Last month, Dan Leone was fired for posting this on Facebook:
Dan is [expletive] devastated about Dawkins signing with Denver. . .Dam Eagles R Retarted!!
I’m sure we’ve also all heard of the Cisco Fatty. This was the story of an Epic Fail that never was, featuring a girl who posted on Twitter about a job she’d already turned down and an over-zealous Cisco channel partner who tweeted back… and the internet community went freakin nuts. As a result, this young lady had her face plastered all over the Internet.
There are countless other examples of people being fired for supposedly “stupid” social media mistakes. Shouldn’t all these people know better than to broadcast their dirty laundry to the rest of the world?
Hell no.
Where’s the outrage when someone gets fired because of Social Media?
Schadenfreude is nothing new. Making very public mistakes is reason enough for the public to point and laugh. Public humiliation is one thing, but losing your job over a bad Tweet, Facebook quote, or something embarrassing cached by Google Maps is entirely different.
It’s wrong.
Everybody makes mistakes – whether it’s that tattoo or the guy you dated last week or picking a bad movie for your third date. Blessedly, many of these mistakes have a very short shelf-life and are forgotten as soon as they happen. But social media mistakes – those live on forever. Not just because the tools we use enable people to find us much easier than in the past, but also because these tools have the implicit promise of privacy.
Sure, Facebook has amazing privacy controls, but you need a CIS Degree just to figure them out (luckily, I do). Regardless, Facebook promises that no one outside your network will be able to see your profile page. Does anyone older than 30 actually grasp what that means?
Twitter and Facebook both work on the principle of anonymity through numbers. That is, your voice is just a drop in the ocean. But as search engines cache more and more, and employers take advantage of unwitting employees who haven’t locked down their profiles, the principle of anonymity through numbers begins to falter.
I’m not saying there’s no reason to point and laugh when someone makes a bonehead move. That’s just human nature.
What I’m saying is, I don’t care if you call your boss a moron or if you say that your company is “retarted”. You’re entitled to your opinion – no matter how scathing it is. Never mind that these sorts of things were being said under the radar before… shared with friends, family, and anyone who would listen. Now we just use different tools to broadcast our displeasure.
When an employee is broadcasting displeasure to the world, the majority of the problem doesn’t exist with the employee. Aside from the “Hey, you know, you should really bring these things up internally,” talk, the blame rests squarely on the employer. When someone is telling everybody but the people they work for what’s wrong with their job, that’s the employer’s problem for not listening (or, more likely – for not taking appropriate action unless the problem is *very* public).
That these tools are increasingly public means that the complaint as well as the response are all in the public view. If your employee calls you out on a bonehead move, or is broadcasting to Twitter that their supervisor is an idiot, the problem becomes how to respond properly.
The fair response isn’t to fire the employee for dissent.
Instead, a level-handed approach should be taken. First, most of us don’t realize the impact our words will have – whether they’re spouted on the Internet or in-person. It’s only fair to give the employee a chance to defend their point and weigh the merit of the words. Second, that the employee cares enough to say something is an indicator of passion. Sure, plenty of people wig-out about the tiny things in life, but those things that really set us off are bound to be the ones we care the most about. Otherwise why bother?
Obviously Dan Leone had a point – otherwise Brian Dawkins wouldn’t have given him tickets to the Broncos-Eagles game. As Dawkins put it, “Had I not … signed with Denver, that guy would still have his job. That didn’t surprise me, that someone said that on their Facebook. It did surprise me that he was let go.”
Clearly Dawkins wasn’t at fault here – the Philadelphia Eagles were. Just like the Internet community at large was in the case of the Cisco Fatty.
Passionate, vocal, loud employees are every businesses’ best asset. Only through mismanaging them do they become nightmares.
Stop this stupid trend of social media firings. It discourages the use of technology and also encourages people to internalize their hurt feelings.
Shouldn’t we all be thankful that “going postal” has become a euphemism for mouthing off on Twitter instead of what it used to mean anyway?
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April 8th, 2009 at 1:51 pm
Would it be acceptable for these (or any other) individuals to stand up in the middle of a business meeting and berate their coworkers, subordinates, or superiors? Call them “retards”? How about denigrating their ethnicity…that would be an interesting escalation of your “anything is fair game on the internet” employment policy.
I don’t understand your concept that internet communications grant some sort of special privelege to say whatever one chooses. Having the opinion that my boss is a “moron”, and voicing that opinion in a public forum are two completely different things. I retain the right to the former, I do not expect (or support) the right to the latter.
April 8th, 2009 at 1:52 pm
I totally disagree. If an employee is venting to the public that the boss is a bonehead or that things are terrible, they need to be fired. Boss’s are people too and entitled to privacy just like every employee is entitled to privacy. Should the company post that John Doe is stupid, doesn’t understand the business and has clinical ADHD, that he is cronically late and has BO? Don’t you think this would hurt John’s prospects for getting another job? No employee (inclduing the CEO) has the right to decide what’s ok and what’s not ok to make public about other people. It’s not fair for anyone to make public judgments about another person or company and frankly it shows a horrific violation of trust and professional judgment to do that. Anyone that runs around whining about their coworkers gets what they deserve. No one likes a whiner or a snitch. Maybe a few horror stories will make everyone think twice before posting hear say.
April 8th, 2009 at 2:24 pm
Rafael….you missed the boat pal.
April 8th, 2009 at 2:24 pm
Rafael,
In the case of personal attacks, libel or slander laws apply, and I agree with you that such people need to be thwapped. Personal attacks are wrong and should be dealt with accordingly. I disagree that they need to be fired outright.
Anyone stupid enough to post a personal attack clearly doesn’t understand how social media works. In that case, it falls back onto the employer to correct the problem. If it persists, hell yeah, fire ‘em. But you can’t assume they know better beforehand. Especially if someone has only a handful of followers on Twitter or has done the basics to lock down their Facebook accounts by only friending people they know in real life.
That being said, personal attacks are outside the scope of my article, but you’ve brought up a good point.
Back to the scope of the article, how do you justify firing someone with a valid complaint that chooses to complain in the realm of social media? If the boss IS a bonehead or if the situations in the company ARE horrible, doesn’t it fall on the company to address those situations? Surely the right answer can’t be to fire these social media whistle blowers…
April 8th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
Catbert,
Clearly personal attacks violate the efficacy of the freedom of speech. That wasn’t ever the point of my article.
Dan Leone didn’t call his boss or any of his employers a “retard”, he said his organization was stupid for trading away his favorite player. Organizations and corporations are public entities and don’t have any sort of protected status that I’m aware of.
In the case of Connor Riley, she’s been harped on relentlessly for a harmless social media comment about a job she already had decided to turn down.
Schadenfreude is taken to extremes in these cases. Neither Dan nor Connor deserved the incredible levels of public ridicule they received for their respective “woops” moments, do they?
Now, if you’re a jackass and posting racist or personal attacks, sure, you’re gonna get burned and probably deserve it. It might still behoove the companies to educate their employees in the first place – it’s not like they teach this stuff in school.
-Nick
April 8th, 2009 at 3:20 pm
Nick – I agree that if the situation is horrible then of course an employee needs to do something like telling HR or the boss’s boss so that things can be addressed internally. But whatever you do, dont tweet or is it twit about it. That’s really bad judgement. There is no upside to venting publically….there is only downside.
April 8th, 2009 at 4:57 pm
Can someone tweet about this twit, Rafael? Make up a name, throw his pic on it, and then tweet about RealMatch sucking wind. a) Its the truth. b) Maybe then we’ll be saved his drivel.
April 8th, 2009 at 10:12 pm
Rafael – I agree with you 100%…the rest of these blokes are just angry cause their unemployment is runnign out.
April 8th, 2009 at 10:53 pm
Leafar is that you attacking people on cheezhead again. You need to get a gym membership bro, all that anger is gonna eat you up.
April 9th, 2009 at 9:15 am
Its there needs to be some sort of awareness in the workforce that if you go public with private information, you’re going to get canned. Some of the new generation doesnt totally understand this yet. Look at the way half these jobfox employees bad mouth the founder and others. They hide their real ID when mouthing off but what kind of character gets angry at someone that gave them a job? Sorry your not a millionare but you had a job for 2 years. And this is how you repay them? Good lord. Point is, more people need to learn something called discretion.
April 9th, 2009 at 12:08 pm
no one likes a snitch and what comes around, goes around.
http://www.cheezhead.com/2009/04/09/ved-monster-lawsuit-demands-yahoo-release-name-of-snitch/
April 10th, 2009 at 1:43 am
Not sure what kind of flamewar was started here. Rafael’s point was a valid one, but it wasn’t the point of my article – never meant to dis the guy. So, have your silliness anywhere, just not on my post.
Rafael, also agreed with you on the confidentiality agreements, unless some sort of moral or ethical dilemma is involved (ie, someone’s gonna get fired, bonuses at AIG, that sort of thing that SHOULD be leaked).
So… we have 1) personal, vulgar attacks, 2) racism/intolerance and 3) confidentiality agreements.
Can we please get back to the issue at hand?
HRBoss – There’s no reason to get ageist about it. The people getting fired for social media mistakes are from every generation. When I post something, I post it as myself. I believe in transparency. When I say something online, which I believe is a fair assessment of the situation, no matter who it pisses off, I take credit for it.
The point of the article is that hurt feelings are no reason to fire an otherwise qualified worker.
April 10th, 2009 at 10:49 am
Nick – Its all just good fun, dont worry…the readers here have big shoulders. If your posts dont stir the pot just a little then they wouldnt be very interesting to read. When you see the swarm, you know the topic is a good one. PS I think you should be fired….just kidding
April 11th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
It is not about social media sites, it is about the loaylty of employees with their employer. When the employer lose the trust in the employee, there is usually just the only one solution.
People should be always very careful about their posting their job related stories, there is always someone who can read the message and say it to the employer.
April 12th, 2009 at 7:34 am
Nick says: “The point of the article is that hurt feelings are no reason to fire an otherwise qualified worker.”
Catbert says: “Otherwise qualified”??? I’m not sure how you’re able to speak to the qualifications of these individuals. Are you familiar with their work history? Their performance?
Simple fact-People who display poor judgement, and poor decision-making will have a difficult time remaining employed.
Regarding any social trauma these individuals endured, I’d call that a self-inflicted wound.