Walmart Fires Employees Who Smashed iPads on Video
Why, why, why do people publicly upload videos of themselves that could get them canned?
You would think that the masses would have learned by now, but here we go again: When you upload a video of yourself to YouTube of you working in a retail environment and being a real jerk to the products you're supposed to be selling, odds are good that someone on the Internet is going to find that video.
Odds are even higher that someone on the Internet is going to post a link to your video on a popular website (like, say, Reddit or 4chan).
And odds are extremely high that, once this happens, fans of said popular website are going to go on a witch hunt to get you fired.
In the case of the recent video posted to Reddit by a user named "SenorPierre," however, the Internet didn't really have to do a thing.
In the footage, a few alleged Walmart employees are having a bit of "fun" in the back stockroom, tossing around boxes supposedly carrying iPads and spiking one into the ground like a big digital football. You know – stuff like that.
While it hasn't been confirmed that the miscreants were actually tossing around iPads based on the boxes they were quarterbacking, Walmart representatives maintain that the video is completely real.
"We've seen the video of several night-shift associates destroying merchandise in the back of one of our stores in August and, as anyone can image, it made us wince. We are also embarrassed," said a Walmart spokesperson in a statement provided to Cnet's Chris Matyszczyk.
"Since this unfortunate incident, we haven't received any returns of this merchandise. We stand behind our merchandise, and our associates work very hard to take proper care and handling of the products we put on our shelves," the spokesperson added.
According to the video's original submitter on Reddit, the employees have allegedly been fired and have been prosecuted for their mini-rampage. While the Walmart spokesperson confirmed that the employees in the August video were let go, it doesn't appear as if the ex-employees will face any criminal penalties for their actions. Local police representatives say that they haven't received any reports in regards to the videotaped incident.
We've embedded the full video below, but a brief warning for those at work – it contains a bit of naughty language!
For more tech tidbits from David Murphy, follow him on Facebook or Twitter (@thedavidmurphy).