January 8, 2008 at 8:01 am
We have become an oversensitive bunch of whiners!
Seems like everyday you hear or read about someone losing thier job or being publicly chastised for saying or doing something that offends another.
Keep your private life private or be prepaired for someone to take action.
Maybe if the teacher went on Imus and cried and said I'm sorry they could get thier job back.
January 8, 2008 at 8:09 am
jaholbrook (1/8/2008)
We have become an oversensitive bunch of whiners!Seems like everyday you hear or read about someone losing thier job or being publicly chastised for saying or doing something that offends another.
Keep your private life private or be prepaired for someone to take action.
Maybe if the teacher went on Imus and cried and said I'm sorry they could get thier job back.
Sorry, but I disagree wholeheartedly. The onus isn't on me to keep my private life private; it's on others to justify why they feel it necessary to invade that privacy.
Perhaps it's a misnomer to call it a "private" life, since the word private has been corrupted. Let's call it a "personal" life instead. My "personal" opinion is currently (via this forum) becoming quite public, but it's no less personal for all that. And as such, since I've so far avoided any mention of where I work, it's got nothing to do with my employer except insofar as I'm typing this during work time.
Semper in excretia, suus solum profundum variat
January 8, 2008 at 8:12 am
case in point...
I will keep my opinion of your post to myself as to not offend.
January 8, 2008 at 8:40 am
Thanks for the debate and this was a can of worms. I think it affects some professions (doctors, lawyers, IT), people that don't have regular hours and can get called anytime, so their "personal" time becomes blurred.
I somewhat agree with you that you're not representing your company if you're not wearing a logo or something when you're out, but that's probably a question of where you are in the company. I likely represent this site and Red Gate more so than Steve the developer. I have a more public profile and if I'm drunk at PASS, more people will notice than if Steve or Nick or perhaps even Neil the owner.
So your behavior at all times might be more important if you're a public persona (executive, speaker, salesman, etc). Maybe the IT guy isn't as big a deal.
I do tend to think that our personal time is our own, but by posting out on Facebook or MySpace, you're "publishing" yourself publicly nad need to be more careful. I've noticed some people mixing their professional blog on their own site with religious, political, or some other strongly held belief postings. I recommend you don't do that. Do your best to keep those things separate. I keep my personal blog separate from a technical one and I don't list my personal site on work communications or my resume. It's easy to find, but I don't call it out.
In terms of the company you work for, I've seen people pick jobs that were much different than their lives. People that were a little wild working for a religious company, but they needed a job and they took it. It's a conflict and you should avoid that if possible. Ask your own questions and be sure the culture and ideals of the company are close to yours. Not the same, but not diametrically opposed either.
January 8, 2008 at 9:15 am
Freddie (1/8/2008)
In the UK we have employment law, where your employer must have a good reason to fire you. I can't imagine any tribunal agreening that a teacher should have been fired for having a drink at a party. Whatever a company's moral values, it has to abide by the law.
In the state where I live we have no such law. An employer may let you go without giving a reason.
On the other hand the employee can also leave without giving a reason.
Kindest Regards, Rod Connect with me on LinkedIn.
January 8, 2008 at 9:20 am
It's at the NYT You need to register for it.
January 8, 2008 at 9:28 am
You don't have to register to view the article. I searched for the title on Google and the first hit was the article at the NY times. No registration.
January 8, 2008 at 10:03 am
Rod at work (1/8/2008)
Freddie (1/8/2008)
In the UK we have employment law, where your employer must have a good reason to fire you. I can't imagine any tribunal agreening that a teacher should have been fired for having a drink at a party. Whatever a company's moral values, it has to abide by the law.In the state where I live we have no such law. An employer may let you go without giving a reason.
On the other hand the employee can also leave without giving a reason.
YOu can leave here without giving a reason. Most employer's livlihoods don't rely on individual employees staying with them. Firing someone is a big deal, they could lose their home, their relationship and all thoughts of other things that are important to it. Employers shouldn't be allowed to fire people for trivial things like this.
January 8, 2008 at 10:11 am
Firing someone for legal activities on their own time is outrageous except in very limited special cases. Not hiring people for those activities is much more common.
All my private online activities are done under pseudonyms or nicknames. It's not true anonymity, isn't meant to be, and my friends all know who I am. But it largely prevents busybodies from easily connecting the two.
[there has always been outrageous pressure on teachers. Earlier in US history a married teacher could be fired for being pregnant]
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-- FORTRAN manual for Xerox Computers --
January 8, 2008 at 11:53 am
"However at the same time, each of us represents our employer all the time."
This creeping notion of who ever pays us for our hard work and time also gets to dictate our personal lives is a huge farce perpetrated on society. As one posting said, if you're not wearing company logo'd clothing, i.e., it can't be misconstrued that you're representing the company, it is hands off.
Right to work state or no, no employer has the right to dictate to any of us the terms of our personal lives; that's analogous to having the government in your bedroom.
This is a 'glass houses and stones' issue; what past lapses in judgment were forgiven for those folks who decided on this woman's termination? Remember, she was fired for posting the photo, lapse in judgment, not for the drinking, actual behavior. It can be argued that smoking is an addictive and hazardous activity. Should we fire those people who smoke in front of children or display photos of themselves smoking?
It is a slippery slope of questionable boundaries begging the issue, "For whom and for what activities is termination an option?"
At the very least, corporate policies should explicitly define acceptable behavior instead of sitting their employees under a 'Sword of Damocles'.
January 8, 2008 at 2:23 pm
It is getting more and more complicated working for corporation. Long time ago I made a choice not to pursue management because I do not like company politics. I thought staying technical would be a safe choice. However it is not safe anymore.
Employers still can fire you for any reason. In one case my co-worker was searching the internet for a web programming problem. A management personnel walked past by and my co-worker immediate got a warning from the manager the next day that the management thought he was searching the internet for fun.
My old company was outsourced to India but they also hired a lot of employees that coming from India. I was talking about a particular person (Indian) that could not do the job with my friend. Someone must overheard my conversation. I was warned by my manager that someone complained I had racial discrimination, but my manager refused to tell who complained.
For God sake I am a Chinese woman, I could return a favor to that person that he / she had racial discrimination against Chinese. My manager just told me to keep my mouth shut. I could not even talk to my friend at work anymore. When we had something to say privately, we had to use our personal email address instead of using company email address to communicate.
Is it the way supposed to be?
January 8, 2008 at 4:05 pm
Hi,
My 5 cents worth.
Internet is a mirror of all sides of life. The change today is that anything can be found which before was more difficult to see or get hold of.
Just because we don't agree with what people do in their "private time" don't mean we should fire them. If the employee mixes work and private activities not compliant with the company policy or what ever, it's a different story.
But private is private as long as it's legal.
//SUN
January 9, 2008 at 7:30 am
Here's an incrediblly stupid one:
Texas Education Agency’s director of science terminated for forwarding to a local online community an e-mail message from the National Center for Science Education dealing with evolution. Apparently in Texas you can forward announcements about string theory or stem cell research but not evolution.
...
-- FORTRAN manual for Xerox Computers --
January 9, 2008 at 7:50 am
First and foremost the firing based on the concept it encourages underaged drinking is completely afoul of logic. Clearly the person is of age. I am sorry but that statement is the same as saying by me drinking an acholic beverage in front of my children it is encouraging underaged drinking, and that is BS. And the caption does not say party hard until you fall no matter your age or anything.
The idea that adds for beer and smoking encouraged those behaviors is true only to the extent stupid people don't know how to raise their children and don't know when to talk to them. Teen pregnancy isn't caused by accident it is caused by stupidity, mostly the teens, but becuase the system doesn't paint a proper picture of the consequences of their actions and there is no real consequence thanks to the system now. There are adult people who get pregnant for various evil reasons or the same stupidity teens get pregnant (how many times have you heard someone say "but I thought he loved me").
What's more frustrating is that that behavior the person was fired over probaly happens with a lot of school officials (have heard of lunch meetings where they ordered alcohol or educational seminars where alcohol was served). If it were me I would file a wrongfull termination suit depending on the states laws.
However, people also have to keep in mind that when you publish your private life on the web it is now public information which does require you to consider the consequnce at your work. Imagine a co-worker posing a nude picture of themselves and someone discovers it, that may lead to a strained work environment, so business do have the right to consider that when weighing termination for those reasons. But the extremness of the noted circumstance seems to weigh beyond the reality of the situation, becuase I have been in small towns and knew what all my teachers were up to and many times was at the same party watching them but my parents drank and watching all of those people had nothing to do with me deciding to drink as a teen. My friends encouraged that.
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