Results tagged “fired”

In what must be the least surprising news item of the day, the law firm that was planning on hiring Brian Schroeder — the 26-year-old Harvard Law School grad suspected of setting a fire in a chapel containing the remains of unidentified victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks — has revoked its offer. The firm Sidley Austin recanted on its decision to hire Schroeder, who turned himself in to police after setting a blaze on Saturday morning that destroyed flowers, photos, and other mementos inside Memorial Park on the corner of First Avenue and East 30th Street. According to cops, he set the fire on a drunk dare, but Schroeder's attorney claims the Texas native, who moved to New York to accept the law job, had been drugged.

You know you must be pretty sleazy when your behavior makes State Senate scofflaw Pedro Espada, Jr. blush. Yesterday the esteemed Senator from Bronxchester abruptly fired his deputy chief of staff, Onix A. Sosa, after the Times confronted him about Sosa's past work managing 35 buildings in upper Manhattan and the Bronx with close to 7,400 unresolved violations, including 1,100 deemed immediately hazardous. That kind of thing doesn't fly in Espada's office, at least not once the press catches wind of it. In a statement, Espada said, "I was shocked and, quite frankly, blindsided by this revelation."

A Greenpoint woman's altercation with a police officer over carrying her sick dog through the subway has put her out of a job. To recap: Chrissie Brodigan, a VP for Online Media at Plum TV, says that after she argued with Officer Joel Witriol while trying to carry her pug out of the subway, he arrested her, grabbed her breasts, and punched her in the back while saying, "If you're going to act like a woman I'm going to treat you like a woman." Other witnesses corroborated Brodigan's account, but one witness and an unidentified source told the Post that Brodigan yelled at Witriol, the city's first Hasidic officer, "You f---ing Jew, you're not even human. Jewish people think they own everything."

Out of 30 tuna fish sandwiches bound for the trash, 57-year-old Whole Foods employee Ralph Reese set aside one for himself, to be eaten at the end of his shift last November. But an unnamed supervisor at the Union Square supermarket (let's call him Inspector Javert) noticed the sandwich sitting on the deli counter and demanded to know why it wasn't on its way to a landfill. After Reese explained that he intended to eat it, Javert threw it out, and Reese was fired two days later, because, the company claims, he was essentially attempting to steal the sandwich; Whole Foods policy dictates that food cannot consumed by employees without being purchased.

It's not just paranoid Luddites who fear the sinister agenda of the new robotic L trains; train conductors, whom the MTA tried unsuccessfully to replace with robots, are still worried their jobs are in jeopardy. One "wild-eyed, grey-haired" conductor recently told Infrastructurist what he thinks of his new robot co-worker: "The last thing the public wants is to be stuck underground, getting mugged, with a robot conductor. People need people. I can call the cops, I can intervene. Last month I had to break up a knife fight. Well, I didn’t so much break it up but I called it in. A robot can’t do that." Another conductor struck a more fearful tone, "They could easily replace humans but don’t put my name next to it because I’ll be the first to lose my job to the robots. I’m definitely scared that could happen." Better hope the robots weren't reading your lips when you said that, foolish human! Sounds like someone better invest in some robot insurance.

About a dozen current and former Starbucks employees protested outside the Union Square Starbucks last night, demanding that management reinstate fired barista Sharon Bell. Managers say they terminated Bell last week because of tardiness and attendance issues, but she says its actually retaliation for her involvement in the Starbucks Workers Union. Two other fellow union members were also fired recently, though one was reinstated. In December, a National Labor Relations Board judge found the company guilty of union busting and ordered several employees reinstated with back wages. According to the Seattle PI, the court documents read "like a reality-TV script, revealing Starbucks baristas and managers yelling at each other, mishandling blenders and cursing." One incident at the East 9th Street Starbucks almost came to blows, with a barista telling a manager, "You can go f*** yourself, if you want to f*** me up, go ahead, I'm here."

After this week, there's even less reason to touch the grimy handle of those ubiquitous Village Voice corner boxes: today is Nat Hentoff's last appearance in the increasingly irrelevant weekly. After fifty years spent doggedly exploring everything from music to human rights for the paper, the 83-year-old columnist was terminated just before New Year's Eve. But instead of using his last column to carpet Phoenix-based Village Voice Media with F-bombs, Hentoff has bowed out with class, looking back on his illustrious history with the Voice, and forward to his work as an author and syndicated columnist. And he promises to keep sticking it to the man by "putting on skunk suit at other garden parties, now that I've been excessed from the Voice...See you somewhere else. Finally, I'm grateful for the comments on the phone and the Web. It's like hearing my obituaries while I'm still here."

Screw loyalty; after spending about a half century writing for the Village Voice, 83-year-old columnist Nat Hentoff got fired yesterday, along with Lynn Yaeger, a fashion writer who spent about 30 years at the Voice. Also terminated was Chloe A. Hilliard, who has worked there for two years. Happy New Year! Hentoff is widely regarded for his writing on music (particularly jazz) and his weekly diatribes on human rights and civil liberties issues, with a blistering emphasis in recent years on "the chief rapists of the Constitution since 9/11." Since being acquired by alt-weekly conglomerate New Times Media in 2005, the Voice has laid off about half of its staff, and staffer Tom Robbins tells the Times the Voice is having "serious advertising revenue problems"—which are sure to be solved by shitcanning great writers! Hentoff will continue writing a synidcated column for United Media and contribute to the Wall Street Journal. "I’m 83 and a half. You’d think they’d have let me go silently," he told the Times. "Fortunately, I’ve never been more productive."

A 19-year-old male model flew into a rage yesterday after a Daily News cover story sparked a media frenzy outside the Ozone Park home he shares with his 37-year-old lover, a former teacher who is suing the city for firing her over the affair. WCBS has video of the teen tantrum, which features Hugo Boss model Joshua Walter charging from the house in slippers, clapping his hands and yelling "Leave! Get the f--- outta here! Find someplace else to take pictures."

A tenured second grade school teacher in Queens is suing to win her job back after being fired because her boyfriend/baby daddy was a high school student at one point in their relationship.

As previously mentioned, the Knitting Factory will soon be moving from its current Leonard Street location to the old Luna Lounge in Williamsburg. The change will take place early next year, and the venue will have its last Manhattan night on New Year’s Eve. The NY Press is now reporting that "the whole staff—65 people in all—is losing their jobs." Well, not all of them; "two of the 65 staff members—both managers—are being kept on. According to the bartender, the staff was told in April that they were being laid off en masse when Jared Hoffman, who took over in 2002, was still looking at a space" and "wanted to start fresh." Allegedly there were letters stapled to the employee's checks that broke the news. One old booker at the venue said that it's Hoffman who “fucked it all up." Well, Hoffman was just axed as well, so maybe the Brooklyn space really will revive the KF name?

The 10th grade schoolteacher who was fired for calling his students "filthy animals who belonged in a f---ing zoo" has opened up to the Daily News. Last week Steven Clarke's lawsuit against against the Education Department was thrown out, with Supreme Court Justice Marilyn Shafer ruling that the principal at the Global Enterprise Academy was justified in terminating Clarke because "he had verbally abused students."

Tenth grade teacher and proud Cornell alum Steven Clarke (not pictured) lost his lawsuit against the Education Department yesterday. Clarke had been fired from his teaching fellowship at the Global Enterprise Academy in the Bronx after he told another teacher, in the presence of students, that, "My parents did not sacrifice for me to go to Cornell so I could take care of a bunch of animals." He then went on to describe the 10th-graders as "filthy animals who belonged in a f- - -ing zoo." Called on the carpet by the school's principal, Clarke refused to apologize, explaining that he was not speaking to the students directly, and that he was merely responding to one student's instruction to "get the f- - - out of my face." Supreme Court Justice Marilyn Shafer ruled that Clarke's termination was permissible because "he had verbally abused students."

Millionaire Richie Randazzo, the lotto-winning Park Avenue doorman who wanted to keep it real by keeping his job at the luxury condo, has been fired at last, the Post reports. Last week Randazzo told the tabloids that the management had been threatening to terminate him because he was "spending too much time outside the building." It continues to be a rough week for the blue collar playboy; on Monday news broke that his new bombshell girlfriend is charged with “promoting prostitution” at a Jersey strip club. But despite rumors that the strippers/hookers hated her, one dancer at the club defends Randazzo’s special lady friend: “They're just mad because she got the $5 million doorman. That's what they all dream about.”

Despite winning $5 million with the "Set for Life" scratch-off game last May, Park Avenue doorman Richie Randazzo is determined to keep his job, where he earns $40,000 a year plus tips. But his attempt to move into the building was stymied, and now he says the management is trying to fire him “for spending too much time outside the building and wearing short-sleeve shirts.” Randazzo tells the Post, "They are jealous. They're running [the apartment building] like the Gestapo. You're required to stand all the time. They want you to look like a soldier." Other unreasonable demands include opening doors and signing for deliveries.

The debacle of how the Mets handled firing Willie Randolph was Jon Stewart's first topic on last night's The Daily Show. Stewart, a loyal Mets fan, was not happy--video is above.

The rumors swirled viciously before the game. Willie Randolph was safe for at least the week, but some of his coaches would be fired shortly. Randolph and some of the coaches were about to be axed. There were even erroneous reports that Rick Peterson had been fired.

A Manhattan court upheld the firing of city employee Toquir Choudhri for doing too much Web browsing on the City's time. Choudri, who was an education analyst for the Department of Education's Human Resources department, was fired in 2006 for spending far too much time online. He had been formally warned to knock of his Web-wandering ways, but an internal audit showed that despite the warning, Choudri visited more than 300 sites in six days, or more than 50 different sites a day.

Today the alternative weekly New York Press announced the resignation of their new sex columnist, Claudia Lonow, after her debut column – and the cover story, no less – was found to have used some questions from old Dan Savage advice columns. The answers were her own, but, as Jezebel discovered, not questions like the one seeking advice about [paraphrasing] ‘what to do when you walk in on your girlfriend canoodling with her noticeably erect brother?’

Bad breath will usually cost one a second date, but who knew that it could cost one a job? Doorman Jonah Seeman was told that he shouldn't show up for work today because he was being suspended for having stinky breath. The 61-year-old worked as a doorman at a four-building complex on East 89th St. in Manhattan for 40 years, supporting his 81-year-old mother. Seeman was suspended twice before for his breath, the first time...

“So which is the real Bernie Kerik? Is it the one who pleads not guilty before or is it the one who pleads guilty after he cuts a deal that he’s comfortable with?” - NY1 caller Dalton, from the Upper East Side, to "The Call" Those were the questions that cost NY1 reporter Gary Anthony Ramsay his job, after calling into his own station under a false name. The station deemed it an exceptionally poor...