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You are here: Home / How to Lose Your RIM Job

How to Lose Your RIM Job

by $8 blue check mistermix|  December 11, 20119:15 am| 60 Comments

This post is in: WTF?

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Two drunken VPs from Research in Motion, makers of the BlackBerry, caused an Air Canada flight from Toronto to Beijing to divert and land in Vancouver. Here’s how drunk they were (via):

One of the men “assaulted a flight attendant and threatened to punch another,” the prosecution told the court.

Crew members eventually handcuffed the two unruly passengers with plastic restraints and then with tape. But they eventually “chewed their way through their restraints.”

One of these guys also threatened to “off” other passengers. They’ve been fired and were fined $36K each by the Canadian court that heard their case. I realize this case has been in the news, but how drunk or stoned do you need to be to chew through your ziptie handcuffs?

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Reader Interactions

60Comments

  1. 1.

    bin Lurkin'

    December 11, 2011 at 9:17 am

    Umm.. The stoner wouldn’t have been in handcuffs in the first place, at least not for acting like an incredible asshole anyway.

  2. 2.

    dr. bloor

    December 11, 2011 at 9:17 am

    Eh, if I was a VP for RIM these days, I’m pretty sure I’d be able to blow a 0.25 before I finished breakfast on a daily basis.

  3. 3.

    PeakVT

    December 11, 2011 at 9:19 am

    how drunk or stoned do you need to be to chew through your ziptie handcuffs?

    Ask SPandT, I’m sure she knows.

  4. 4.

    Gin & Tonic

    December 11, 2011 at 9:20 am

    chew through your ziptie handcuffs

    Way to make your dentist proud.

  5. 5.

    El Tiburon

    December 11, 2011 at 9:25 am

    @bin Lurkin’:
    And also too sounds like some recreational type powder like drugs may have been involved.

    First 9-11 then Alec Baldwin and now this? Flying is getting dangerous.

  6. 6.

    YellowJournalism

    December 11, 2011 at 9:30 am

    Actually, Alec Baldwin is sending them thank you cards for making him look less like an asshole.

  7. 7.

    Yevgraf

    December 11, 2011 at 9:31 am

    Clearly, these job creating producers need a tax cut, a less burdensome regulatory environment and tort reform to make them less dependent on booze and blow.

  8. 8.

    Elizabelle

    December 11, 2011 at 9:45 am

    FAIL at 35,000 feet.

    Somehow learning they were VPs lessened my concern for them.

    Bad me.

  9. 9.

    Maude

    December 11, 2011 at 9:46 am

    Were they served booze on the flight? If so, the airline is in trouble.
    It must have been scary for the other passengers.

  10. 10.

    MattF

    December 11, 2011 at 10:06 am

    I think we live in the stupidest of all possible universes:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/18/health/18global.html

  11. 11.

    cmorenc

    December 11, 2011 at 10:07 am

    Why is it that assholes like this have (or at least had) well-paying jobs when so many highly capable, and sober people (at least in public and while at or traveling for work) are having difficulty finding work? My experience with people is that in order for someone to act out this badly when drunk, the personality/character streak that produced it has to be visible in plenty of other (albeit less flamboyant) ways when the person is sober. How did the company not pick up on that earlier during the employment of these ass-clowns?

    I’m not at all against people getting shit-faced high and/or drunk now and then, but there’s time and place to do this when you’re at low risk of causing difficulty to yourself or others.

  12. 12.

    Amir Khalid

    December 11, 2011 at 10:09 am

    @Maude:
    From the story at the link …

    The pair seemed heavily intoxicated from the start of the flight, according to one passenger. They drank, passed out, and woke up to continue consuming alcohol and yelling at one another.

    … it seems they were already drunk when they got on board, and kept right on drinking. Either they carried their own libations aboard — this seems unlikely — or they were indeed served more alcohol, despite their condition.

    I remember another story from some years back about a drunken corporate executive on a plane. This one was a bank president, if I recall correctly. Mr Bank President, already roaring drunk, was refused more alcohol by the cabin crew. So he shit on the drinks cart and wiped his ass with the linen napkins.

  13. 13.

    Amir Khalid

    December 11, 2011 at 10:14 am

    @cmorenc:
    You know how they say that sociopathy is an indicator of likely success in a corporate career? That top executive are much more likely than regular people to have such tendencies? Well, our two friends from RIM might be an instance of that.

  14. 14.

    Taylor

    December 11, 2011 at 10:14 am

    If I was working for RIM, I’d be doing a lot of drinking these days too.

  15. 15.

    Schlemizel

    December 11, 2011 at 10:14 am

    Whats a RIM job?

    $35, same as downtown father.

    Thank-you & don’t forget to tip your waiter.

  16. 16.

    Maude

    December 11, 2011 at 10:17 am

    @Amir Khalid:
    Thank you.
    I tell you, it’s better to not sit in first class.
    I’ll sit with the peasants, thank you very much.

  17. 17.

    Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal

    December 11, 2011 at 10:21 am

    thank FSM rim co-chair jim balsille was not allowed to buy the penguins, or any other nhl franchise, apparently.

  18. 18.

    SiubhanDuinne

    December 11, 2011 at 10:26 am

    @MattF:

    Look on the bright side: lots of promising candidates for this year’s Darwin Awards.

  19. 19.

    RossInDetroit

    December 11, 2011 at 10:27 am

    I worked for a health insurance company that stated in its employee manual that you could drink on your lunch hour but could not be impaired at work. After going to lunch with the accounting VP once I knew EXACTLY where this rule came from and why. And I never rode in his car again.

  20. 20.

    aimai

    December 11, 2011 at 10:28 am

    From the point of view of the cabin crew its like a gamble: if the customer is already drunk letting them continue to drink may quiet them down or put them in a stupor, while cutting them off will just make them act out more agressively at the very start of the flight. If this is really a problem they should probably start making the first class passengers take a breathalyzer or a quick personality test to determine which are total assholes, drunk or sober.

    aimai

  21. 21.

    quannlace

    December 11, 2011 at 10:30 am

    but how drunk or stoned do you need to be to chew through your ziptie handcuffs?

    Andy Dick drunk.
    ***
    Man, I’m so glad I don’t have to fly.

  22. 22.

    PIGL

    December 11, 2011 at 10:30 am

    If I were a shreholder this would be all the info I’d need to dump the stock. The company is clearly doomed.

  23. 23.

    The Thin Black Duke

    December 11, 2011 at 10:33 am

    Need it be said that if these two assholes were gentlemen of color, they’d be in Gitmo right now?

  24. 24.

    PIGL

    December 11, 2011 at 10:37 am

    @El Tiburon: That behaviour is not a symtpom of occaisional recreational use of coke or meth. These guys must be raging addicts, and it will have been affecting their job performance in very noticable ways for months or years.

    Whoever hired them should be sacked, and whoever should have fired them should also be sacked. I would imagine from their example that the entire executive suite is overrun with snakes in suites…the boss is either one of them, or totally incompetent. Comes to the same thing, in the end, which can’t be long now. I am glad I bought an LG running android.

  25. 25.

    El Cid

    December 11, 2011 at 10:38 am

    @Amir Khalid: Wow. Sounds like someone shouldn’t have been denied his tax cut.

  26. 26.

    Waldo

    December 11, 2011 at 10:38 am

    I’m sure Newt will be quick to tell these losers to take a bath and get a job.

  27. 27.

    RossInDetroit

    December 11, 2011 at 10:52 am

    @El Cid:

    Wow. Sounds like someone shouldn’t have been denied his tax cut.

    See, if they could afford their own planes they wouldn’t have to inconvenience other citizens with their assholery. Just give them all big bonuses, Gulfstream will thrive and everyone’s happy.
    (OTOH, they and their company are Canadian so we’d have to find a way to work that out but I’m sure it would be worth it.)

  28. 28.

    Xecky Gilchrist

    December 11, 2011 at 11:09 am

    Somehow I’ve just never been able to bring myself to worship these titans of industry. I’ve found them revolting ever since I saw a sobbingly sycophantic puff piece on the TV about this weasel back in the 80s, when the Church of the Asshole Executive was really getting rolling.

  29. 29.

    shortstop

    December 11, 2011 at 11:16 am

    Ah, Amir, I had forgotten about the drink-cart pooper. The ability to defecate on demand like that is what separates internationally top-ranking airplane drunks from pikers like these restraint-chewing lads.

  30. 30.

    Jay in Oregon

    December 11, 2011 at 11:24 am

    So let me get this straight…
    * Someone tries to pull off a crappy shoe bomb and we now have to have our shoes X-rayed
    * A scare story about terrorists trying to mix up a bomb in the lavatory or whatever means we have to dump liquids before be board
    * Someone had a laptop battery short out in their luggage, now people have to be prepared to know how much lithium is in their extended-life laptop battery packs and make sure their rechargeable batteries can’t come loose in their luggage
    * People balk at having their bodies (or their kids’ bodies) X-rayed in a full body scanner, so they get groped in a full-body search clearly meant to intimidate them

    And, finally,
    * People who show up at the gate intoxicated (or start pounding them back a soon as they get on the plane) get violent and abusive with passengers and flight crew, and… *crickets*

  31. 31.

    bin Lurkin'

    December 11, 2011 at 11:27 am

    @PIGL: If they were coked up or tweaked out I don’t think they would have passed out.

    People want to minimize the bad behavior readily attributable to alcohol despite the fact it’s immortalized in the language, barroom brawl, don’t listen to him it’s the liquor talking, mean drunk, ten feet tall and bulletproof.

  32. 32.

    CaseyL

    December 11, 2011 at 11:53 am

    Three aides to Washington’s Rep. Rick Larsen (D) lost their jobs a couple days ago, when they got drunk and tweeted everyone that they kept whiskey in their desks, how drunk they were, and how their boss was an idiot.

    There have always been drunks who couldn’t hold their liquor. But I think we’re seeing a big increase in people who are drinking (and not holding their liquor) on the job, and broadcasting their idiocy for all the world to see. I don’t know if this is Exhibit 5,782 in “In Ongoing Indumbnification of Humankind,” or Exhibit 1,360 in “Why You Should Not Use ANY Communications devices When You Are Squiffed.”

    Maybe both. We’re getting dumber AND we have unparalleled opportunities to display that for all the world to see.

  33. 33.

    carpeduum

    December 11, 2011 at 12:04 pm

    This is almost as big a story as teens not able to get over the counter access to the pill eh? Kinda strange you never soiled your diapers and threatened to tear up your Dem membership over this story as well. But hey…the day ain’t over yet.

  34. 34.

    Bill Murray

    December 11, 2011 at 12:07 pm

    I think these ex-RIM jobbers are lucky the flight crew didn’t go all Len Koenecke on them.

    After being sent home from the road trip he [Koenecke] caught a commercial flight for New York. During the flight he drank a quart of whiskey and became very drunk. After harassing other passengers and striking a stewardess, the pilot had to sit on him to restrain him as he was shackled to his seat. He was removed unconscious from the flight in Detroit. After sleeping on a chair in the airport he chartered a flight to Buffalo. While flying over Canada he had a disagreement with the pilot and a passenger and attempted to take control of the aircraft. In order to avoid a crash he was hit over the head by both the pilot (who had left his controls) and the other passenger with a fire extinguisher. After an emergency landing on a racetrack it was found that Koenecke had died of a cerebral hemorrhage. The two pilots were charged with manslaughter but were found not guilty in a trial soon after.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Len_Koenecke

  35. 35.

    Arm The Homeless

    December 11, 2011 at 12:22 pm

    @MattF: Take heart, in another universe the nematode ate the aussie resulting in alcohol poisoning. All’s fair in love and physics.

  36. 36.

    amk

    December 11, 2011 at 12:27 pm

    @carpeduum: If you can work up an obama angle to the story, then mm will.

  37. 37.

    burnspbesq

    December 11, 2011 at 12:29 pm

    @PIGL:

    “That behaviour is not a symtpom of occaisional recreational use of coke or meth. These guys must be raging addicts, and it will have been affecting their job performance in very noticable ways for months or years.”

    I’m willing to bet that you were outraged when Senator Frist diagnosed Terri Schiavo without ever having been in the same room with the patient. And yet you don’t hesitate to do exactly the same thing.

    Hypocrisy and double standards. Lovely.

  38. 38.

    Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)

    December 11, 2011 at 12:43 pm

    @PIGL: If you were a shareholder and waited until now to unload your stock, you’re too late.

  39. 39.

    Roger Moore

    December 11, 2011 at 12:50 pm

    @Jay in Oregon:

    People Rich white guys who show up at the gate intoxicated (or start pounding them back a soon as they get on the plane) get violent and abusive with passengers and flight crew, and… crickets

    FTFY. Of course nobody bats an eye at this. These are Masters of the Universe, they’re allowed to misbehave without serious consequences.

  40. 40.

    S. cerevisiae

    December 11, 2011 at 12:58 pm

    Dad used to say whiskey can make strong men weak and weak men strong. I’ve seen enough people get to the ‘ten feet tall and bulletproof’ state to know dad was right.

  41. 41.

    Cain

    December 11, 2011 at 1:08 pm

    @Jay in Oregon:

    They have to be galtians for them to be crickets. If they were drunk muslims they would have talked about the islamic drunken conspiracy to terrorize us in a drunken haze and then we’d all can’t have alcohol on flights.

  42. 42.

    Cain

    December 11, 2011 at 1:09 pm

    @CaseyL:

    So… is Rick Larsen an idiot? that’s the real story I want to know!

    cain

  43. 43.

    Amir Khalid

    December 11, 2011 at 1:15 pm

    @Cain:

    If they were drunk muslims they would have talked about the islamic drunken conspiracy to terrorize us in a drunken haze and then we’d all can’t have alcohol on flights.

    I am absolutely stumped for a response.

  44. 44.

    sb

    December 11, 2011 at 2:14 pm

    Wait, they chewed through zip-tie handcuffs?

    I’m ashamed that I find that impressive.

  45. 45.

    pseudonymous in nc

    December 11, 2011 at 2:19 pm

    Those RIMmers sound like mid-level execs, displaying classic Platinum Flyer entitlement syndrome. They expect to be fawned over at the check-in, at the airport lounge, at the hotels on arrival, and that carries over to the plane itself.

  46. 46.

    g

    December 11, 2011 at 2:39 pm

    So he shit on the drinks cart and wiped his ass with the linen napkins.

    You know, that’s some serious insanity, for a guy to get past the natural inhibitions AND to conjure up a bowel movement at will.

  47. 47.

    shortstop

    December 11, 2011 at 3:00 pm

    @burnspbesq:

    Do you understand the difference between:

    1) Some jamoke idly speculating on a blog about two assholes in the news
    2) The Senate majority leader — a licensed physician — making professional diagnoses from a videotape for the purpose of legislating an overthrow of spousal rights/responsibilities in end-of-life cases?

    Of course you don’t. You think a disinclination to cough up donations for private counsel for priests who are accused pedophiles is the same as arguing that the accused should not have access to counsel. And law is supposed to be your profession.

  48. 48.

    shortstop

    December 11, 2011 at 3:19 pm

    @shortstop: Someone just emailed me about the “jamoke” reference. My apologies to PIGL; I was unaware of the negative connotations of that word in some regions. Here in Chicago, it refers to an average guy, a regular Joe, and isn’t a derogatory term.

  49. 49.

    Arclite

    December 11, 2011 at 3:31 pm

    @cmorenc:

    Why is it that assholes like this have (or at least had) well-paying jobs when so many highly capable, and sober people (at least in public and while at or traveling for work) are having difficulty finding work? My experience with people is that in order for someone to act out this badly when drunk, the personality/character streak that produced it has to be visible in plenty of other (albeit less flamboyant) ways when the person is sober. How did the company not pick up on that earlier during the employment of these ass-clowns?

    I read about a study that said psychopathic personalities account for about 1% of the general population, but 4% among CEOs and top-level management. That may be what’s going on here. Normal people don’t feel the need to be in control of and using others.

  50. 50.

    burnspbesq

    December 11, 2011 at 3:42 pm

    @shortstop:

    Fail. Try again.

  51. 51.

    shortstop

    December 11, 2011 at 3:56 pm

    @burnspbesq:

    “Fail. Try again.”

    “Why ‘fail’?”

    “BECAUSE SHUT UP, THAT’S WHY!”

    Watching your continual analytical stumblings here makes me think it would be intensely entertaining to see you in the legal arena.

    @Arclite: It would be interesting to see how those percentages shake down in other areas. If you happen to have a link, please share — thanks.

  52. 52.

    Amir Khalid

    December 11, 2011 at 4:25 pm

    @g:
    I guess it’s not so difficult if you’re already full of it. Still, Mr Bank President’s achievement definitely puts him in the disorderly-drunks-on-a-plane Hall of Fame.

  53. 53.

    Terskac

    December 11, 2011 at 4:37 pm

    I had a friend that was a corporate pilot long ago. He had some similar passengers on a flight once. One fell face first into a table and broke it off the wall passed out. He put the plane on autopilot, walked to the back, lifted the guys head off the table and shoved his face to the window and showed him Columbus Ohio. He said if he didn’t straighten up that he was going to be dropped off there. Then he went back to the cockpit, put on his oxygen mask and depressurized the cabin so the idiots all passed out. The flight was peaceful from there on. The guy was a Vietnam vet and POW. He wasn’t afraid of anybody.

  54. 54.

    An Idiot

    December 11, 2011 at 7:51 pm

    > They’ve been fired and were fined $36K each by the Canadian court that heard their case.

    So basically, what you’re saying is, some days it’s just not worth chewing through the restraints?

  55. 55.

    scarshapedstar

    December 11, 2011 at 8:41 pm

    Cocaine’s a hell of a drug.

  56. 56.

    Glen Tomkins

    December 11, 2011 at 9:56 pm

    One of my favorite tee-shirts says, “Some days I’m just too tired to chew through the restraints.”

    These two sound like they were having the opposite sort of day.

  57. 57.

    Arclite

    December 11, 2011 at 11:46 pm

    @shortstop: Here’s the story on the psychopaths.

  58. 58.

    SqueakyRat

    December 12, 2011 at 2:09 am

    @Xecky Gilchrist: Minkow’s criminal career beggars belief. Relentlessly psychopathic behavior. And, I guess, more common than we like to suppose.

  59. 59.

    Paul in KY

    December 12, 2011 at 9:42 am

    @sb: They just don’t make em like they used to.

  60. 60.

    9driver

    December 12, 2011 at 10:10 am

    Typically, passengers like this get on the plane already loaded. Flight Attendants are trained to deny alcohol to people who obviously already have a snootful. These assclowns undoubtedly had Business Class seats and were expecting to be able to stay generously lubed up for free all the way to Beijing. As an airline captain, it is illegal for me to accept intoxicated passengers for transport, and my cabin crews know that if they tell me someone is hammered before the door closes, I will bounce them off. Every time. No matter who they are. My airplane, my call, my responsibility. They appreciate that.

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