The chief executive of a Michigan bank has lost her job after facing backlash for a social media photo of her family in sweatshirts that read “Lake America,” referencing Donald Trump’s relabeling of Lake Ontario.
Jane Smith from Family First Credit Union recently went viral after sharing the photo of her and three relatives wearing navy blue crewnecks with the words “Lake America” scrawled in white. The picture was snapped as her family left on September 11 for a 10-day trip to Halifax, Nova Scotia, but Smith says the sweatshirts were edited onto their bodies using AI.
“We weren’t trying to make a political statement,” Smith told Michigan outlet WJRT. “However, we were kind of poking fun at the fact that one of the Great Lakes’ names were getting changed.”
Family First Credit Union announced Wednesday that Smith was no longer with the company and that Jason Acosta, the chief operations officer, would serve as interim CEO.
What a dogshit excuse.
Explain to me how the humor of this joke works. Like what is the actual mechanism that makes this joke funny? Because the haha of this is right over my head.
It’s because it’s bad faith reasoning. If she knew about it being renamed, she knew why (political theater), and where she stood on that political spectrum.
I was initially kind of torn on this one, since I don’t think a job should be able to fire you for something you do outside of work, no matter how idiotic, unless it breaks the law. Then I remembered that Republicans got a whole bunch of people fired for things they said about what’s-his-name, with the neck fountain.
So I’m ultimately coming down on the side of “fuck 'em, payback’s a bitch”.
If you’re rank and file, sure. If you’re the CEO then posting something like this really brings your judgment into question.
I got the feeling that the photo was a joke made in AI. Maybe I’m giving the CEO too much credit idk. But, if the bank has any Canadian customers, I totally understand the firing.
You can’t alienate your customer base without consequences.
It’s an interesting issue, since it isn’t really a freedom of speech issue since the government is not censoring this person.
Republicans cried foul in cases like these (which are not censorship) and then put in an administration that DOES do censorship.
Generally speaking, Republicans don’t agree with regulations that would prevent employers from hiring or firing however they want.
Then they started stripping funding from institutions that supposedly were “DEI hiring”.
So at this point they’re clear that “cancel culture is only bad when Trump supporters are fired”.
I have a more nuanced view, which is that if you accept a job where you are very publicly associated with the company, the employer should be able to have a clause where they specify you can be terminated for your public social media activity. Anything that isn’t fully public doesn’t count.
It would have to be clear that it is a condition of employment that you not get political on social media as you’re accepting a C level position, etc.
If you post anonymously somewhere and that account isn’t actually associated with you or your company, then that should be like a workaround for the above.
Otherwise, as long as you aren’t associating your public posts WITH your company, and aren’t harassing your coworkers, etc, they shouldn’t be able to fire you for them.
It very much is a freedom of speech issue, it’s just not a violation of US law.
It very much is a freedom of speech issue, it’s just not a violation of US law.
Technically correct, I suppose.
If you mean lower case “freedom of speech”, sure the English definition of those words would agree with you. Colloquially when most folks in the USA say “Freedom of Speech” they’re not referring to the definition of English words in the phrase but rather the First Amendment to the Constitution.
So it might be a case of “freedom of speech” but its not a case of “Freedom of Speech”. In either situation, it isn’t a freedom from consequences of that speech.
Taking the high ground when dealing with someone who stoops low isn’t a a sign of virtue, it comes off more as weakness. Not because of your restraint on the matter but because your allowing your opponent to walk all over you. This is often what Ill natured people don’t understand or choose not to. If they’re going to bully people using such tactics, it’s justifyed to retaliate in kind.
Charlie Kirk
Yeah, that’s the neck fountain I was thinking of. Thanks!
Anytime
I was initially kind of torn on this one, since I don’t think job should be able to fire you for something you do outside of work, no matter how idiotic
I have a much more vivid imagination of what idiotic things people outside of work can say and lots of it should be and is a fire-able offense even if it doesn’t break the law.
Even then, its not that “you can be fired for what you say outside of work”, but in the USA instead we have an extremely small list of things that we outlaw firing people for, and its a good list of protections (protected classes):
- Race and color
- Religion
- Sex,including pregnancy, sexual orientation, and gender identity
- National origin
- Age (40 or older)
- Disability
- Genetic information
For everything else we have “at will” employment, which means you can quiet whenever you like and you can be fired whenever your employer wants to. I’ll agree its got some flaws, but I would not want to add “anything legal under the first amendment” as a protected class.
For the idiot bully in the OP article, she deserved to be fired.
You can always quit work
“It wasn’t political” she said, politically.
“We weren’t trying to make a political statement,” Smith told Michigan outlet. “However, we were kind of poking fun at the fact that one of the Great Lakes’ names were getting changed.”
Yeah, that’s a political statement, you dolt. Turns out, doubling down on stupidity is bad for a CEO’s career.
She’s not sorry for what he did, she’s just sorry it involved consequences.
she
She’s also wrong that the name changed. The name of it is Lake Ontario. No trump temper tantrum changes that.
It’s been said to death but the people that call themselves big time conservatives and do this kind of shit don’t think anything they do and believe is political, even their political beliefs, it’s just “normal”. Only things that don’t fit into or jive with their worldview are political
These boomer’s brains have been fundamentally broken by the internet…
Smith said that her family took the photo and then put it through ChatGPT to add the “Lake America” sweatshirts. “We never had actual sweatshirts. We never wore sweatshirts,” she told WJRT.
"I understand if I was someone in Halifax and I thought a poor group of people walked in wearing those sweatshirts, it is highly offensive and I would understand why they would be so angry,” Smith reflected.
They legitimately think that the Internet isn’t real.
If they understand that the actual sweatshirts would piss people off, then the only reason they think it’s ok to do it with AI, is they don’t want the real life consequences of everyone knowing they support trump.
Like “the picture is AI” only works as an excuse, if you’re not the one who added it with AI…
The only thing this excuse proves, is they really support him and likely have even more extremists views they’re hiding.
I’ve noticed this with other right wingers too, they see trump and his admin “trolling” in real life, and think it’s acceptable for them to do it. They never understand that “just a prank bro” hasn’t worked in over a decade, and that when/if they say it, no one gives a fuck.
Whether or not it’s a joke, doesn’t matter.
“I understand if I was someone in Halifax and I thought a poor group of people walked in wearing those sweatshirts, it is highly offensive and I would understand why they would be so angry,” Smith reflected.
Very telling comment.
The reality is that the wealthier and more powerful you are, the more you can get away with, but she simply wasn’t at the level to pull this off. She understands the whole principle based on her comments, but she simply miscalculated her value. Badly.
She is from Michigan, I read it as “unfortunate group, to be pitied” not “unwealthy group”. I think she was trying to paint herself as a form of victim of the situation. But I could be wrong.
She definitely was:
Her family decided to return from their trip early because Smith said she was getting death threats.
Bullshit.
Or: Why were Canadians of all people threatening you? What the fuck did you do to spark that?
If edited pictures of sweatshirts posted online aren’t real, then neither are death threats made online.
These boomer’s brains have been fundamentally broken by the internet…
It started with AM radio and moved on to cable television. The internet was just the coup de grâce.
Source: Watched it happen to my dad.
They legitimately think that the Internet isn’t real.
tbf, neither is Trump’s version of reality.
I’ve got to assume this bank had a lot of Canadian customers who would rapidly be taking their business elsewhere if they did nothing.
Maybe, they’re really not far from Toronto, I’m not sure about the logistics of cross-border banking but it seems very possible that some businesses in the Toronto area would need a bank account across the border.
Actually, if she legitimately did think plastering Trump’s made-up name for Lake Ontario all over the Internet wasn’t a political statement, then she probably doesn’t have the awareness to be running a lemonade stand, much less a credit union.
Exactly, taken at her word, and giving the most generous interpretations there of, I would not want her in charge of a anything touching my finances
You would think so ordinarily, but nah… it was about her overestimating her precise level of privilege to say outrageous / stupidass stuff.
See my earlier comment.
She said, “It wasn’t political”
It’s always not political when they do anything. But you have the wrong skin color as their neighbor and suddenly it’s political? You love someone they don’t like? It’s political! You don’t want to have children? It’s political.
She wasn’t fired for being political. She was fired for being a fucking idiot. Hell her rich buddies probably all agree with her and created a safe space for her to act this entitledly dumb without consequence - until now.
How can someone make a statement like that without it being political? They should also be permanently banned from Canada.
What an idiot. Imagine wearing crap to purposefully piss people off when traveling.
Specifically traveling to a foreign country which our government has been hostile to. Just all around fucking stupid.
Specifically traveling to the county that name change was intended to antagonize.
I have exactly zero political apparel in my wardrobe.
Because why?
If band shirts don’t count I totally agree.
She didn’t. She used ai to make it looks like she did.
Wow what a colourful combo of assholery and cowardice. Brava! 👏🏻👏🏻
No. She didn’t. That’s what we call a lie, just like everything else MAGA says. And why the hell would she be getting death threats in Canada if she wasn’t wearing those?
No where in the article does it say she received death threats in Canada.
Just a little light annexation humour
For those who want to see the image without allowing 20 javascripts to run:
Possibly pattern-seeking behavior but if you squint, those waves look an awful lot like the nazi eagle, which just adds to this whole thing
Yeah that’s a huge reach. I don’t think the AI image thing would do that without specific prompting.
Do we know what the prompt said and that it didn’t include that?
No but my guess is it was “put us in lake america sweatshirts” or something. “Put us in lake america sweatshirts with little squiggles that look vaguely like a Nazi eagle if you squint and tilt your head just right” seems unlikely. If they wanted Nazi imagery they would have just put it right there, because openly being a Nazi is acceptable now, apparently.
Whatever model they used is unlikely to associate “lake america” and “Nazi eagle graphic”, so I doubt the AI would have done this silently. (Maybe if it was grok. Elon has his thumb on that scale.)
Come on. What are the chances AI got all of that text and logos correct? $100 says those are real shirts.
“We never had actual sweatshirts. We never wore sweatshirts,”
She still has no clue what she did wrong
No, she does. She’s MAGA. It’s a very poor diversion.
No, she still has no clue. In her brain she is in the realm of truth and righteousness. But if someone else had a shirt that said Gulf of Mexico, Lake Ontario, New Mexico shed lose her shit
When your employees tell you who they are, listen.
Stupid enough to offend 70% of your customers.
And good for the credit union, they did.
Now she’s unemployed.
I always have had mixed feelings on stuff like this. On one hand fuck her. On the other I don’t want my job to have any say in what I do in my off hours. If it’s not a crime they should have no say and not be able to take any employment actions against me.
This case it works out, but it’s not a precedent, or perhaps fact, of working life that I enjoy
It’s not a crime, but CEOs are public figures who represent their companies wherever they are. It sucks to have that responsibility but with all the money they get, they should be careful.
If they’ll do it to the top, they’ll do it to you for less.
I feel like we’ve already forgotten all the people fired after celebrating Charlie Kirk’s death.
Like others have said, CEO is different. Tax/legal wise there is a set of positions with the company that are defined, and registered with the government. They are empowered to act for the company in ways regular employees are not. I think the line to draw is between them and the rest. If a person is a federally registered representative of the company, then all behaviour outside the office matters. I also think they should bear legal responsibility for the crimes of the company as well. But we know that won’t happen.
Except this isn’t a CEO only occurance. Remember all the people that got fired for celebrating Charlie Kirk’s death? Same principal
Very much so. And so far I think every one of them that sued won. At least I haven’t heard of any of them losing. I am just saying we can be more specific about the line which currently exists and is very fuzzy.
Only the ones fired from public positions in government like teachers won their lawsuits and that’s because the government is restrained by the first amendment. Employees of private companies do not have the same protections.
Today the pendulum of corporate morality swung in a way you like. Tomorrow it might not, and regardless this bank will foreclose on a widowed single mother without a second thought.
Companies shouldn’t be out friends or owners
Interesting. I had not noticed that. I wonder if it is because of the lame at will employment laws. Basically they don’t have to say why they fired you at all. I think those are crap. But I agree that the rank and file employees should have the protection to have a private life. I just think there is a reasonable line between them and the official corporate positions at least.
Quit trying to “both sides” fascism. She deserved exactly what she got because that’s what she wants for others.
No I don’t really remember anyone being fired for that. Especially not any CEOs.
Quite an extensive list
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj06jgl9qzlo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reprisals_against_commentators_on_the_Charlie_Kirk_assassination
You are right though no CEOs would celebrate such good news
If it’s not a crime they should have no say and not be able to take any employment actions against me.
The problem with your logic is youre still looking this as “just a joke”.
It doesn’t matter if it’s a joke or not. The punchline is “I support what trump is doing”.
Like, if someone puts on a Nazi uniform, would you feel the same?
What if the sweatshirt said “trans people aren’t people”?
Where do you draw the line?
And do you legitimately not understand how much horrible shit is legal to say?
If that’s the line, we’re fucked.
The problem with your logic is youre still looking this as “just a joke”.
No I’m not. I think they are an absolute garbage of a person. I just don’t think anyone’s livelihood should be impacted by what they do in their free time.
If our employers can police our character even during off hours then we are never off the clock and are owned by the company.
We really are already owned since we need need to work or starve, but I’d rather get to at least live the few waking hours I have where I’m not working as I choose.
There shouldn’t be any line as far as my employer is concerned.
There shouldn’t be any line as far as my employer is concerned.
Like I said:
Like, if someone puts on a Nazi uniform, would you feel the same?
What if the sweatshirt said “trans people aren’t people”?
Where do you draw the line?
And do you legitimately not understand how much horrible shit is legal to say?
If that’s the line, we’re fucked.
I thought you just didn’t realize what you were saying…
But you clarified and are apparently just 100% ok with fucking hat speech
fucking hat speech
can’t tell if this is a redhat pun
I’m 100% okay with not being company property.
It’s funny how you think company “morality” only works in the direction that favors you. Wasn’t all that long ago that being found out gay meant a company would fire you, but sure let the shareholders to decide what you get to do at home. After all the company only has your best interest at heart
Companies should have to employ violent fascists who want a genocide, along with literally anyone else. International pro-pedo public speaker wants to work with kids? As long as they don’t have a conviction, there’s nothing wrong with that! The US justice system is infallible and everyone found guilty is guilty and anyone who hasn’t been found guilty is innocent!!!1111eleven
Alright little buddy, it’s been fun but regardless of if you know what you’re saying or not, the first rule of the internet remains the same.
I truly hope your life gets better and you develop some empathy tho just not going to keep seeing your comments because I know how I likely either is
It’s not a crime, but it absolutely could affect their bottom line. So in this case, I’m good with it.
Gotta protect those profits eh? Personal freedoms be damned
There’s a HUGE difference between the CEO of a company doing something, and a back end worker.
The CEOs job is to be the face of the company. Set the expectations for the workers. If your CEO is doing something unethical, it’s seen as the company doing it.
If one of their workers, or even a middle manager posted the exact same picture, then it wouldn’t have been a big deal.
If they’ll do it to the top they’ll do it to you for less.
She’s free to do or wear whatever she wants. But the company is also free to fire her if what she wears or does damages the company image. That whole “freedom” thing runs both ways
But the company is also free to fire her if
Fuck that companies shouldn’t get rights they are not people
Then you should be fighting against at-will employment. That’s really where this comes from, the ability to fire people for any reason or no reason at all.
If we had even rudimentary worker protections, that wouldn’t really be much if a concern. You might still get let go, if your conduct is bad enough, but you’d have time to not just suddenly be unemployed and scrambling. But it’s a lot less likely to get to that position when employer over-reach is less of a thing to begin with.
Meanwhile our companies and oligarchs think they own us, cradle to grave, and they aren’t that far off, so no wonder they act like that’s the truth.
Then you should be fighting against at-will employment.
Absolutely, I’ve been for this my entire adult life. Unfortunately I’ve only seen workers rights slide backwards
See, to me, there’s two philosophies that battle here, with me. I can treat employers as companies, as logic machines, that calculate what revenues they can make and every other business decision. With that framework, I agree, whatever I do in my off hours is my business, they shouldn’t (but do) have the right to meddle with me in that way. Deny the corporate machine access to that info.
But the other framework, where your employee is a person managing a business, I don’t agree. If I am a human business owner, trying to run a good company with standards and practices as guidelines, get told by a potential customer I’ve lost the sale because of the actions of someone I employ, if I see that as a recurring pattern, I gotta weigh if they’re worth keeping.
Now, for me, these two frameworks aren’t exclusive, neither is right or wrong, they just show up in different places. Corporate McDonalds firing a minimum wage employee, that gets the company-as-a-machine model. Small business with like 5 employees? Company-as-a-person. Firing a C-Suite of a large company? Company-as-a-person.
This is company-as-a-person to me because they’re a face of the company. C-suite people get hired because of who they are, whereas minimum wage in a company get hired because of the skills they have.
