Global Fastener News

MEDIA SPOTLIGHT – Industrial fasteners and tools supplier Fastener Co. is facing backlash after firing a store manager for complaining on social media about his holiday gift.

Hussien Mehaidli, 27, who managed a Fastenal branch in British Columbia, commented on Twitter when he received a $5.99 bottle of barbecue sauce and a wooden grill scraper branded with the company’s logo.

The gift felt like a slap in the face, Mehaidli told CTV News.

“I work really hard. We get pushed really hard to reach our sales goals. I felt I gave this company so much and I felt really disrespected when I was given barbecue sauce as a holiday gift.”

In frustration, Mehaidli posted on his anonymous Twitter account.

“What kind of multi billion dollar company gifts it’s (sic) Canadian employees barbecue sauce as a holiday gift? Yet the USA employees stuff their face with an actual holiday gift box!” he tweeted.

He also commented on a letter from CEO Dan Florness that encouraged employees to “share something from the holiday gift box,” according to CTV News.

“SHARE WHAT ?? !! MY BARBECUE SAUCE ?? To every Canadian Fastenal employee I am sorry we all had to go through this.”

Within hour, Mehaidli said he got a phone call from his manager, who told him to delete the tweet, according to CTV News. Ten days later Mehaidli said his manager called him in for another meeting, where he was immediately fired without severance pay.

“I am not going to deny it,” Florness told the Minneapolis Star Tribune. “We did terminate an employee.”

Fastenal said the tweet violated the company’s policy on social media posts. Florness said the policy about acceptable standards of conduct is given to every employee and posted on the company website.

“I was very surprised by the whole thing,” Florness told the Star Tribune.

He said he called the HR department himself to find out what was going on after customers began hurling insults online.

“Calmer heads didn’t prevail over this,” Florness said. “Nobody reached out to me to say, ‘Really? I am getting fired over a tweet?’ It’s an incredibly unfortunate event.”

News of the firing has since gone viral and prompted a backlash on social media, including several website posts and phone messages that were deleted immediately because they were “vulgar” or “threatening,” Florness told the Star Tribune.

In a departure from previous years, Canadian employees did not get the basket of candy, cookies and other snacks that was given to U.S. workers, Florness acknowledged, though he said both gifts were valued at $27, according to the Associated Press.

Editor’s Note: Articles in Media Spotlight are excerpts from publications or that show the industry what the public is reading or hearing about fasteners and fastener companies.

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