Back in 2009, a 16-year-old in England posted on her Facebook wall that her first day at work was “omg so dull.”
She continued to lambast her job until her boss called her into his office and put the teenager out of her misery.
He fired her. (Read the story here.)
That same year a 22-year-old from Berkeley, Calif. posted this on Twitter after getting a job offer with Cisco:
“Cisco just offered me a job! Now I have to weigh the utility of a fatty paycheck against the daily commute to San Jose and hating the work.”
Another Cisco employee saw the post and responded with his own tweet: “Who is the hiring manager? I’m sure they would love to know that you will hate the work. We here at Cisco are versed in the Web.”
The 22-year-old apparently never worked a day at Cisco. Wonder why.
Turns out using social media at work — and even venting about work — is commonplace in today’s office culture. Even my student employees are often browsing photos on Facebook or watching videos on YouTube without a second thought.
And with Google+, it’s even worse. We just can’t escape those red notifications while checking email!
I can’t say I don’t use social networking sites while at work, either. (And my friends online are all guilty of this, too.) But I don’t abuse the access I have.
But where do you draw the line?
9 Comments
She wasn’t fired for using Facebook. Sounds like she was fired for simply being stupid! LOL!
1950s, ’70s, ’90s or ’10s… talk smack about your job or boss in whatever means available in the times, and you’re likely to suffer the consequences.
…and just like anything else, if you don’t get your work done because of goofing off, (again, in whatever era), you suffer the consequences as well.
So, I feel it’s not FB, YT G+ or whatever getting them in trouble, it’s their work ethic.
I concur with MaxMaxMax, and I add one more caveat: if you’re gonna bitch about work, either be prepared for the consequences (remember, when you pee on the world, the world will pee back! Best to have an umbrella) or don’t bitch on an open, public forum! There are private communication lines in Twitter and Facebook, use those if you need to vent.
I admit to venting and talking trash about peeps and work but who really is ARABIKI anyways? I guess the world will never know…muhahahaha!
I’m Facebook illiterate. I signed on 3 years ago with basic info, and never bothered to visit the site since
….and just why is the “boss” cruising around these social networks in the first place? i bet “boss-man” has a few skeleton’s in the closet as well.What would be so hard about calling in the employee and having a talk first, if the boss is upset about some postings.Have the employee rules in place about social networking,if broken, a warning,if it continues then termination.But i think there’s way more abuse done by bosses than by the employees.With their “holier-than-tho attitude. Weiner and Wu come to mind…..
“Limited personal use” of work equipment seems like a good sensible workplace rule. The original and old rule about e-mail applies to posting things and tweets: don’t send/post/tweet anything that you wouldn’t want the entire world to see. This applies to personal equipment as well.
Information is so easily transmittable now that any friendship or romance gone bad can lead to the circulation of things we wouldn’t want the world to know.
It does seem short-sighted for employers to block every personal use or e-mail access on work equipment. Employees just end up spending work time on their own personal smartphones, iPads, and laptops.
It seems to me that people just need to be smart about what they post on their Facebook /Twitter accounts. If you know you have work people as friends on these things then know whatever you write is fair game in the office setting. Personally I make it a point not to friend anyone I work with on purpose and set my privacy settings to the highest levels to ensure people arent reading things they shouldnt be. I even went so far as to block everyone I work with the first day I started my new job to ensure I could avoid the whole facebook friending thing in the first place.
At the end of the day, in this world of real time information , best to never post anything anywhere that you wouldnt mind letting your boss see.
Otherwise you are on your own!
Hello Cat, if Facebooking and Twittering or any other form of net working is against work policy then don’t do it if you want to keep your job.
Facebook is blocked here at my job but little do they know that Friendster and Myspace is just as evil.