Marina Shifrin created a viral video about herself “quitting” her job at Taiwanese company Next Media Animation, but there is more to this story than the 25-year-old aspiring writer led you to believe.
Many have praised her over her “confidence” to do something most would not, and putting her company to “shame” for over working her. However, there are two sides to every story and the media company contacted Gawker to give them their side.
Check out the letter Mark Simon, a commercial director at NMA and the man who hired Shifrin, sent to the media site:
There is an image now of a sweatshop, we are not. Marina made USD$42k per year. She had a 40 hr workweek, 5 days a week. There is no expectation of OT on our behalf, you finish your shift and leave. In our office most folks leave when their shift is up as you work on news flow.
Also we ask journalists to work one month per year on the midnight shift as we just need to cover the shift. We pay a differential of 30% for these hours, which I know are hard hours to work.
Look, we do news animations. We are not investigative reporters. Two international outlets have asked us for comment, and her video is up on nearly 300 sites. We think we have something to say about this and we are hoping Gawker will have us.
I am not looking to slam her, nor am I engaged in anything but trying to help some other managers in their early 30's, understand why the young lady they hung out with just cashiered them. I don't think she meant for it to be seen as so harsh, but we are getting some nasty attacks on our managers, who she says she respects.
I just want any chance to answer any questions, answer anything on Skype or on phone.
I am not spitting nastiness at Marina, but in her 9 months with us we sent her to Hong Kong twice, to Thailand for a media conference, and she just came back a month ago from two weeks in LA and NYC where she was pitching animation stories. She logged 170 hours the last 3 months in creative time working up ideas to pitch. She is a hard worker, but I cannot foresee results or always give her the best story of the day.
We let her talk to all the press she wanted, we encouraged her stand-up, and frankly my folks in Taiwan are a bunch of granola's... They are nice folks. We have 600 employees and I have not one outstanding case in labor tribunal. That is no small feat in Taiwan.
I thought Gawker played this fair and so if anyone wants anything we are open.
Thanks
Mark
After posting the letter, Gawker allowed Simon to answer questions from their users. Turns out Shifrin did NOT quit with the video. In fact, she quit formally with a letter of resignation, and contacted Simon and her bosses about the video before posting it.
The company also released a response to Shifrin’s video, spoof to her “I Quit” video because of the “image” she created about them.
“Our guys put something up a while ago,” Simon responded to a Gawker commentor. “Just had some fun. It is interesting in that most folks in our group were concerned that people would think we were nasty and wanted to show we are not rather than hit back.”
Simon added that the company sent Shifrin on multiple business trips to Hong Kong, Thailand, New York and Los Angeles to mix things up for her. Simon also acknowledged the late night hours can be rough, they spoke multiple times about how she could tap into her creativity and he “offered her an intro a few places, and frankly for jobs with not so much time pressure.”
According to Simon, Shifrin called him first to let him know about the video.
What do you think of Shifrin’s video? Was her reaction appropriate or did she take things too far? Would you hire her? Leave your thoughts in the comments section below.
