Female executive expelled for nude photo

From Shanghai Youth Daily:

The Nude picture Gate of Edison Chen, a popular young Hong Kong singer and actor, was the most shocking and frequently talked topic of China’s showbiz three years ago. In 2008, a repairman stole Edison’s nude pictures taken with other female actors and singers such as Cecilia Cheung, Gillian Chung and Maggie Q and uploaded them on the internet. But recently, a female executive lost her job because of downloading Edison’s nude picture onto the company’s computer.

Approaching her 40s, Mrs. Wang is the executive of a fortune 500 company in Shanghai, in which she has been working for 10 years. For a single picture, she was not only expelled by the company, but also labeled as indecent by her colleagues. And that’s why she laughed at herself as another victim of the Nude Picture Gate.

Nude picture mistakenly downloaded

If it were not for the updating of the computers at the beginning of this year, Mrs. Wang would never know there is a nude picture in her computer. “If I deliberately spread pornographic pictures, I would have deleted them all before anyone can find it. How can I be so stupid to leave evidence like that?” said Wang.

“In retrospect, I reckon it was uploaded by accident. When the Nude Picture Gate happened in 2008, I downloaded the picture in my personal computer from my friends. But all of these were done at home.” Wang said her desk in the company was often praised by colleagues: “My desk is always clean and tidy, and I never do personal stuff in company’s computer. The nude picture must be transferred by mistake with other documents which I did at home.”

The company insists on expelling her for breaking rules

Although Wang painstakingly explained her innocence in this incident, the company insists to expel her because what she did severely violated company’s policy. “This is the rule that we have informed every staff when they entered company.” HR director wanted to have no mercy in dealing with it. “They only have one reason, the executive gets the severe punishment with no mercy, so that it leaves no disputes among the low rank employees.” Said Wang, who thought it was not fair.

After negotiating with the company with no success, Wang hired a lawyer and sued the company via Labor Arbitration Committee. She asked for economic compensation or retaining position in the company. “I’ve worked for over 10 years in the company and I should get a large sum of compensation money according to the N+1 method.” Wang thought the company put her into this matter on purpose for a simple reason – the compensation. “I heard rumors before that the company wanted to expel me and it seems real consider my situation now. I’m nothing but a sacrifice.”

Focus of debating: pornographic or not?

Mr. Ping, the lawyer of Wang said Wang never downloaded the nude picture from pornographic websites or spread it to others, which is not in violation of the company’s policy that downloading and spreading pornographic things are forbidden. “This is traceable in the company’s servers which stored every computer’s detail of use. The service recorders can prove my innocence – I did not even open it! They lay in my computer for three years.” Wang argued.

Mr. Ping also pointed out that the Nude Picture Gate is only an entertainment news and the pictures are not yet been confirmed by the police as pornographic things.

However, the company thought Wang’s argument is somewhat a wrong interpretation. “Of course it includes having pornographic pictures when we talk about downloading and spreading. Our rules cannot be that strict to cover all the respects” said legal personnel in the company, “Although Wang has been talking her innocence all the time, she cannot provide us the evidence that she really accidently transferred the picture. The truth is we found nude picture in her computer, which is indisputable. ”

At this moment, Wang and the company are engaged in the lawsuit. Wang is willing to break up with the company in peace. “After all, I don’t want the lawsuit, but the company should consider my situation that I’ll have to find other jobs with a history of being fired!”