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Apple fires senior executive over ill-considered joke

Near the beginning of the movie Arthur, Arthur (played by Dudley Moore) is asked what he does for a living. He answers, "I race cars, I play tennis, I fondle women, but I have weekends off and I am my own boss."

Forty years later Apple executive Tony Blevins was asked the same question as he exited his Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren at a car show. He answered, “I race cars, play golf and fondle big-breasted women. But I take weekends and major holidays off.”

Naturally the Blevins version showed up on TikTok:

@itsdanielmac Quite the occupation this man has ✍️ #mercedesbenz #supercarstiktok #slr #car ♬ original sound - DANIEL MAC

A few days later Apple fired Blevins. The Wall Street Journal tells the story:

Mr. Blevins said he was asked to resign and he declined. Days after the video surfaced Sept. 5, he was fired....The firing has left him in disbelief that something he intended as a joke, uttered to a non-Apple employee while he wasn’t working, could erase a lifetime of dedication for a company he loved and believed in, Mr. Blevins said. He said he is sorry to those he offended with the comment, but he sees his firing as a blunder by Apple and a capitulation to broader cultural pressure.

Some of his former employees support him and say that while he sometimes would use humor to deflate tense situations, they hadn’t witnessed any other sexist comments or unprofessional behavior.

....In his two decades at the company, Mr. Blevins had emerged as one of an essential cadre of executives who helped build Apple into a colossus through deals with suppliers of chips, displays and other parts that were mostly assembled in Asia. With brazen tactics—such as once putting two companies competing for the same deal in neighboring rooms in a hotel while he went back and forth between them—Mr. Blevins helped Apple keep costs down and the supply of its iPhones and other gadgets secure.

....After his firing, company executives were still planning a going-away party for him with invitations extended to more than 100 people, but the party was canceled when communication began breaking down between Mr. Blevins and Apple, said Mr. Blevins. He also said he didn’t like the idea of Apple throwing him a party after having just fired him, calling it a “hypocritical” action. He said he didn’t receive severance upon his departure.

I've never heard of firing someone and then throwing a going-away party. That's very peculiar behavior.

But the big question, of course, is whether Apple should have fired him in the first place. His joke was only risque in a 1950s Borscht Belt sense, it was off campus, and obviously part of a TikTok routine.

But then again, stuff that flew in the 1950s (or in 1981) doesn't fly today. Maybe Blevins should have known better no matter where he happened to be.

For myself, I'd say it was worth a slap on the wrist and an apology, not a dismissal after 22 years with the company. Opinions?

60 thoughts on “Apple fires senior executive over ill-considered joke

  1. AlHaqiqa

    Just because someone says something flippant and clearly meant to be a joke on their own time they get fired? Let's see... what would turn it into a firing offense... Just wondering if there is anything that someone says on their own time that should be used as grounds for dismissal. Maybe giving aways important company secrets or slandering specific people (like clients or co-workers). Is there a rulebook for this? Or is the rulebook just to respond to a few people on social media?

  2. ScentOfViolets

    In re the nuances of 'fondle': What the real-world said is not an exact quote of what the movie character Arthur said, now is it? It's not as if English is this guy's second language now, is it?

  3. painedumonde

    Conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman, therefore your peers can decide to use this public display to camouflage your awful behavior that has not yet come to light, whether provocative in today's culture or intransigence during board meetings.

    C'est-à-dire, who cares, another overfed son put to pasture.

  4. Gilgit

    It is amazing to me that so many people just assume we should live in a world where any comment at any time can get you fired. Bizarrely acting like this is the world we should strive for. Many justifying this stupid view of the world by claiming they would never say a joke with "breast" or "fondle" in it. Or even that it matters that the quote is slightly wrong. You are truly awful people and I hope someday you will work very hard to accomplish something you desire and then have it ripped away from you because someone recorded you saying something that few people even care about.

  5. kahner

    Seems pretty likely to me that this incident was a pretext for firing someone who was, for reasons unknown to the public, disliked and that they wanted to get rid of. As far as I can tell there was no wave of "woke" outrage about him, at least not to the degree it would pressure Apple to fire a key employee they wanted to keep. also of note another article stated "Rather than filling Blevins’ role with a new hire, Apple reportedly reassigned the employees who reported to him throughout the company’s operations division." So sounds like he may not have been a critical asset.

    I certainly would not have fired someone over this video, but Apple wanted to and for better or worse (and def for worse) we're mostly an at will employment country with few employee protections.

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