Man Fired For His Online Customer Service Game

First time accepted submitter DiscountBorg(TM) writes "An employee of the Canada Revenue Agency lost his job after releasing a humorous game in which the player answers customer service calls for the Agency, usually leading to his termination. In an email National Revenue Minister Gail Shea said: 'The Minister considers this type of conduct offensive and completely unacceptable. The Minister has asked the Commissioner (of Revenue, Andrew Treusch) to investigate and take any and all necessary corrective action. The Minister has asked the CRA to investigate urgently to ensure no confidential taxpayer information was compromised.'"

Correction please.

[will_die]

As of the stories the guy had not been fired or another done to him. The guy is playing up that he could be fired and is using that as a reason people should purchase the game.

American sweatshop

[alphatel]

You have to smile while you're on the phone (uhm really?), follow the cubicle dress code (but I just answer the phone), not allowed to hang up on abusive customers no matter what they do. The week's vacation you earned and got approved 3 months in advance was just re-allocated as forced time off due to the business being slow. World's worst health insurance if you get any at all.

Fluorescent lighting from hell, vending machines for lunch, 19" square monitors from the 1980's, computers running Windows XP, no service pack.

We live this job every day.

Re:Correction please.

[benjymous]

From his twitter, he said he was fired after that article was posted (which is why it doesn't mention it explicitly) but isn't able to talk more. Do you have information showing that this was false and he's still in the job (or quit rather than being fired?)

Re:Correction please.

[ice_nine6]

Seems he has actually been fired: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2013/01/30/game-developer-draws-ire.html [www.cbc.ca]

Re:I wonder why this game is not free

[Prokur]

nevertheless, game is available for free here [flashghetto.com]

Re:American sweatshop

[realityimpaired]

Don't have to go that far... Canada has on average one statutory holiday (federally mandated day off) per month, and many employers give people fresh off the street at least 2 weeks' paid vacation, with the trend being towards more vacation: many larger companies will give you 3 or even 4 weeks at the start, and will give you the option to buy an extra week as part of your benefits package. Some provinces have provincial statutory holidays in addition to the federal ones. They're slowly coming to the realization that a well rested and happy worker is more productive, and allowing this much vacation actually costs less than not allowing it.

35 days is a bit much for most companies yet, but I've been able to book 5 full weeks of vacation this year (1 week of carryover from last year), and because I picked weeks where the statutory holidays come, I've managed to parlay that into an extra week of vacation in the form of days-in-lieu for statutory holidays. That's 30 working days of vacation, or 42 calendar days this year, and I still have 2 floater days and 2 personal emergency days, in addition to paid sick leave.

And most of Europe has even more vacation as standard than we do.

Excruciating

[phorm]

Or when they ruin somebody's life [canadianco...ndation.ca] because he wouldn't pay a crooked taxman's bribes, conveniently losing all his documentation, and then refuse to pay back [www.cbc.ca] damages.

Re:American sweatshop

[Anonymous Coward]

His point would be that you're mind numbingly ignorant of how absolutely awesome it is to be even homeless in the US.

Spend a day in a country that actually sucks ass, then speak.

Go spend a day in Somalia, Lybia, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Palestine, most of Africa, large sections of rural Asia.

You have absolutely no clue what 'bad' is.

And you have absolutely no idea how 'good' good is, particularly in Europe (despite the economic downturn and rediculous armageddon-peddling of the US media vis-a-vis Greece and the other PIIGS).

I've lived abroad for many years, and am back in the US. In both instances, opportunities took me abroad and brought me back (and may take me abroad again, who knows)? The US has its good qualities, but it does suck ass in a whole lot of ways that other countries, particularly in Western and Northern Europe, do not. Gun nuttery and associated criminal mayhem (~50,000 murders/year vs less than a few hundred in a similarly populated country?), universal healthcare that is comprable and often better in quality than what you get in the states with a cadillac health plan here, better consumer and citizen rights across the board, a lack of political insanity in one of the several governing parties, and the list goes on (though on the last point, YMMV by country).

Oh, and faster internet (by far), better and cheaper unlocked cell phone plans, are just another bonus lost in the white noise of not living in a place where the government is so overtly of, by, and for the corporations.

So yeah, there are worse places (Somalia, Libya, etc.), but the false dichotomy you hide behind doesn't change the fact that in many, many respects the US is a third world country that sucks-ass in many ways, particularly when compared to Wester Europe, New Zealand, Australia, and a whole host of other developed nations.