Telstra: Fake Conroy Twitterer Leslie wouldn’t let it lie
Telstra’s Chief Technology Officer has stepped into the debate over its public row with Leslie Nassar, the employee who was on Twitter as fake Stephen Conroy.
Earlier today, Nassar said that he had been fired for a comedy piece he wrote on his personal blog, Department Of Internets, about what he would do if he was Telstra’s CEO.
And this morning, after announcing he had been fired, the fake Stephen Conroy posted: “Hugh Bradlow (Telstra CTO) and Greg Callaghan are both good, smart guys. They’re enforcers in this, not puppet-masters.”
In a posting this aftternoon, headed “setting the record straight”, Hugh Nasser, Telstra’s CTO, said: “Until now I have stayed away from the online flurry around Leslie’s blogs and tweets, but Leslie is accusing me of being an ‘enforcer’ and a ‘puppet’ and I think it is time I set the record straight. Leslie Nassar is employed in the Chief Technology Office, and as Telstra’s CTO, I am responsible for the people in the team. Any disciplinary or other action is my decision and no-one else’s.”
He added: “There was never any consideration on my part of Leslie losing his job over the Fake Stephen Conroy matter. My view – which was shared with Leslie – was simply that he should stop the Twitter because it was ill advised to be doing something that could be confused with his job at Telstra.”
He concluded:
“Sadly, Leslie chose not to leave it there. I reserve the right to appropriately discipline any employee should they be in breach of Telstra policies and values. What I have done this morning, of my own volition, is to put in place Telstra’s performance improvement and conduct management process.
“Leslie is subject to disciplinary action not because he Twittered as the Fake Stephen Conroy, but because of his ongoing unauthorised public statements about Telstra, including abusive comments towards a colleague. No organisation can tolerate an employee publicly ridiculing his colleagues or making public comment without either the credentials to be authoritative or having the manners to speak to his colleagues first.”
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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Fair enough really, he should have known better than to bag his own company on his own blog right when he was being scrutinised in the only decent scandal the australian tech news has ever seen… well at least the first with a healthy does of twittertrigue.
He seems to savvy to work for Telstra anyway.
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The second case in a week of losing your job in 140 characters? Ah well.
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Closing the Fake Conroy account would’ve been a smart first step.
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hadn’t he heard of ‘quit while you are ahead’? A triumph of ego over brains.
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There was no “ahead”; I stopped posting as FSC at Telstra’s request, and then they lied on NWAT about it, saying that they hadn’t asked. I called them out on it and they posted a retraction.
This morning, Hugh Bradlow called to tell me Telstra were undertaking disciplinary procedures over the above actions; even after the NWAT correction said I would not be fired. He then said that if I didn’t stop blogging and using Twitter, I would be fired. I asked for a written directive stating that, which Bradlow refused.
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