime.
The fact that those of us who make our livings in fantasy sports lambaste the company over the move probably won’t do a whole lot to alter such misperceptions, but it’s important to clarify just what the issues are here and who’s upset about what.
Frankly, there’s nothing really wrong with a company taking action against an employee who instead of spending time on actual work is meandering around the Internet, chatting incessantly on the phone with extended family or even managing three fantasy football teams. Each business is more than welcome to set it’s parameters for Internet and phone usage and similar activities, and any worker who blatantly violates such rules should expect consequences — no matter how much the office culture might shrug off such rules.
In letting go of four Westlake, Texas, workers, however, Fidelity did not cite losses in productivity. It blamed the moves on the connection it drew between the employees and gambling. Specifically, Fidelity identified fantasy football as gambling.
No matter how you feel about fantasy sports, that’s just plain wrong, and it’s not really even a lingering issue. It has been three years since the United States government officially wrote into law that fantasy sports don’t qualify as gambling in this country.
So, when an outlet such as Reuters chooses to tie the Fidelity story to the fuzzy, attention-seeking numbers of the Challenger, Gray & Christmas studies to forecast an approaching storm, it is missing the point entirely.
We could certainly counter any argument about fantasy sports being bad for the workplace with opposing evidence about them connecting co-workers, but that’s a moot point in this case.
Fidelity said four workers were gambling by playing fantasy football and needed to be purged for that reason. Fidelity was wrong.
