Somebody can't take a joke...

January 4, 2001 8:33 PM

Somebody can't take a joke... A lewd e-mail picture showing the cartoon character Bart Simpson in a sexual clinch has cost 10 people their jobs at a big British insurance company. Eighty others have been suspended
posted by murray_kester (26 comments total)

Where's the picture?
posted by waxpancake at 9:03 PM on January 4, 2001

Why do people use their work e-mail address to send things like this? If you want to send dirty pictures around get a free e-mail account and send from there. Problem solved.
posted by jay at 9:14 PM on January 4, 2001

What i want to now is which loser sent the email to the director?
posted by Zool at 9:18 PM on January 4, 2001

The company apparently had a written policy against circulating this type of mail using company resources. One can certainly understand the rationale behind this type of policy -- no company wants to be sued for sexual harassment or something because "they didn't do enough to stop it." At least that's how it would go in the US; I'm not at all sure how rampant that is in the UK. On either side of the Atlantic, of course, it is exceedingly bad public relations for any kind of risque material to reach the public through official channels (which is what a company e-mail account is, after all). Especially if you have a conservative image. Better to ban it entirely than to take the risk that some of it might leak out.

Here's a hint for the ninety affected people: when your employer tells you in writing that they are a bunch of humorless twits who will not tolerate tomfoolery, believe them.
posted by kindall at 9:59 PM on January 4, 2001

Who wants to bet that this was a convenient cover for downsizing.
posted by dws at 12:21 AM on January 5, 2001

I wouldn't take that bet, dws. My company has a similar policy and as recently as a few weeks ago (yeah, I know, right before Christmas...), I had to sign off on the termination of someone down the foodchain from me for precisely the same reason. Our case did involve illegal materials - as opposed to those in merely bad taste with possibly disastrous ramifications from a harrassment standpoint - but even if it were "just" the Simpson cartoon referred to, like this insurer we have a written policy and we enforce it.
posted by m.polo at 6:05 AM on January 5, 2001

I think I have the photo if someone wants me to upload it.
posted by chartres at 7:00 AM on January 5, 2001

I think that only the person or persons that sent the e-mail should be gettin the shaft. If I got fired because i got an e-mail i would be ripped.
posted by smokin420 at 7:07 AM on January 5, 2001

Indeed; have they canned anyone for merely receiving this?

I'd sue.
posted by baylink at 7:31 AM on January 5, 2001

And I wonder how long it will be before those responsible for the sackings will be sacked.
posted by baylink at 7:32 AM on January 5, 2001

I can't imagine how lewd Bart Simpson could be. I'd like to see the pic.
posted by rklawler at 8:03 AM on January 5, 2001

Can I get a mostly-unanimous approval to upload the pic? mathowie? I posted it to another forum one time as a joke and people flipped out: "I'm at work and people are walking by, not funny, not funny" etc. We could warn everybody first.
posted by chartres at 8:32 AM on January 5, 2001

Just post a link to the image, saying "Porno ahoy!" or something like it.
posted by waxpancake at 8:39 AM on January 5, 2001

If I had to guess, the 10 that got sacked were propogating it, and the 80 suspensions are of people who either received it or were waving people over to say "Ha! Look at this!"

Although I don't know if anyone waves people over anymore, that "Forward" button is so much more convenient.

And getting a suspension for reading an e-mail would also suck hard.

Chartres, posting a link to your site (if you have one) in this situation would be an acceptable self-blog, so if you've got somewhere you can host the image, slap it up there.

rklawler: it's not how lewd Bart is, it's how lewd the people who drew the comic are, and they're quite capable of being lewd. If I had to guess, the comic has Bart's pants around his ankle, hand on Bart Jr. and some kind of happy expression. Lolling tongue, perhaps.
posted by cCranium at 8:52 AM on January 5, 2001

Simpsons Porn Ahoy!
posted by chartres at 9:17 AM on January 5, 2001

Yeah, that qualifies.
posted by solistrato at 9:24 AM on January 5, 2001

I can't imagine how lewd Bart Simpson could be.

Heh, this reminds me of an email I got 6 or 7 years ago back when everything was still 80x24 green text for me. It was an ASCII rendition of Homer and Bart in a compromising situation and Bart saying, "That's not a Butterfinger!!"

Ha.
posted by daveadams at 10:41 AM on January 5, 2001

How come his hair isn't standing up higher than usual?
posted by baylink at 11:13 AM on January 5, 2001

heh - i rather like that. although yes....um....lewd would certainly be the word i would choose to describe it. anyone see that Drew Carey episode with Drew dealing with a lawsuit for putting a "risque" cartoon at the bottom of a memo.... that's just what that reminded me of. anyways....
posted by elf_baby at 12:24 PM on January 5, 2001

Hey, look! An entire page devoted to Simpsons Porno! (You gotta love the web.)
posted by waxpancake at 4:25 PM on January 5, 2001

I had a friend and coworker canned for having porn on his machine @ work that someone had sent hm... we were on an old PROFs system and he never even looked at it.

(although they were looking for reasons to can the both of us because of various pranks pulled at the office that they had no evidence of)

side note: a month or so later I got promoted out of there
posted by tj at 6:23 PM on January 5, 2001

Friend's mother was involved in a work investigation about jokes that were mailed around. The guy in question was a disliked (black) supervisor. He had saved the jokes to a diskette, deleted them from his e-mail, and put the diskette into a desk drawer.

They searched his desk and found the diskette. He was fired.
posted by dhartung at 8:00 PM on January 5, 2001

waxpancake... that site... I feel so... unclean.

Excuse me. I must delouse.
posted by chicobangs at 10:17 PM on January 5, 2001

There's also a fair bit of Little Mermaid porn and Pokemon porn. No, I'm not gonna link to it... for Chico's sake.
posted by rodii at 9:47 AM on January 6, 2001

Can we please keep the racism threads to one at a time?
posted by tj at 4:06 PM on January 6, 2001