Where was HR when this boss decided to fire the social media coordinator because he didn't know what "homophone" meant?
A Utah man is claiming he was fired because his boss thought the word "homophone" was related to homosexuality.
Tim Torkildson, a former teacher and social media manager at Nomen Global Language Center, wrote a blog post about homophones – words that sound the same but have different meanings – for the centre's website.
Torkildson claims he was fired because the school owner Clarke Woodger was concerned that English language learners would assume the word "homophone" was related to homosexuality.
On his personal blog, Torkildson quoted Woodger as saying: “I’m letting you go because I can’t trust you. This blog about homophones was the last straw. Now our school is going to be associated with homosexuality.”
The post has since been deleted from the school website.
Woodger denied to the Tribune that his concern over Torkildson’s work centred on homosexuality, but that Torkildson would go off on confusing and sometimes offensive “tangents” in his posts for the school.
