Southwest's clumsy move (NSFW)

You've probably been hearing about Southwest's meek response to the outrageous rantings by one of its pilots during an Austin-to-San Diego run. The guy was suspended and underwent diversity training, but he faced no further action by Southwest because it was considered a private conversation in the cockpit (his comments went viral because of a stuck microphone). Private conversation? In the workplace? This is as questionable a concept as a personal email sent out on the company computer. While the courts have been sorting out the legal dos and don'ts for several years, everybody should know by now that nothing is truly private on the job. Besides, how do we know that the crew member he had been talking to wasn't offended by the tirades about gays, older flight attendants, and the city of Houston? (Listening to this fellow, I don't get the sense that he has a restrained personality, even in a not-so-private setting.) Really a black eye for Southwest, which should have fired the guy on the spot. Now it's stuck: Don't let him go and risk litigation (not to mention terrible PR); or let him go and admit making a mistake, something that companies hate doing.

I must admit there is something weirdly entertaining about the monologue (note the part about one of the women he picked up being "doable") - and then the restrained responses by pilots from other planes. Normally, these folks rarely deviate from name-rank-and-serial-number information.