Beware venting online: Bosses are watching
By Renjith VP, SiliconIndia   |   Wednesday, 03 November 2010, 13:43 IST   |    3 Comments
Printer Print Email Email
Beware venting online: Bosses are watching
Bangalore: Posted about your bad boss in your personal blog? Tweeted on the dirty laundry soaked up inside your office? Took a sick leave, enjoyed a party and uploaded a picture in Facebook? Better beware, because you may be en route screwing up your job! Social Networks are undoubtedly fun. But ever thought of the fact that your social networking profile is open to Google and Yahoo searches? If you think your boss and prospective employers aren't Googling you, think again. Umpteen numbers of cases are being reported worldwide as to how employees get sacked because of their careless or deliberate online postings. A man in Australia, who took two sick days during the New Year, was fired from his barman job after a photo of him partying on the said days was spotted by his employer on Facebook. His appeal was even rejected in Fair Work Australia on the basis of evident proof. Gloria Gadsden, a sociology professor at East Stroudsburg University in Pennsylvania, was suspended after updating her Facebook status with complaints about work that alluded to violence. As her status at different times ran, "Does anyone know where I can find a very discrete hitman? Yes, it's been that kind of day", "had a good day today. Didn't want to kill even one student. Now Friday was a different story." etc got her fired straight away by officials pointing out the violence in her status. Venting to Facebook friends costed jobs for many more people like Kimberley Swann, an office administrator in England who was sacked for telling her friends that it was boring and Dan Leone, a stadium operations worker in Philadelphia, who lost his job for criticizing management's decisions in a posting. Even playing games are costing jobs for many employees. The Lying Down Game created when Facebook first started, has rules like lying on the floor or any other surface face down with your arms flat against your side and your toes pointing downwards, get a friend to take your picture and then post it on Facebook with absurd backgrounds. Seven staff members of the Great Western Hospital in Swindon, England, who called themselves the "Secret Swindon Emergency Department group", posted photos, since removed, of themselves lying down on the hospital's resuscitation trolleys, ward floors and on the Wiltshire Air Ambulance Helipad during a night shift. If they thought it was funny at the time, their management didn't. The unfortunate seven were suspended and faced possible dismissal. Many trade unions and employee federations have warned employees they could face disciplinary action or even dismissal if their tweets or postings are found to be untrue or damaging to their companies. Jeffrey Rosen who has written an article on the perils of exposing personal data publicly via social media - The Web Means the End of Forgetting says in the article "the Internet records everything and forgets nothing". He says that 75 percent of U.S. recruiters and human-resource professionals report that their companies require them to do online research about candidates. 70 percent of U.S. recruiters report that they have rejected candidates because of information found online. They scour search engines, social-networking sites, photo- and video-sharing sites, personal Web sites and blogs, Twitter and online-gaming sites. Though not much cases are reported in India, it is just a matter of time when this becomes a norm whereas recruiters have already started checking online presence before hiring. So if you think there is nothing worse than flirting with your boss's daughter or private secretary, just tweet down your boss or firm with negative remarks or update your Facebook status. You might know or not but your one Facebook update can make you sit home answering those interview questions by a local journalist who wish to run your story on cover - 'Fired from Job because of Facebook status update'.

siliconindia