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Fired for Blogging
By ella | January 15, 2005
If you haven’t already got the message: it’s not a good idea to blog about work. An employee of Waterstone’s book chain has been one of the first UK employees (and certainly the most widely-reported) to be fired for blogging about work.
Joe Gordon has been writing the Woolamaloo Gazette newsletter for several years and in it he discusses, among other things, the book store where he works. He was fired after a disciplinary hearing when the chain said that Gordon’s blog had brought it into disrepute. He had worked for the store for 11 years. 11 years? Christ, after 11 years you should have tenure and be able to say anything you bloody well like about your company.
He is one of a number of bloggers to have been sacked from their jobs as a result of their blogs: Dooce was the first person to be fired for writing about her workplace in her blog and the term dooced has now come to mean losing your job for something you wrote in your blog. Ellen Simonetti , formerly an air cabin crew member for Delta Airlines, was fired after she posted pictures of herself in her uniform. Jessica Cutler was also sacked from her job in a Senator’s office for the content of her blog. And there are more companies who have done the same: Boing Boing has compiled a list of some of them. But we all know all this already, don’t we?
Although he used the terms ‘Bastardstone’s’ and ‘Evil Boss’ - and really, I can think of terms so much worse to call my previous employers and boss - Gordon did not mention his specific branch or specific people by name (although it doesn’t take much to deduce from his blog that he worked for Waterstone’s and was an Edinburgh resident) and as such, this is rather like being fired for saying things about your company in your free time. The crucial difference though is that 1) the comments are written down and 2) they are available to the public at large. It’s a bit like photocopying pages from a private diary and leaving them lying around for anyone to read. And if people you know, for example work colleagues or acquaintances, are aware of your blog it’s a bit like photocopying pages from your diary and leaving them lying around your home city for anyone to read.
Waterstone’s heavy-handed approach is likely to have created more adverse publicity than anything Gordon has written on his blog. And of course there is the whole argument surrounding freedom of speech. Arguing that companies must have a defined blogging policy before firing people for blogging is perfectly legitimate but blogging is still in its infancy and companies are unlikely to have adopted blogging policies on a widespread basis. Until then, for bloggers, the precautionary principle must operate. Blog about work at your peril.
But what do I care: I haven’t had a proper job for years.
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Categories: Meta-blogging
1 Comment
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that’s one of the reasons i started my blog,
http://secretletters.blogspot.com
feel free to join in and/or pass the word on my blog idea….
take care of your owwie