Wikinews:Penguin fired by WMF: Escorted from premises

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Thursday, January 21, 2016

Penguin, the official human resources mascot of the Wikimedia Foundation, was unexpectedly met by security this morning on his arrival at the office, asked to clean out his desk (this caused momentary confusion as it was discovered he had no desk nor anything to clean out), and was escorted unceremoniously from the premises.

The removal appears to be an extension of the end-of-year unpaid employee purge which cost Globey her unofficial internship as travel mascot. "No, sorry, I don't have anything I want to say about it," she wrote in an e-mail response. "It was not wholly unexpected, but I am just focusing on my studies now."

In a later Google Hangouts interview, Penguin expressed his shock at the turn of events. "I suppose I should have guessed this might happen, but really I had no clue this was coming. They hadn't dusted me much recently, but I'm guessing it's the metrics. I haven't been measurably productive."

Well before noon, Apple timezone, Penguin's presence on the Foundation wiki was sanitized by ALantz (WMF).

Rumors have surfaced of Penguin enjoying sabbatical by traveling the globe. Further comments by the No-drama Llamas have confirmed that Penguin departed under mutually agreed circumstances to travel the world with his son, Junior, while enjoying a much deserved sabbatical. The No-drama Llamas have recently been appointed to the budgetary review committee, and may be downplaying Penguin's departure.

Our Wikinews embedded reporter managed to gain access to a statement by an undisclosed C-level of the Wikimedia Foundation, who added: "Reports about Penguin's morning have been greatly exaggerated. Penguin communicated us their intention to leave the Wikimedia Foundation two months ago. I can't confirm or disconfirm at this time whether they left to leave or to come back later. I understand that Penguin came today to fetch a book at the other floor and Rory, in a possibly exaggerated attempt to be helpful, asked our security people to help Penguin carry any excessive weight and offer guidance in usage of the elevator, as it's easy to enter the wrong door". Rory is the oldest-serving mascot and is rumored by various dissonant voices to have tried leading a revolt of the mascots, or alternatively to have achieved the purge of her competitors in order to use the full weekly time of the plushes masseur, or else to have just scared every other mascot away with her roaring haughtiness.

It's not clear whether Penguin suffered from any unusual physical inability which made such help needed, or what exactly was expected to be carried by Penguin. Penguin refused to comment. Our internal source was unable to provide details, but decidedly denied that any plush pieces needed to be collected and removed. "No plush was shed at this time, I want to be absolutely clear. Of course heads will roll if the Wikimedia Foundation's fiduciary duty requires so, and plush is much easier to cleanup than certain red liquids (although in my experience plush can fly all over a room and make the damage more extensive albeit minor). However, I want to reassure you that we recently updated our comprehensive human resources guidelines together with the HR and Governance committees and our process is airtight. In fact, a recent survey confirms it's much better than the industry average. The decommissioning of plushes is explicitly covered and ensures that any collateral damage be restricted to a very small area so that any cleansing requires at most 45 minutes."

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