"Fuck You For Your Service"-- Stay Classy, Wisconsin Los Angeles

UPDATED: Title changes as El Putzo worked out of Randstad's Los Angeles office.

So there's this putz by the name of Sergio Ortiz, a recruiter at Randstad, which was contracted to run the hiring for some company in Stevens Point, WI. A young Army veteran named Gabriella Barrett applied for a customer service job at the company.

Sergio Ortiz, in an email exchange, told her that he didn't understand why she had listed her Army service time, as that was meaningless to him. When she got into a discussion about it with Ortiz, he wrote her in an e-mail: “I believe you choose to go into the Army for a paycheck not my freedom. So you will not be getting a thank you from me. I would have freedom regardless of your voluntary service.”

Nice going, Ortiz. The draft ended in 1973. Everyone serving since 1975 has done so voluntarily, as well as those serving since 1946 in the Navy and Air Force. All of the men and women who came home from Iraq and Afghanistan in transit cases volunteered to go. The men and women in the military and VA hospitals all volunteered to go over there. The men and women who will deal with injuries for the rest of their lives, including closed-head brain injuries, all volunteered to go. Besides the casualties of the two most recent wars, the Marines killed in the Beirut bombing, the airmen killed in Khobar Towers bombing, the men and women who were killed or maimed in actions large and small, the aircrew of Ranger 12, the crews of the USS Thresher and Scorpion and those killed or injured in training accidents of one kind or another all volunteered.

No doubt it goes deeper. If a firefighter were to save Ortiz from a burning building, ol' Sergio would probably just harrumph and say "yer only doing yer job."

And I'll bet that he's a shitty tipper, as well.

Anyway, as soon as this story hit, the folks at Randstand burned skid-marks in the carpet as they rushed to shove Ortiz out the door. Might have something to do with the fact that Randstand is a Dutch company, and if it hadn't been for the U.S. Army, the language spoken today in their headquarters town of Diemen would be German (or Russian).

Here's the thing, kids: You can be an asshole. But if you're an asshole and you go on record in a company email as being an asshole, you might end up being fired. And as JayG points out, that sort of digital stupidity will follow you forever.