This is Scott Bartosiewicz. For the past eight months, he's worked as an account supervisor for New Media Strategies. Until yesterday morning. That's when, according to one source, he accidentally fired off an f-bomb using Chrysler's Twitter account and then was fired himself. So why did this guy lose his job over an accidental f-bomb when Chrysler has as its spokesperson a misogynist who drops them profusely as his profession.
Bartosiewicz allegedly sent out a tweet using Chrysler's official Twitter account saying "I find it ironic that Detroit is known as the #motorcity and yet no one here knows how to fucking drive."
That tweet allegedly caused New Media Strategies, the social media firm Chrysler had under contract to strategize how they talk to the internet, to fire Bartosiewicz. Today, we also learned that Chrysler said it would not renew its contract with NMS for the remainder of 2011.
Despite attempts to reach Bartosiewicz, he has not yet returned our calls or our message left on his voice mail so we could get his side of the story. Frankly, if he was the f-bomb-dropper, his side of the story seems to be a sympathetic one. Bartosiewicz has, according to his LinkedIn profile, been an "Account Supervisor" working for New Media Strategies (NMS) on the Chrysler account since August of last year. We also know he had access to the Twitter account.
Something Bartosiewicz also had, up until yesterday, was a team member page on the NMS website describing his role with the company. Today he does not. Luckily, Google cache remembers it and you can still see it here. He seemed to be very proud of the Chrysler account, at least judging from his "Imported from Detroit" Twitter profile picture. And yet one of our sources tells us NMS was willing to wipe all that out in an attempt to keep Chrysler's business and not allow them to use this one f-up as a red herring to dump their contract. It didn't help.
Even if he didn't send the tweet — and our so-far completely right source is positive he did — the guy lost his job because of it. Along with a few other people. Like 40 of them.
But what this comes down to is that this was a mistake by a human being, not a deliberate action. Contrast that with this one minute and 30 second video compiling every swear word uttered by Chrysler's latest spokesperson, Eminem, a man who has turned ironic misogyny into a profession, on just one album.
You tell me which kid from metro Detroit deserved to be fired — Eminem or Bartosiewicz?
I know Eminem will do just fine either way. I'm really hoping Bartosiewicz gets a second shot.