The BBC Technology reports:
Bookseller Joe Gordon, 37, had worked for Waterstone’s book chain for 11 years and was based at its Princes Street store. In his blog, the Woolamaloo Gazette, Mr Gordon said he was dismissed for gross misconduct after the firm said his writings had brought it into disrepute. […] Mr Gordon went on to say that he would occasionally mention his work life online, coining phrases such as “Bastardstone’s” and referring to his manager as “Evil Boss”.
“I pointed out that I had not set out to deliberately ruin the company’s image. In fact I don’t think I have even inadvertently; if I had wished to do that then I would have been running less satirical and far more biting comments on a rather more regular basis, rather than commenting from time to time about a bad day at work, a grumpy manager or the like. You’d think I had run a sustained propaganda campaign of subversion.” Mr Gordon claimed his dismissal breached his right to free speech. He said that Waterstone’s had no clear policy on blogging and had not accepted his offer to stop writing and accept a warning.
I usually have sympathy for bloggers who get mistreated by employers when they really can’t see it coming, like in Queen of Sky’s case (where she was fired for having photos in uniform on her site, even though male employees had been doing for years without problems). But this chappie made his own identity public, his employer’s identity public and slandered the company’s name on a somewhat regular basis. Ok, at this point, you can assume there are chances a coworker, employer or customer will see the blog in question and be somewhat bothered by the comments.
There was no surprise then that the management chose to bring up the issue with Mr. Gordon when they found out about it. Now, he wasn’t fired on the spot like Ellen aka Queen of Sky was. He was given the choice between toning down/stopping his comments about work when blogging or leaving his job. He HAD A CHOICE! Then he keeps complaining! It’s almost worthy of a non-deadly Darwin Award.
At least, sit down with the employer, agree to stop slandering work on the blog until an agreement on what is acceptable and what isn’t is drawn up with the employer.
Writing a blog is a responsibility as much as a right of expression. Actions have reactions, calling your supervisor an “Evil Boss” and your company “Bastardstone’s” IS likely to piss off the company.
Using the excuse that talking about the company in a blog isn’t written in their contract is a poor excuse. Pure common sense says that no matter how you express it, too much complaining about your employer in a public environment will innevitably lead to discontentment on their part! In the nascent blogging world, people really need to learn to use their common sense.
So a gun doesn’t come with an indication expressedly saying you shouldn’t use it to shoot yourself in the foot, does that mean you should do it??
Click on “(more)” to see what my comment on his blog was.
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that canadian girl 