If feel sort of sorry for this dude who got sacked from “Bastardstone’s”, as he refers to it, so I will take some time off from trying to reshape the world in the style of Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash to write a bit about it.

Working in a book shop is an awesome job, third only to Librarian, and Travelling Wise Man For Hire. It seems to have been this guy’s dream job too, as he worked there for 11 years, ever since he was a student.

Or maybe not. I also feel sorry for Waterstone’s, who are on the receiving end of not only the above Bastardstone’s jibe, but a bunch of other stuff. The Guardian gives excerpts where he calls his Boss evil and complains about working hours, but misses this bit:

Sneaked a couple of talking books from an incoming pile to listen to as well and managed to fit in the entire BBC radio version of the Hitch-hiker’s Guide this week.

where he seems to admit to theft? Maybe I just don’t know what he means by sneaking.

But imagine you own a business, and you employ somebody to help you out. Imagine you find out that your employee hates his job, hates you, slags off your business in public, bemoans the fact that he is overqualified, and gabs about your other employees being drunk on the job. Imagine also that there are 1.5 million unemployed people in this country who would just love to work for you. Seems like an easy decision to me.

Open up, it’s the pigs

But! We still have labour laws in this country. Maybe it’s not legal to sack somebody who hates you. I wouldn’t worry about that. Those laws will be gone soon. So when that happens, what is there to stop somebody from imposing free-speech restricting clauses in an employment contract? Imagine if you could only get a job for Pepsi if you forever renounced saying the word Coke. Imagine if you could only get a job working for a daytrading firm if you disseminate flagrant lies about stock prices to your friends and family. If there are no laws restricting what can go into a contract, then might people effectively sell themselves into slavery?

The answer is no, after a brief digression on contract law. I’m afraid I have to come down on the side of Waterstone’s here. The guy just didn’t want his job enough, so he lost it. The only way to guard yourself against dismissal is to make yourself valuable to your employer. Employees must be free to choose their employers, and employers must be free to choose their employees, no matter what. As soon as you put restrictions on either side of that deal, you get degenerate scenarios. Oh wait, like we have now…