Fired for Solitaire at Work

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That's Zero Tolerance at work for you. How silly.

I don't think that there's anything wrong with doing something on your free-time, but I think it's kind of a waste of resources that you're given to do your job, you know, using computer power (and possibly internet) to play games. I think that he should have brought his own deck of cards into work to play on his break rather than on the computer, because I think it's kind of a waste of the business' money. I say it's almost like someone using new printer paper to make paper airplanes on a break and then using the paper for what it was supposed to be used for after that, even though it's not exactly the same type of waste.

The problem with that is that companies waste a huge amount of resources on their own: many don't shut down computers and turn off all lights after hours; people come in sick and infect other employees, slowing down productivity; insurance policies often don't cover mental illness or ADD, which contributes to decreased productivity; overworking actually decreases productivity; and the list goes on...

So, before firing this guy for the miniscule amount of resources he may have been wasting is hypocritical in light of that. If it was a habitual thing (meaning: it took place on a regular basis) and the employer was satisfied with the quality and quantity of his work before finding out about the solitaire, then I'd say that it was an illegal firing.

Playing a game on a company computer is grounds for discipline (and possibly even termination) where I work, too. I don't see that as a big deal. My only complaint against what happened to the guy who was fired (mentioned in the first post) would be only if the company did not have a stated policy on the subject.

They'd have to can my entire COMPANY if they enforced our policies....

I think it's really unfair that he should be fired for playing while on lunchbreak, but at the same time, The Network Admins should also share the blame for not having the foresight to remove Solitaire from all Computers in the first place.

On second thought though, it sounds suspiciously like they were looking for an excuse to fire this person in the first place, and they used Playing Solitaire as the excuse that they needed to justify canning the guy. --Hopefully he finds a better paying job, because in the NYC Area, $27K/Yr is barely enough to survive on.

It does seem harsh.

I wonder if the guy would have been dealt with as harshly if he'd spent his time doing crosswords in the newspaper.
Well, maybe he would have.
But maybe if he'd spent his time surfing the internet instead he'd have been fired even sooner.

Meanwhile, smokers seem to be able to take as many breaks as they "need". At least where I work.

I guess employers have to draw the line somewhere. For one thing, it doesn't look good to prospective clients when they visit a company and see people sitting around playing solitaire.

I find it very easy to let my standards slip when it comes to work. If I start surfing the net for half an hour a day at work (thinking that no one will have a problem with it), this soon becomes an hour, then an hour and a half. If I start taking pens home with me, then I'll start taking notepads home with me too.
I think it's probably best just to try not to give your colleagues and employers any reason to be pissed off at you.
I haven't yet managed to sustain this for any significant period of time.

Alex, that is true, but if they make it more difficult to do XYandZ at work then it also shows that they are enforcing that policy in some manner or another.
I taught computers to 8th graders some time ago and the school took solitare off all but one PC, mine. This was to "keep the kids from playing while they were working on assignments". SO they did other demented things because they lacked stuff to do when done with their work. One that I STILL chuckle over was changing the automatic spell correct in the WORD program to change people's names to vulgarities and other words to oppisites or something totally random (like love to hate, or dog to coffee). The kids were made to correct it, and got lunch detention for tampering with the software, but it WAS funny. They also loaded simple games into the computers and renamed the files so I "wouldnt find it". It was clever but I still found it. Snow ball I think the game was.... I looked up one day and the entire class, all 27 of the were playing snowball.... hahaha. one of those kids loaded it onto the network in another classroom.... Brilliant really. ah but I digress....

I agree that the solitare thing was harsh, the situation reeks of a person they were "looking" to fire.