"Tamás Müller, who has recently lost his job at Vodafone for a tweet, now has over 1,200 fans on his Facebook fan page. Although his bosses showed little appreciation for his wry humour used on Twitter as a reaction to rival T-Mobile’s network woes, his virtual kick in the groin started an avalanche on the web.Last Friday, T-Mobile, the mobile unit of Hungary’s Magyar Telekom, was unable to communicate during a network failure and its subscribers were left in the dark all morning as to why they had problems calling and texting.
In order to give at least some information to its clients, the carrier released a "statement" on Twitter saying: "There will be an official statement (released) about the network problem. Please be patient!"
Tamás Müller, Vodafone’s online marketing communication manager responsible for the carrier’s Twitter messages was quick to retweet: "OK, give us a ring! ;)". His bosses were not amused by the cynical response and sacked him for behaving unfairly with the competition. The main reason for his sacking was that he did not ask permission from his superiors, according to Portfolio.hu's information.
The cynical tweet was not the only "mistake" Müller made. Apparenty, he was also behind the idea of placing an ad on Google whenever they googled the words 'T-Mobile' and 'crash' (leállt) together.
You decide if this was a spark of genius or an intolerable lampooning. Vodafone definitely voted for the latter.
Müller has been with Vodafone for three months and he was appointed online marketing communication manager only at the beginning of December.
Previously he was employed at advertising agencies (e.g. Publicis and Mirai) as account manager/executive and also as marketing manager at the online version of local economic weekly HVG. Müller is also owner of Wardrobe Media, a local company manufacturing coat hangers made from recycled paper, also usable for advertising purposes.
The abrupt termination of his career at Vodafone caused uproar in the Internet community. By now he has more than 1,200 fans on his Facebook fan page created "against stupidity". There is also another a fan site with images like this one below.
Fuming and frolicking
There are a lot of comments on thenextweb.com, where the sacking of Müller was also addressed. Some say Vodafone made a mistake by firing him, while others agree with the company.
"It seems a bit humourless. That said - I hope Vodafone provided some editorial style training / guidelines for whoever was tweeting on their behalf, otherwise sacking him seems unfair. Invisible goalposts come to mind." - David Reinhardt .
"I guess that if the guy wouldn’t have been fired, this issue would never have gotten that much attention. Making the guy apologise on Twitter as well would have seemed like a better solution, I mean, what’s the deal anyway?" - Polle
"It is humourless indeed. But now at least everyone knows about the tweet. Did Vodafone want that?" - Godfried Knipscheer
"What the guy did was unprofessional, and stupid. Serves him right to be honest." - Bernard
"No Bernard, it wasn’t. It was funny. Taking twitter seriously is one thing - and I think it is an important step. That said, twitter isn’t a channel for politically correct marketing language... that is what the PR-stream on the website is for so that mere mortals can ignore it. Vodafone just proved they are way behind the times." - wendy
"I think firing the guy was the last thing they should have done. This was completely in keeping with the spirit of Twitter." - Brad F
"Firing the guy was a total overreaction by Vodafone. If that’s not what they their employees to do on Twitter, then fine, give him a slap on the wrist. Give him some guidelines, even tell him he’s not allowed to tweet anything about Vodafone from now on, but to fire a guy over that. Ridiculous!" - DavidAGrant
"Talk about Vodafone shooting themselves in the foot. Looks like the wrong Vodafone employee was fired...." - Declan Fallon
Nothing to add to this...
The icing on the cake may be that Vodafone is seeking (or did seek, there is no date on the job offer) an online communication specialist, the original job Müller had at the company. (Frames added by Portfolio.hu)
One thing's for sure, Twitter is getting serious attention."
Source: Portfolio Online Financial Journal
14.12.2009