Woman loses her her job for giving Donald Trump’s motorcade the middle finger

It was the middle-finger salute seen around the world.

 

And the previously unidentified cyclist is Juli Briskman, a marketing executive with Akima, a US government contracting firm. Briskman had made her bosses aware that she was the woman in the picture after a connection was made. The penalty for  her honesty was a summary dismissal by the company who cited a violation of its social media code of conduct.

 

 

“ Social Media Activity that contains discriminatory, obscene malicious or threatening content, is knowingly false, create [sic] a hostile work environment, or similar inappropriate or unlawful conduct will not be tolerated and will be subject to discipline up to an [sic] including termination of employment.”

 

However, Briskman contends that she made the salute towards the presidential motorcade while out on her daily regular exercise and there was nothing on her person at the time nor on her Facebook or Twitter account to connect her to the company. While she identifies herself as an Akima employee on her LinkedIn account, she makes no mention of the middle-finger photo there.

According to her, the act was unplanned and she was feeling much like many other Americans who are frustrated with Trump’s behaviour and the way he has performed as president, the Washington Post reports.

When the motorcade stopped, bisecting her usual route. She knew it wouldn’t be wise to cut between the cars. And she didn’t want to stay with her routine and look like she was stalking the motorcade when it turned where she usually turned. So she decided to change her route, and punctuated the final insult with another one-fingered salute.

She had no idea the sentiment had been snapped by photographer Brendan Smialowski for Agence France-Presse and Getty Images. And that night, it started popping up all over.

A few of her friends thought they recognised her, tagged her on the photo and asked.

“I said, ‘Yeah, that’s me. Isn’t it funny?’” she said. Ha ha. And she posted it as her Facebook cover photo and her Twitter profile picture, so now her 24 Twitter followers could guess that it was her.

The next few days, though, it started getting nasty at the yoga studio, where she is a part-time instructor — something she does mention on Facebook. Some threatening emails came, Briskman said.

“They told the owner of the studio she should fire me,” she said. So Briskman quickly removed mention of the studio.

But knowing that connection had been made, Briskman wanted to make her bosses at Akima aware of the situation.

“It was just a heads-up,” she said.

It didn’t take long for her head to roll.

And now, heads are shaking.

 

For more on this story, visit the Washington Post website.

 

 

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