While we’ve heard rumors of people losing their jobs from playing Pokémon Go, we’ve finally received confirmation of someone definitely losing their job related to Pokémon Go hype.
According to the BBC:
‘In a series of Facebook comments, Sonny Truyen suggested Singapore was an undesirable place to live due to the unavailability of the smartphone game.
He also wrote that Singapore was filled with “stupid people”.
Several Singaporean web users contacted his employer, real estate website 99.co, expressing anger at his posts.
During a dispute with another Facebook user, Mr Truyen wrote that “the average IQ” in Singapore would fall if he left the country, and that “locals can’t even read”.
Darius Cheng, chief executive of 99.co, apologized for Mr Truyen’s comments in a blog post, and said his employment contract had been terminated.’
It’s 2016, and by now you should be aware that if you’re a high-ranking executive who represents a company that your social media presence will be heavily scrutinized. So shitting on a whole country’s population? Not the best idea. Well on the positive side of things, at least Mr. Truyen can now play Pokemon Go when he travels back home to Australia without a job. Rather than offer a genuine apology and own up to his crappy comments, Mr Truyen decided to double down on being a man child who is unaware that his actions have consequences by stating,
“It was disappointing the lengths Singaporeans went at to attack me and deny [me] any chance of making amends for my actions.”
This apology will definitely live on as one of the worst apologies of 2016. It’s almost impressive just how slimy and insincere this apology is. Well, good luck Mr. Truyen. Hopefully you can use your newly acquired free time to hunt down a Gyrados or something.
[h/t BBC]