Well thanks for sharing. However, sorry but I disagree on the part you saying this is a 'borderline slanderous' writing, at least the paragraphs you quoted, and at least not in the sense the person writing it displays signs of a borderline mental disorder...But maybe I just misunderstood you and you mean this letter is close to slandering.
No problem, it's a bit subjective so disagreeing is quite alright. By 'borderline slanderous' I meant she was tip-toeing around the point of defamation. Google tells me that slander is verbal rather than written, so libel may be the correct term. I wasn't aware that slanderous had any connection to mental disorders so sorry for that confusion.
Edit:Wow I'm an idiot. It was my use of 'borderline' that caused the confusion not 'slanderous'. I meant borderline in that it was very marginal, not as a reference to borderline personality disorder. My bad.
I still fail to see what did she lie about, to label this letter as slander?
I don't see it as direct malicious lying but rather untruths and misrepresentation. This is partially why it's subjective, I think she over-exaggerated for effect and presented a very one-sided story.
I haven’t bought groceries since I started this job. Not because I’m lazy, but because I got this ten pound bag of rice before I moved here and my meals at home (including the one I’m having as I write this) consist, by and large, of that. Because I can’t afford to buy groceries.
$20 to see a doctor or get an eye exam or see a therapist or get medication. Twenty bucks each is pretty neat, if spending twenty dollars didn’t determine whether or not you could afford to get to work the next week.
Because 80 percent of my income goes to paying my rent.
She'd been with the company for approximately six months, also living alone in an apartment for six months. As someone in the comments section pointed out, during that time her Twitter/Instagram showed her buying groceries, cosmetics, alcohol, eating out at restaurants, setting up cable TV, and possibly having a boyfriend to share living costs with. That these things weren't listed in the article, some contradicting it even, makes me feel misled.
Now, her posting this on public platforms certainly doesn't shed good light on the company, so in that case I understand why she was fired, posting this in public was rather unwise, and it's kinda sad how she was basically begging alms...But her firing also conveys the message that people should shut up and in case they open their mouth in public, complaining about their salary, it's ok to fire them, even if it means they lose their living.
Her choice of public platform confused me. From what I can tell, Medium is a social community based around writing. It's almost like Tumblr only with articles rather than images (I'm being slightly flippant with that). To me that raises the question of whether she ever meant for this to reach her company. She titled it as an open letter to her CEO but I haven't seen mention of her asking internally for promotion opportunity or other means of financial assistance. I genuinely think she wrote this as an angry rant for the Medium community, and unless she also CC'd someone in the company, didn't expect it to be discovered.
Edit:
"At first I sent a couple of tweets to Stoppelman," she said. But she realized it "wouldn't effectively show him it was something I was serious about.
With that in mind, I don't think she was ever begging alms, more that she was writing in jest about her coworkers being underpaid to the point of needing to visit the soup kitchen.
In regard to the bold, I believe that message has already been conveyed under the guise of professionalism. Complaining about your salary to coworkers is your common watercooler hot topic and it goes unnoticed. Stepping up from that to publishing an article which names your CEO and paint him in such a negative light is something else entirely and there's a reason people post such things anonymously. I'll be the first to say I'm biased towards the employer though. In my previous employments I've had to sign non-disclosure agreements and have been privy to sensitive information. I may be unfairly putting undue responsibility on this woman's shoulders, something that would get me fired may not be enough to get her fired also.
Now I also recognize that the other side of the story is that she knew how important this job is to her, to make a living, yet she still risked it, so she should take the consequences...I guess she could have phrased the letter in a way which does not make personal references about the CEO. As I can relate to both sides, I'd rather take a neutral legal approach and examine her working contract and the US laws regarding the terms of firing someone. If her behavior was against the company's terms of employment, then her firing was lawful and there is nothing to do about it.
Regarding the bold, I both agree and disagree as strange as that sounds. I agree that actions have consequences however I feel some sympathy because, as my previous section said, I don't think she ever expected her words to reach such a wide audience.
