We all heard about that guy who was canned by Microsoft for posting in his blog about the arrival of a shipment of Macs he saw. I’ve seen several reports of people being terminated for posting on their personal blogs. A friend of mine made a comment about how it should be illegal and could be viewed as an invasion of the blogger’s privacy. I disagree.
Something that I had to learn early on that for anything you are willing to publish online, you should be willing to pay the consequences. I experienced this first hand when a friend got upset over a post I made.
Oops, oh well, lesson learned. Years ago, employees would stand around the watercooler or gossip in the company cafeteria (or whatever eatery preferred) — now many would rather post onto his/her favorite blog … which is then read by friends … and other co-workers … and works its way back around to your employers, supervisors, even business owners. AND, depending on the content, CAN be the reason for your dismissal.
The days of assumed anonymity on the Internet are long gone. For instance, by habit I now read the header information of emails before seeing the actual body (I’m a woman and I’m nosy, so sue me). I want to know where the email came from first, what kind of client is used … and chuckle when I see things like “FunWebProducts”. (geez people, stop downloading crap!)
Anyways, the gem of this tangent: Ellen Simonetti started The Bloggers’ Bill of Rights. While the annoying optimist in me thinks it’s a good idea, the even more annoying pessimist knows that the large corporations of today would never go for such a thing. Most companies now use Non-Disclosure Agreements to bind their employees’ proverbial mouths (or fingers, in this case) from spilling the goo on things that should stay within the company. Hell, I’m still bound by the ones I signed with Macess and CSI. (and those were 3 jobs ago, geesh!)
Honestly, have you ever actually READ one of those things? They cover nearly *everything*, and I’m sure some will be updating theirs to include blogs, if sufficient verbage is not present already.
Oh, and totally unrelated $.02, Mr. Hanscom’s blog is good for a read even without the MS-drama. I’ve been following it off and on since his termination.
[what can I say? I’m a sucker for trekkies *g*]
Michael Hanscom
Thanks for the kind words! :)
You may have seen my overly-long ramble on all this already, but to sum up: yeah, what you said.