Blog-Related Firings
-->Flight attendant Ellen Simonetti and former Google employee Mark Jen have more in common than their love of blogging: They both got fired over it.
Simonetti had posted suggestive photographs of herself in uniform, while Jen speculated online about his employer’s finances. In neither case were their bosses happy when they found out.
Though many companies have Internet guidelines that prohibit visiting porn sites or forwarding racist jokes, few of the policies directly cover blogs, or Web journals, particularly those written outside of work hours.
This is why I would never blog about job—directly or indirectly. An acquaintance of mine (I can’t remember who) once told me that some employers have recently begun the practice of Googling the names of interviewees before hiring them to see if they can learn anything about who they are and/or where they’ve been… Certainly, that must include learning if they have a blog.
If true, that would put me in a very tough position wouldn’t it? I notice my name gets Googled quite a bit as it is because I notice referrals to this site from people Googling my name.
Perhaps I should have started blogging under a pseudonym?
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Interesting perspective. Another reason for blogging anonymously. And you know, with Blogger it’s never to late to start!
I suppose the possibility of abuse (i.e., discrimination) against one for his political beliefs is rather large.
Of course this presents a dilemma: Deal with the ramifications of using one’s name, or inventing a random name and then worrying about who has linked your real name and where. It would probably require some “cleaning up” of your real name.