Nintendo Blogger Fired For Inexcusable Behaviour

Nintendo attacks free speech? Or closes down freedom to ramble on and on and on?

Posted by Staff
Zenner's website in all its glory.
Zenner's website in all its glory.
A Nintendo employee has been fired thanks to that most perilous of activities: blogging. Not because she revealed company secrets, not because she was publicly slating the company, oh no. The cuddliest of all platform holders has allegedly fired one Jessica Zenner (a technical recruiter contracted to Nintendo by Parker Services) because she commented about (but did not name) some of her co-workers.

Zenner (pictured) goes by the pen-name Jessica Carr on her blog, called 'Inexcusable Behaviour', which she typically uses to print "mental vomit" about subjects as diverse as smoking, movies, boobs and blowjobs. It's comments such as "One plus about working with [a] hormonal, facial-hair-growing, frumpy [woman] is that I have found a new excuse to drink heavily... My gut tells me that this woman hasn't been fucked in years", that she believes got her fired.

A blog entry the following day tells us, "I feel like I’ve become a sufferer for the cause of Free Speech within Corporate America."

Nintendo's vice president of marketing (and killer of the GameCube), Perrin Kaplan, said that Nintendo does not ban employees from having blogs, but "we generally don't encourage them". She does state "[Zenner] was expressly discouraged from doing what she did. I've seen everything that she's written and it's really not work appropriate."

While Washington State (where Zenner is based) law does not directly protect bloggers - and Nintendo was in its rights to fire her - SPOnG's a bit uneasy about the whole thing. We like to think of Nintendo as big and cuddly, not reactionary and trigger-happy. If some of SPOnG's directors saw what certain staff writers said about them online, well...

At least the lady herself appears largely unconcerned about her new role in the workplace, stating in classically Human Resources terms, " I’ve never been fired before; however, it was a surreal experience and simultaneously, it was enormously magnificent. I suddenly felt liberated; for the first time in my life I didn’t have a plan."

You can cast your eye over Zenner's blog to see whether Ninterror was justified here.

Once you've had a look, you can tell us your views in the Forum. We promise not to sack you.

Source: The Stranger
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Comments

SuperSaiyan4 24 Sep 2007 15:31
1/10
Damn man she looks hot wouldn't mind putting her through, at least she can EASILY get a job as call girl haha only kidding.
deleted 24 Sep 2007 15:36
2/10
SuperSaiyan4 wrote:
Damn man she looks hot wouldn't mind putting her through, at least she can EASILY get a job as call girl haha only kidding.


when was the last time you called a call girl, and saw her?, i suspect they arent as good looking as you would like to think...

What a great way to get fired, couldnt she of used the old "but it wasnt me someone must of hacked it"?
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irritant 24 Sep 2007 16:30
3/10
haritori wrote:

What a great way to get fired, couldnt she of used the old "but it wasnt me someone must of hacked it"?


She did try that, but if you read the blog, what she actually wrote was "My gut tells me that this woman hasn't been f**ked in years. By the way, this really *is* me, my account hasn't been hacked.", so she's f**ked.
DoctorDee 24 Sep 2007 17:35
4/10
She has pretty eyes and she loves Vonnegut. She has spunk (and I like that in a girl).

I think we should offer her a job.
Joji 24 Sep 2007 19:30
5/10
This all comes down to a free speech issue. Surely, she should be able take them to court for unfair dismissal or something.

Plenty of other places to work I guess. Its important to stick to your principles, as you'd be surprised the amount of people that sell or disgard theirs. This reminds me other recent industry employees getting the same treatment.

Is this a trend starting?
Vader 24 Sep 2007 19:39
6/10
I wonder if you people quoting "Free speech" have ever taken a civics class.

The U.S. Constitution guarantees freedom of speech. However, that protection is protection from the government silencing you, not an employer. The employer has an absolute right to fire you for almost any reason including saying something they don't like.

I wonder if the people wanting to tout their freedom of speech in the work place would support my freedom to bear arms there as well.

Jordan Lund 24 Sep 2007 21:40
7/10
As long as she wasn't representing herself as a Nintendo employee on the blog or blogging on company time with publicly available Nintendo IP addresses I don't see why they should have any say as to the content of her blog.

Heck, if they hadn't fired her chances are nobody would have heard of her blog.
D 24 Sep 2007 22:45
8/10
If she blogged anonymously, how on earth would they find it? Ahh...workplace internet tracking. Practiced by every last employer on Earth.

If she was told not to do something, anything, and then did it again, thats just irresponsible. I smell boundary issues. One would think the need to provide for her child would out-weigh her desire to rail about her servitude. But I suppose that is being 23, or 25 as she states on her blog.
SPInGSPOnG 25 Sep 2007 11:26
9/10
Vader wrote:
The employer has an absolute right to fire you for almost any reason including saying something they don't like.


Vader wrote:
The employer has an absolute right to fire you for almost any reason including saying something they don't like.

Yeah, it's true. American labour laws give almost no protection to the employee. I believe I heard that in roughly fifty percent of states, an employee can be fired at any time, after any length of service for almost any reason.

It may be "A Right" but that doesn't make it "right".

A person posting anonymously, and naming no names should be immune from this kind of dismissal, as long as they are not fostering hatred or discrimination. It may be argued, though, that Ms. Zenner was fomenting discrimination against fat and stupid people. But no-one minds that, do they?


Wii 25 Sep 2007 21:46
10/10
D wrote:
If she blogged anonymously, how on earth would they find it? Ahh...workplace internet tracking. Practiced by every last employer on Earth.

I suspect friends or coworkers could have reported it. I know of a former coworker who blogged about her employers similarly; someone at work found her blog (online stalking is pretty easy if you know someone's name, city, email address, etc) and sent the blog to all the CEOs and got her fired.

Pretty sad.
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