ESPN Is Pressuring Employees To Work X Games For Free

A memo obtained by Deadspin shows ESPN, a corporate giant owned by Disney, is asking workers to work for free on the upcoming X Games event in Brazil. Operations manager Severn Sandt claims the budget is tight, and not only would working for a few free hours be helpful, but also bringing your own snacks would be great. He's also asking that employees not make fun of the locals, mainly so they don't piss off the help.

Hourly folks - don’t push the OT. If it’s 9:10, take the 9:00 out – don’t push for 9:30. Heck, maybe you’d like to actually contribute an hour or two of your OT to the cause and take a 7:00 out. Trust me – no one’s going to the bank on this one. If this idea appeals to anyone, we can start an honorary wall of contributors in the office.

Don’t stuff 6 bottles of water from the work site into your backpack before you go back to the hotel. Buy your own water. Considering that all of our hotels provide free breakfast and we are providing 3 meals a day on site, you are getting a very generous per diem. Please use part of it to buy the water, the aspirin, the sunscreen, the lip balm, the snacks, etc etc that you need. Yes, domestic remotes often provide these things and we will have an emergency supply of some things in the office but we just can’t take on the full load of this here.

Read the memo at Deadspin.
Image courtesy Speed Hunters.