By: Elaine Quayle
It’s bad enough when an employee behaves badly on a business trip—but it’s even worse when the incident is videoed and goes viral internationally!
Media reports say that Oleg Vedernikov, principal cellist with the Beijing Symphony Orchestra, was traveling with the orchestra by train when he propped up his bare feet on the headrest of the passenger in front of him. The woman passenger asked him to stop; he didn’t, so she began hitting his feet with a newspaper. The Russian, who speaks Chinese, kept his feet planted and hurled a few gender-derogatory expletives at the lady, who responded by hurling a plastic water bottle back.
When train security was called about the ruckus, the cellist denied the offense, not knowing that another passenger had recorded his foot faux pas and quickly posted it online.
According to CNN, this was a sour note for the orchestra, a self-described “civilized envoy of high culture,” who it claims it “requires all staff, including foreign performers, to comply with the country’s laws and regulations, as well as traditional moral standards.”
Shanghailist.com reports the employee’s bad behavior had “severely harmed the reputation of the Orchestra,” and that he was being fired “in accordance with the orchestra’s employment regulations.”
Shanghailist.com also quotes Tan Lihua, the symphony’s conductor, as telling the press, “Employees should behave in a civilized fashion both on- and off- stage, maintain the manners expected of artists, and consciously safeguard the image and reputation of the Orchestra.… We will take additional management precautions to prevent similar incidents from happening again in the future.”
But the cellist won’t be there in the future. Even though Vedernikov apologized to the orchestra in Chinese, he was still terminated for cause.