Free the Fidelity Four! Actually four people who worked at Fidelity Investments in Westlake, Texas are free at this hour, to find other jobs. Cameron Pettigrew and three other Fidelity employees were given the boot in late October when company officials heard rumors of their fantasy football activity, and did an investigation. Pettigrew was with the company for 2 1/2 years; meaning that he lost out on thousands of dollars because his 401(k) retirement plan wasn’t vested. But on the bright side, he had started both Brandon Marshall and Chris Johnson last week.
The worst part? Pettigrew may have been fired because of Trent Edwards.
From the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
“Firing a guy for being in a $20 fantasy league? Let’s be honest; that’s a complete overreaction,” said Pettigrew, who lives in Grapevine and has an MBA from the University of Texas at Arlington. “In this economic time, especially. To fire people over something like this, it’s just cold.”
Said Fidelity spokesman Vin Loporchio: “We have clear policies that relate to gambling. Participation in any form of gambling through the use of Fidelity time or equipment or any other company resource is prohibited. In addition to being illegal in a lot of places, it can also be disruptive. We want our employees to be focused on our customers and clients.”
Pettigrew, who was the commissioner of his league, knew Fidelity had a policy against playing fantasy football at the office. But he said the policy was poorly communicated and ignored by leadership. Pettigrew said there were at least 10 fantasy leagues in which leaders and managers played.
Still, on Oct. 20, Fidelity officials investigated the matter after they intercepted e-mails exchanged in a different office league. After questioning the commissioner of that league, they discovered Pettigrew also ran an office league. Four league commissioners lost their jobs at Fidelity.
Pettigrew, though, said he never sent any fantasy football e-mails at work or using his work e-mail address. But the investigators found two instant messages that had fantasy-football-related material.
“One of my buddies sent me something about how bad Trent Edwards was playing or something like that,” Pettigrew said. “So they called me in and talked to me for about 90 minutes on everything I ever knew about fantasy football. They interrogated me as though I was some sort of international gambling kingpin. Then they released me for the day, and I was like, ‘OK.’ I never thought they’d fire me for this, but, the next day, I get the call saying I had been terminated.”
How many lives are you going to wreck, Trent Edwards? How many?
I suspect that this may just be an easy way for companies to lay off people during a tough economy. If so, shame on Fidelity. By the way, have you seen my fantasy roster, Mr. Obama? Where’s my federal stimulus money?
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Fidelity fires four for playing fantasy football [Fort Worth Star-Telegram]
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- Bones - Dec 16, 2009 at 6:24 PM
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So if you use the company phone to make a tee time you better keep it friendly.
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- John - Dec 16, 2009 at 6:26 PM
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Oh lord, you’re in customer service…? LOL!
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- Crazy Uncle - Dec 16, 2009 at 6:31 PM
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I guess it just confirms the old wisdom that if you’re going to break the rules, you’d better be so valuable to the company that they can’t fire you. These guys apparently weren’t. Maybe if they hadn’t spent so much time playing fantasy football, they could have made themselves such.
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- Sean - Dec 16, 2009 at 6:31 PM
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I don’t agree with many people here – it’s company equipment, company time, and company policy the guy violated. That said – the firing was way out of line. I can see a stern warning/talking to and a direct threat to company benefits if it kept up, but not a direct firing.
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- Worker Bee - Dec 16, 2009 at 6:36 PM
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This idiot has an MBA?
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- Homer - Dec 16, 2009 at 6:37 PM
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Seriously, anyone stupid enough to play fantasy football while on the clock at Fidelity should expect to be fired. Anyone I know who has ever worked for that company has spent their entire career worrying about being laid off or fired and knows that’s how it is there. And let’s put this in the right context. They were not fired for playing fantasy football. They were fired for doing it on company time. If they had their feet on their desk, reading the latest Twilight book at their desk on company time, they were also be fired.
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- cll1950 - Dec 16, 2009 at 6:42 PM
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They call it work for a reason. People are begging for jobs right now. Why should they get pay for goofing off? The American work eihic is almost a thing of the past. They were told about company poicy when they were hired. If more companies did this we might be able to have pride in our workforce again. A job is not an entitlement. Earn your paycheck.
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- sk - Dec 16, 2009 at 6:43 PM
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Fidelity has all my retirement money. I’m fine with them firing them. Fidelity needs to concentrate on making me more money – not fantasy football.
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- Mike - Dec 16, 2009 at 6:44 PM
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Don’t ever do anything that can put your position at risk!
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- Mac - Dec 16, 2009 at 6:44 PM
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I have a bit more insight into this and this company than most because I know the VP of Employment Legal Dept. He is a stuffed, callous, arrogant deceitful, hypocritical ass. Trust me when I tell you he and they will ignore their own guidelines, falsify and fabricate information, rely upon falsified information, withhold information, delete and distort information etc. If he has created the same culture at Fidelity as he participated in at Liberty it is a company based upon a culture of deceit. Does a company have the right to monitor internet, email and phone usage – YES and everybody better be damn well aware of that – and selectively penalize whoever they want for any violations or alleged or perceived acts. HR and Employment Legal do not care about employees. Employees are pawns and judged based upon potential legal liability to the company or as lessons to others. No due process in the workplace either. HR is a misnomer. All better understand that. Only what they can do to support their position is important to them. Hard lesson learned. Don’t trust anybody – especially HR, MNGT and Employment Legal – in the work place. It will come back to bite you big time. Employment at will also is a misnomer. It means at their will. It is not an equal relationship. They can fire you for anything – other than based upon discrimination – at any time. Ethics and legality mean nothing to these people, especially Stanford graduate VP of Employment Legal at Fidelity.
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- HR - Dec 16, 2009 at 6:49 PM
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You can call (866) 697-1048 to complain about Fidelity terminating these employee’s. What a pitiful excuse.
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- Paul - Dec 16, 2009 at 6:56 PM
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“In this economic time, especially. To fire people over something like this, it’s just cold.”
Let’s turn this staement around so it makes sense — in this economic time, you should be even more focused on keeping a job and not playing Internet games at work. For a guy with an MBA, Mr. Pettigrew doesn’t have any smarts when it comes to basic worth ethic. Not only should they have fired him, they should also go after him to get reimbursed for the time and money (i.e., pay) he stole while playing this game at work. I’m comforted by the fact that he will not be eligible for unemployment, since he was fired for cause.
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- O rly - Dec 16, 2009 at 6:58 PM
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Are you really that dense? She’s making a point about faking the value of the customer. I wish people would grow at least one brain cell before commenting.
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- ImWhiteWolf - Dec 16, 2009 at 7:04 PM
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Actually when I replied to your post I was at home on my own time. As for talking to my coworkers at work I don’t usually do it as we only have three people in my department right now.
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- Bill - Dec 16, 2009 at 7:12 PM
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So, Fidelity has a couple of openings now? Where should I send my resume? Also, of course the employee-employer relationship is not equal. Even the former dummy employees at Fidelity know that now.
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- John - Dec 16, 2009 at 7:16 PM
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All businesses operate that way… Customers are of course invaluable insofar as that without them you’d have no revenue. But how profitable do you think any business would be if they really put their customers above everything else?
Customers & clients are #1 up to the point that they begin to eat away at the bottom line…
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- Paul O. - Dec 16, 2009 at 7:22 PM
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You are hired by a company to do a job, for which you are paid. You are not getting paid to play games. Go to work to work, go home to play, simple isn’t it?
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- B. - Dec 16, 2009 at 7:24 PM
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Absolutely right on. I am tired of employees (mine and others that I see) wasting hours every day centered around personal stuff and not work. I do own a business and it frustrates me to no end when I see my employees doing personal work, playing games, gambling, smoke breaks with no end, etc………. with absolutely no idea or concern as to the negative impact that this wasted time has on productivity and company profitability. I have a small company and would hate to see what goes on nationwide. I might as well open the door and toss out money because that is exactly what is going on with employees not working at work!!!! What really goes through the minds of self centered, non focused people like this??? Most actually believe that they are somehow entitled to screw off at work. Come on people. You get paid to work, not to play games and do personal stuff so get off your high horses or find yourselves in the unemployment line. I applaud Fidelity for taking this action and more businesses need to do the same in order to curb this bad behaviour. Who does this guy (who was fired) think that he is? He is actually blaming the employer for not managing him enough and/or telling him that he shouldnt be gambling at work (or playing, or wasting time, etc…). That is the real problem here as people have no sense of what work is suppose to be anymore. No wonder we cannot be competitive as a country since everyone is screwing off during the day.
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- dcscfi - Dec 16, 2009 at 11:01 PM
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I used to work at Fidelity at a different phone center. From my first day there I was warned, as were the other members of the new hire class I was in, of things that would get me fired right away, no warning, no nothing. Fantasy leagues were one of the ones that we were reminded of at the beginning of just about every sports season.
Fidelity made clear to me that it wanted to avoid even the appearance of anything that would cause any customer, any regulatory agency and any government agency any question about what we were doing.
Where I’m not at Fidelity anymore (my choice) I don’t know what will happen, but my guess is that there where be retraining in Fidelity’s procedures. So when this sort of thing is found again there won’t be any excuse.
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- Mike in SA - Dec 17, 2009 at 9:27 AM
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Yeah, my retirement fund is all screwed up now. Like there are only 5 mutual fund options to choose from out there and 3 of them are Fidelity. Oh yeah…that’s right…there are almost 10,000 mutual fund options to choose from. Go tool yourself.
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- Mike in SA - Dec 17, 2009 at 9:38 AM
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BTW…did y’all not notice the entirety of their investigation came up with just 2 IM’s…2. Thousands of dollars in man hours to come up with 10 seconds of off the cuff conversation. Remember that the next time you talk to your coworker about their new car or about their kids or your kids or the new restaurant you went to or their dog’s diverticulitis or….
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- John - Dec 17, 2009 at 1:01 PM
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According to the article, all four of these guys were league commissioners so I think it’s a safe bet that there were more than just two instant messages, though that may have been all that was uncovered.
Are you suggesting that this sort of behavior is acceptable? Would you tolerate it were they your employees…?
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- Mike in SA - Dec 17, 2009 at 1:36 PM
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From the article…”Pettigrew, though, said he never sent any fantasy football e-mails at work or using his work e-mail address. But the investigators found two instant messages that had fantasy-football-related material.”…any other communication is pure conjecture on your part.
Listen, I own a business and my employees’ morale is very important to me because I regularly ask them to go above and beyond for MY sake. Giving them 5 minutes here and there goes a long way towards that good faith credit when I call them in the middle of the night because a server crashed and I need them to rebuild it pronto. While you can’t have the inmates running the asylum, having happy employees is way more important to me than me having my control freakishness satiated. Content employees and employees that feel personally cared for tend to be MUCH more productive and that is MUCH more important to me than having my god complex fed.
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- Angelo Mendez - Jan 13, 2010 at 6:20 PM
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Listen, I love fantasy football. I’m an employee to a company with internet access and capibilities as well. I know we had an issue with one of our employees constantly on his e-mail and constantly looking at sites that were not work related. My boss, and owner, just gave him a warning and said chill out and lets focus on why you’re getting paid. I admit the firing was a little extreme, but look at it from an owner or boss point of view. I know that fantasy football can take quite a few minutes to set up on a weekly basis as well as always (daily) checking on the status of you team, health, starting, benched, ect…. so just keep an open mind when judging these executives who did the firing… what if this guy was playing with your cash and was Starting Peyton Manning over investing your cash into some type of money maker….?
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- Angelo Mendez - Jan 13, 2010 at 6:20 PM
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Listen, I love fantasy football. I’m an employee to a company with internet access and capibilities as well. I know we had an issue with one of our employees constantly on his e-mail and constantly looking at sites that were not work related. My boss, and owner, just gave him a warning and said chill out and lets focus on why you’re getting paid. I admit the firing was a little extreme, but look at it from an owner or boss point of view. I know that fantasy football can take quite a few minutes to set up on a weekly basis as well as always (daily) checking on the status of you team, health, starting, benched, ect…. so just keep an open mind when judging these executives who did the firing… what if this guy was playing with your cash and was Starting Peyton Manning over investing your cash into some type of money maker….?
