AOL chief executive fires an employee…in front of 1000 colleagues

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An honorable member of the Coffee Shop Has Just Posted the Following:

It took him just 3 seconds to fire an employee during a conference call, and now AOL's CEO Tim Armstrong has issued an email apology to his employees saying he had acted too quickly.
He said in the email dated August 13: "On Friday I acted too quickly and I learned a tremendous lesson and I wanted you to hear that directly from me."

Armstrong had previously drawn flak when a leaked voice recording of an AOL conference meeting was uploaded online. In it, the CEO could be heard addressing around 1,000 employees in a conference call.

Some time during the call, Armstrong tells Abel Lenz, an employee, to "put that camera down right now". He then says, almost immediately after that: "Abel, you're fired. Out."

Reports say that Armstrong was unhappy because Lenz was taking a photo during the meeting.


Silence takes over for about 5 seconds before the chief continued with what he was telling the staff before sacking the employee, Abel Lenz, a creative director at the firm.

According to online reports, Armstrong admitted that he should not have fired Lenz in public, saying that "at a human level, it was unfair to Abel". However, he also noted that this was not the first time Abel Lenz had been told off for recording an internal meeting.

He said in the email: "Abel had been told previously not to record a confidential meeting, and he repeated that behavior on Friday, which drove my actions."

- See more at: http://business.asiaone.com/career/n....DTdkY4fC.dpuf




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