On my usual blogosphere rounds this morning, I read about yet another poor, suffering blogger who got fired from his/her job for complaining about it on the web. Yet, for the first time, Beatrice.com author Ron Hogan had the common sense to state:
Here’s a hint: If there’s something you don’t want prospective employers to know, like how you got fired for publicly badmouthing your bosses, don’t mention it on your blog, especially not in ways that clearly underline how you blame them for your own mistakes. And what were you doing accessing your blog on your work computer, anyhow?
Exactly. This is a lesson we’ve all learned the hard way. In terms of my own life, it’s not so much the blogging that could be the problem, but the use of company email (in my last job) for anything not related to work. Case in point, we complained so excessively and so frequently about my co-managers and/or my boss from hell on email that even if they didn’t officially fire me for it, they were certainly thinking about it. It’s hard because the expectation of privacy is there somewhat, and when you’re typing that email to your co-worker about how hard your week is or complaining on your blog about how ridiculous your manager’s behaviour is (because it’s your life), you’re not thinking about who might end up reading it, you’re simply venting. It’s hard not to want to contextualize it all the time—especially when you’re in a bad situation. Especially when that bad situation just seems to get worse and you’re all miserable together. There’s something in us that just wants to get it all out, hence the badly timed, “My boss is such a farking asshole she needs to die” sorts of emails we ended up sending for months before I got fired.
Now, I learned my lesson. But, in this case, I’m still pissed, especially considering the contents of my emails were supposed to remain confidential (according to my settlement), only to learn that the entire department has files up files of my personal correspondence that they’re using as evidence against other people who might still be there, which is seriously annoying and insulting at the same time. I’ll never, ever, ever use a company email for personal correspondence again. Praise be to the free yahoo.com account that I use for all of my day-to-day conversations with my friends.
But it begs the question, where does privacy really stop? How much of your free time can your employer really control? Granted, this woman shouldn’t have been such a knucklehead and blogged at work, but she was still making an assumption that she had some level of privacy. It’s frustrating that it takes us all deep into Fahrenheit 411 or 1984 territory, but it also shows how pervasive technology has become in our lives. No one would ever think twice about sitting down and typing up a memo trashing his/her manager, but they’d not think twice about sending an email. It’s a good example of how technology has out-paced the work environment in some way, and how we all need to catch up in terms of how far we’re willing to put our necks on the line—is free speech really worth losing your job?
Anyway, I do talk about my new job in passing here sometimes, but only to say I’ve been at this conference or that conference. But in the end, it’s just not that important. What I want on these pages is what’s important to me, and while I’m enjoying my new job and love the people I work with, the whole point of My Tragic Right Hip is to write more, read more and be more of myself. I almost lost myself for five years when I worked my fingers to the bone and gave myself back the disease from the stress of my last job. Now I feel like writing back to them here gives me a little bit of control over the awful situation, and who cares really, because I’ve already been fired. It’s not like they can fire me twice, you know?