Fired for speaking up
Justin Byron's boss all but gushes when she talks about him. She uses words like solid, rooted, dependable, responsible, and very low-key. ''I run a very small team here," says Tanya Holton, vice president for development at National Braille Press in Boston. ''I can't afford not to have someone who is not a team player. He understands what it is to work in a team environment."
When Byron, 28, is not working in the fund-raising office at National Braille Press, which among other things translated the Harry Potter books for the blind, he volunteers at the Salvation Army in Roxbury where he works with homeless kids. Or makes lay pastoral visits to the sick at Brigham & Women's Hospital.
Byron has more time for volunteering these days. That's because he was fired from his job at the Museum of Fine Arts, where he was a part-time waiter for two years. His offense: trying to get his employer, Restaurant Associates, and MFA director Malcolm Rogers to recycle the empty bottles from hoity-toity events.
You read that right. The guy was fired for asking the museum -- very politely, mind you -- to do the right thing. Before he was fired, Byron says, the biggest problem he ever had was serving the cheap champagne to the heavy hitters at a private exhibit of Ralph Lauren's classic car collection last year.
Then in June Byron sent his boss, Peter Major, a list of suggestions on how the banquet operations might work better. Recycling was just one idea. His notes ooze with good will. ''Hope these are helpful," Byron wrote. ''None are meant as critiques. Things are very well run at the MFA. I just think these might help them run even better."
Replied Major: ''Thank you for your suggestions. All are excellent, and most of them are doable."
Four months later, with no progress in sight, Byron approached Rogers after a museum event, and asked about recycling. An exhibit of the works of Ansel Adams, the famed photographer and conservationist, was then on display. Byron says Rogers was cordial and asked that he remind him about it later. The next day, Byron did just that, sending Rogers a note promoting recycling at the museum. Again, Byron's note was as polite and earnest as he is.
''I would be more than happy to do any research necessary to support this project, and I would love to hear back from you with your thoughts. Thank you," Bryon wrote.
Bryon never heard back from Rogers. Instead, the museum forwarded the letter to Restaurant Associates, and in January Major told Bryon that he wasn't to contact Rogers again. ''It's kind of like a solicitation, which is against the employee manual," Byron says Major told him.
Ten days later, Major told Byron in an e-mail the museum had no plans to expand its recycling program. The following day Byron told his boss that he wanted to continue to pursue it, and was fired the same day.
What was the guy going to do? Write Mr. Rogers another polite letter?
Byron did write Rogers one more time. ''All I'm asking is that a world-class museum make room for 40 square feet of space for a few recycling canisters among a 149,000-square-foot expansion adding to a 500,000-square-foot museum."
He never heard back from Rogers, but instead got a reply from the MFA's deputy director, saying he should deal with Restaurant Associates, not the museum.
A Restaurant Associates spokeswoman said Byron's termination was appropriate. As for recycling, she said: ''That is a museum question, rather than a question for us." A museum spokeswoman says there is no room at the museum to recycle bottles -- Dom Perignon empties or otherwise.
Question: What if someone at the museum had actually sat down and listened to the guy? What would have been the harm? What could have been learned on both sides? It is what should happen more often -- and, of course, so rarely does.
Steve Bailey can be reached at bailey@globe.com. 
