A Texas casino cruise ship exec has made a great show of furiously backpedaling after a Facebook post went viral for all the wrong reasons.

Earlier this month, the new Jacks or Better Casino cruise ship sailing out of Galveston was forced to cut short one of its twice-daily trips to international waters where gambling is legal after the ship struck a buoy in the dark in Galveston Bay. The impact tore a gash in the ship’s hull but no one was hurt and all passengers were safely returned to shore.

The ship plans to resume its regular sailing schedule on Friday (28) but in the meantime, someone connected with the casino operators posted a query to the ship’s official Facebook page asking followers if Captain David Kendrick should lose his job as a result of the collision.

The since-deleted “Hire or Fire?” post was instantly met with a flood of vitriol from users outraged that the company appeared to be keelhauling their skipper without cause. Company general manager Rocky Herrin posted a followup notice claiming that company staff had received “telephonic hate threats” and that “dog poop was actually thrown on the GM’s front door.”