WHYY has to Give Philly Comedian his Job Back After Judge Rules Jokes That Got Him Fired Were “Simply Funny”

What a win for comedy.

If you haven’t heard this story about a comedian and former (now present?) host of WHYY’s The Pulse, it’s a doozy.

Comedian Jad Sleiman was allowed to work from home because he was diagnosed with MS. Someone at WHYY found out he was doing comedy around the city. Management at WHYY tries to get him to come back into work, even though it’s 2024 and you can record a podcast from anywhere, and he explained to them doing stand-up doesn’t affect him like coming into the office would. Since executives already found out he was doing comedy from his Instagram, they scour his page, find clips from his stand up that they say violate their social media policy, and fire him. Real dirtbag shit that feels like there was an axe to grind.

Sidenote before we go any further: If Muslim-Americans aren’t safe from getting cancelled for making jokes about Muslims, we’re all fucked:

So the case goes to arbitration, and the arbitrator might be the worst person involved in this entire story, from Jules Roscoe at VICE:

Sleiman, who was represented by SAG-AFTRA grievance lawyers, argued that he had been terminated without due process. Lawyers from Duane Morris LLP, including the firm’s vice chairman Thomas Servodidio, argued that Sleiman’s “inflammatory” comedy constituted a violation of WHYY’s code of conduct and social media policy, which states that “employees must take care that their postings cannot be interpreted as inflammatory, unethical or illegal, since such posts may have an adverse effect on WHYY.”

The arbitrator said that he read this policy as not incorporating a “reasonable person” standard, meaning that workers “must be vigilant not to post anything on social media that could conceivably be interpreted as inflammatory even by highly sensitive and thin-skinned individuals without an appreciation for irony or satire.” 

If we’re going to start basing legal rulings off of highly sensitive and thin-skinned individuals, who are so fucked in the head they can’t understand irony or satire, then we might as well just welcome the meteor now. It was a good run. People who are always offended by things are pussies. They will continue to be pussies until they’re six feet under. There is no saving them.

But somehow the arbitrator grew a brain between the time when they interpreted WHYY’s social media policy and reviewed nine comedy samples of Sleiman’s bits. The result was Sleiman getting his job back because the jokes were “simply funny.” And they were. One of the jokes in the samples was labeled “Kinda Racist” which I think is a hilarious premise:

“I work at one of these places that’s so woke it’s kinda racist,” the joke reads in part. “Like this lady asked my boss, she’s like ‘Yo, does Jad consider himself a person of color?’ because she was making a list of us. Fucking hell? Sick, alright. I get to be in this lady’s brown dude Pokédex.”

I like to live by my Golden Rule when making jokes: Funny is Funny and Jad Sleiman is funny –

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Jad S. (@jadslay)

On the other hand this story is the perfect example corporations today meddling in their employees’ personal lives because they think they own you 24/7. With Slack and Microsoft Teams you’re never truly “offline.” With social media you have to watch what you say or it will negatively impact your company, which to me is a crock of shit. Is the guy in the mail room talking about vaccines on Facebook really going to hurt the market share of a Fortune 500 company? Are they going to move less product and on the earnings call the CFO is going to report it’s because Mike in packaging said the vax turned his uncle gay? Probably not! Policies aren’t built in to help employees a lot of the time, they’re in place to save company’s asses.

My favorite part about this is WHYY released an episode during the pandemic titled, “Laughing Matters,” where it explored why it’s important to laugh and the scientific effects it has on the human body. Who did they feature on the episode? You guessed it. Jad Sleiman, with this description:

Timing’s everything when it comes to jokes — including whether and how long they’re funny. Reporter Jad Sleiman explores the life cycle of jokes — what makes them land and what makes them bomb.

Can’t make this shit up. Laughing matters, but only when we say it does. Good for Jad. I need the video of  him walking into WHYY like Vince McMahon his first day back:

Sleiman said he expects to start working again in the coming week, unless the company decides to appeal the arbitration decision.

“I’m going to walk in there like fucking Vince McMahon,” he said, laughing. “I’m very curious to see how much they spent—Duane Morris is some of the biggest in the country. They tried their best. They called me every name in the book. They cut off my health insurance. They deleted all of my fucking stories, which like, what the fuck? And then they still lost. People keep asking, ‘Is it going to be weird going back?’ I’m like, yeah, for them.” 

The post WHYY has to Give Philly Comedian his Job Back After Judge Rules Jokes That Got Him Fired Were “Simply Funny” appeared first on Crossing Broad.