Mohamad Rashidi’s Blog

We wait with excitement for Trump to say “You’re Fired” on TV, but it isn’t nearly as entertaining in real life. Building a blog with a large audience is hard work. It can be like moonlighting with a second career. It takes attention away from other aspects of your life, like your primary career. It can have negative consequences.

Mainstream media has documented several cases of people being fired for blogging. Here are five of the reasons why.

photo by mrza

5. Lateness, Absenteeism, Lack of Focus

Blogging is a hobby that it is easy to become passionate about. You set your own hours, you write what you want to write about, and you can get near-instant response. All that passion can take away from other aspects of your life and lead to late nights, showing up late to work, and frequent “sick days” or “working from home”. These are signs of an obsession more than a passion.

“… was dismissed for excessive absenteeism, failure to meet the continuing educational requirements we expect and demand from our staff, misuse of company time and resources, attempting to create divisiveness among the staff, and finally, the insubordination of creating a blog that is in direct conflict to the goals of the company.” - actual dismissal notice of a blogger

fark photoshop by mrza

4. Misuse of Company Time and Resources

Dates and time are recorded on all blog posts and comments. Writing a blog is like creating an log of how you’ve been goofing off during work hours - and anyone can read it. Even if you restrict blogging to your personal time, your blog might be giving the wrong impression. Quite often dates and times are wrong because of incorrect time zone settings or using the future posts feature. Never forget that company Internet use is logged and monitored.

“Two out of three British Internet users lose significant portions of their time to irrelevant web browsing, a study said on Tuesday. Workers confronted with the almost unlimited pool of online information become distracted and begin ‘wilfing,’ short for ‘What Was I Looking For?’.” - Reuters

photo by mrza

3. Becoming an Unofficial Spokesperson for the Company

If you publicize your name and occupation then your personal blog can become an unofficial outlet for information about the company. People will look to you for the inside track about what is going on and take your opinion as the opinion of your employer, despite any disclaimers to the contrary. Blogging can change you from an employee to a source of news about your employer.

“My exercise in figuring out where the line was repeatedly crossing it and then be told that I crossed it. Lawyers have come into my office three times.” - Jeremy Zawodny

photo by mrza

2. Inappropriate Pictures

Inappropriateness is in the eye of the beholder. People have been fired for sexually suggestive images and substance abusing images (especially if in uniform). Others have been fired for public pictures of inappropriate behavior in the workplace. Some companies disallow cameras on the premise altogether, and people have been fired for publishing any photos of company locations because it is a “security issue”.

“A Pennsylvania woman claims that her teaching career has been derailed by college administrators who unfairly disciplined her over a MySpace photo that shows her wearing a pirate hat and drinking from a plastic cup.” - The Smoking Gun

photo by gymnart

1. Disclosing Internal Company Information or Politics

Companies like to control their image. Any corporate communication with the public is examined and re-examined at different levels. Blogging cuts through that hierarchy like a hot knife through a block of lard. Writing about your company’s internal practices, alluding to sensitive information like product release dates / product features, or saying disparaging things about a client / business associate can all return to haunt you.

“I put up a post on Twitter that I wish I hadn’t. I said that I don’t read the hard copy of PC Magazine and that my free subscription goes in the trash. In a guest editorial on Strumpette you weighed whether the magazine in response should blacklist all PR pitches from Edelman, my employer, on behalf of our tech clients.” - Steve Rubel

photo by mrza

~ by shedee82 on November 4, 2008.