Local resident lost job because iPhone alarm didn't work on New Year's Day?

[ron_newman]

In the Huffington Post, Lindsay Garvey says that she lost her job "as a server at a popular new restaurant in Somerville, MA" because her iPhone alarm failed to go off as scheduled on New Year's Day.

I don't think I know her, nor do I know what restaurant she worked at, but maybe some of you do. Edit: it's Foundry on Elm, according to a new story on the Somerville Journal website

Edit: there's a real software bug in the iPhone alarms that didn't show up until 1/1/11; here's an article about it and here's another

Comments

[tober.livejournal.com]

"Popular new restaurant" could readily be Journeyman or Pizzeria Posto ... however it doesn't seem that likely that someone would be asleep at the time when servers are expected to report at Journeyman (which only serves dinner) and Posto was closed on January 1 (but served brunch on January 2)...

[ron_newman]

Could also be Foundry or Flatbread.

[srakkt.livejournal.com]

I'm sort of dumbfounded that "I didn't get up and get to my own job," has become "somebody else's fault."

Somebody with "two Bachelors' of Arts and experience in a variety of professions" ought to ostensibly count as a grown adult, and if they can't get themselves out of bed at the appointed hour, how is that anybody's fault but their own?

The entitlement! It burns!

[badseed1980.livejournal.com]

Yeah...when my clock radio alarm went off but the reception was bad enough that it was just static, and I didn't hear it, I didn't write to the manufacturer and bitch them out.

[sparkgrrl658.livejournal.com]

yeah, i have to agree. it does suck if she was a great employee all along and they have zero tolerance policy, but hey, that's life. and if she knew about such a policy (or already had two strikes, etc, i don't care enough to read any of it) then set two alarms, ask a roommate to make sure you're up, something. this is NOT the first time the iphone has had a clock/alarm issue and that's well fucking known. boo hoo.

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

Yeeee-ah, something tells me there's a bit more to the story than that.

[srakkt.livejournal.com]

It's undeniably snark-worthy.

I'm sure the young lady is a nice person and all, but a sense of personal responsibility goes a long way.

[clevernonsense.livejournal.com]

I don't want to be mean about it, but if she's half as haughty and pretentious in real life as she comes off in that article I would look for an excuse to fire her as well.

[coeceo.livejournal.com]

I'd be pissed off too. But usually one time of tardiness doesn't merit termination. Especially if you returned with the article about the iPhone glitch.

[teko.livejournal.com]

(a) One incident of tardiness doesn't get you fired if you're a "wonderful" employee. She's not telling the whole story.

(b) She conveniently doesn't explain the so-called "glitch". Sorry hon, but letting your phone battery run out isn't a "glitch". Neither is setting your alarm to PM instead of AM. Neither of these is the fault of Steve Jobs or AT&T. And iPhones don't have a "known alarm glitch" that you feel Mr Jobs should have warned you about.

[ron_newman]

She didn't let her battery run out or set it to the wrong time. There is indeed a known alarm glitch that started only on 1/1/11. I'll add this link to the original post.

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

I agree with your first point and pretty much all the comments above, but in fact, this is a very well-known glitch (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/03/technology/03iphone.html?_r=1) that's been written about all over the place, but I'll leave it to you to search more sources if you want them. I'm not sure why you think should have had to "explain" it.

[bombardiette.livejournal.com]

Um, I use BOTH my phone AND an alarm clock. I know that both items are subject to random failure (or my own idiocy) from time to time...and I also know that sometimes, I may not hear it at all.

With BOTH, I haven't missed a wake up call.

And frankly, to wait until a failure or notification of a glitch to decide that you might have invested in a 5$ battery operated alarm clock (quoting Ms. Linds on that one) is just stupid and therefore, you are absolutely NOT absolved of the personal responsibility that you seem to think equipment failure should absolve you of.

Also, wonderful employees don't get sacked for one incident of tardiness. But that's been said already.

[acidgalore.livejournal.com]

The Somerville Journal reports that it was Foundry on Elm that fired her http://www.wickedlocal.com/somerville/news/x1458591029/Foundry-on-Elm-tied-up-in-iPhone-glitch-controversy

[ron_newman]

Thanks. Editing that into the post now.

Also, she turns out to be the girlfriend of Anthony Bourdain's driver, so suddenly in the middle of a media storm

[talonvaki.livejournal.com]

Sounds like somebody needs a Clocky (http://www.nandahome.com/products/clocky/index.php?color=coco).

And seriously? I have had way too many issues with cell phone alarms in the past (not hearing them, the battery running down, hitting snooze and accidentally shutting it off) to ever rely on one to get me up when I absolutely need to be awake. Glitch or no, blaming your firing on a cell phone alarm - even one as splendid as an iPhone - just makes you appear to be a whiny brat.

Although it does make the fact that you were fired less of a mystery, I suppose.

[sparkgrrl658.livejournal.com]

i got clocky for christmas this year!

he's so cute.

however, he is REALLY LOUD. like, exponentially louder than i thought. i wish he had a volume control so i could use him as an alarm clock :(

[toonhead-npl.livejournal.com]

The saddest part of course is that she'll probably end up on TV at some point because of it. This was just the "final straw" that contributed to her being fired: if it wasn't going to be the iPhone glitch now, it would have been some similarly moronic excuse later.

[duffless2323.livejournal.com]

I find it funny that most people are blaming her in some way or another. Sure she could have had a back up alarm etc, however more and more people these days are using their phones as an alarm, and more and more smart phones have docks etc, that encourage this. I know a lot of people younger than me who only use cell phones, these are the same people who don't have cable and watch tv via the internet. None of us have any idea if she already had trouble at work of if she really was a model employee. However I'm SHOCKED to see so many people blame her, the truth is only her boss and her really know. Foundry is new, and the restaurant industry is notorious for having people who overreact, and go ape-crap mad. Maybe the restaurant was sending a message to the other employees, or maybe she had problems at work. The thing is we don't know, so why all this speculation against her and assume there was more to it? In the service industry, sometimes people get fired because the boss is in a crap mood, happens everyday.

[dial-zero.livejournal.com]

"more and more people these days are using their phones as an alarm..."

So?? That doesn't mean they SHOULD. It's stupid to rely on a phone alarm if you really have to be punctual. Should the business world change its expectations to accommodate kids' preferences of using their (unreliable) phones instead of actual clocks? I don't think so.

PS. I'm a millennial who only has a cell, no landline, and watches TV via the internet, no cable. I'm not a technophobe. But there's no way I'd use this idiotic excuse. Unless maybe I'd already used up all my excuses...

[ron_newman]

I posted a link to this discussion on Foundry's Facebook page, with a note saying "I hope you'll rehire her".

[littlecitynames.livejournal.com]

This is why y'all should use Android, folks.

I am on the "it's her fault" side. I set two alarms because I am concerned about keeping my job and being on time. She says: "Having two Bachelors' of Arts and experience in a variety of professions, you may think I am overqualified for a job as a server. You'd be right."

Maybe she considers herself overqualified, but she wouldn't be qualified for any job that I was hiring for with that attitude. She is the kind of person that gives people like me (I am looking for a second job and would actually take it seriously even if it were a job in retail that I'm "overqualified" for) a bad name.

I'm honestly repulsed by the entitlement she reeks of in that blog entry. "I can afford to pay $100/month for a phone because I'm working at a job that I am too good for, and now I lost the job because my $100/month phone didn't wake me up." Try being a single parent earning minimum wage who loses their job because they have to stay home with their sick kid.

Bottom line? If the job was actually important to her, she would have put in more of an effort to be there. She didn't and she lost the job. And now she's putting her future job potential in jeopardy by blogging about it in an easily-Googleable and sickeningly entitled way. Wherever she applies in the future, they could easily find the article and realize that she doesn't take being at work on time seriously, she doesn't take the privacy of the business seriously, and she won't take a job seriously if she feels it's beneath her. I hope every service job she applies to in the future Googles her. It's just... appalling to me.

[ron_newman]

Android has a reported bug that's much worse than Apple's, though: sending SMS text messages to the wrong recipients

I think the publicity will help her get another job -- at least, I hope so. She didn't put the privacy of her employer's business in jeopardy -- we did that here ;-)

[bombardiette.livejournal.com]

And now it's on boston.com (http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2011/01/somerville_woma.html?comments=all#readerComm) too. [sigh] 5 minutes for getting fired. I need to get me fired so I can blame something else and get my 5 minutes too.

[on-reserve.livejournal.com]

For everyone who is saying that one incidence of tardiness can't an otherwise good employee fired -- I'd have agreed with you too except that just last month I was waiting for the 96 bus and struck up a conversation with someone else waiting for the bus. I checked my phone and let her know that the next bus was five minutes away, then I added, "if this bus doesn't come, I'll miss my job interview. Yeesh, I probably should have taken the previous bus just in case." She said, "if this bus doesn't come, I'll lose my job." Responding to my shocked expression, she went on to explain that she worked at a store in the Prudential and they had a zero tolerance policy; being late once meant being fired. So, I guess now I believe that it's possible for companies to have this policy.

[sparkgrrl658.livejournal.com]

it absolutely does happen, i've known people to work at such places too. personally i'd never work at a job with such a policy in the boston area just because of how unreliable public transportation can be and how crazy the traffic can get at random. with some schedules you'd have to give yourself, like, three hours "just in case" or else fear losing your job which is nuts.

as for this girl, if they did have such a policy she would have known about it, and then i'd think set more than one alarm but then again, with her attitude toward the whole thing, maybe not :p