...But Robert Scoble told me to never lie in my blog through his book, Naked Conversations. So I can truthfully say that I have had some horrible professors, and Professor Melander is not one of them.
But really then, what is the difference between what Mark Jen did and the slander we are all secretly guilty via word of mouth? I'll tell you what the difference is...it's that Mark wrote this down and published it for the world to see. Without a doubt, we'd all be in trouble if we wrote down and published everything we said. So if we all do it, why is there such a double standard?
I mean, I'm pretty good at being honest. Sometimes a bit too much. But there is usually nothing I will say that I am not afraid to publish (my mother might advise otherwise...). I also wish more people weren't afraid of the truth--there is nothing wrong with being upfront.
But in this case, I have to side with Google. Employers can fire their employees for any reason they want (as long as it has nothing to do with race, religion, gender, etc.). If they think that having an employee airing out their dirty laundry on the internet is going to do more harm than good, they can do what they want (within boundaries) with this worker.
But then there is Heather B. Armstrong of dooce.com. While being fired becuase of aforementioned reasons, she went on to become a very successful blogger. She says in her bio, "BE YE NOT SO STUPID. Never write about work on the internet unless your boss knows and sanctions the fact that YOU ARE WRITING ABOUT WORK ON THE INTERNET. If you are the boss, however, you should be aware that when you order Prada online and then talk about it out loud that you are making it very hard for those around you to take you seriously."
But bloggers should heed these examples. While it is important to be honest and never hide information, take Scoble's words of wisdom and be nice to everyone. Also remember what your mom always said, "don't say it if you wouldn't be willing to write it down and sign your name to it!" Honesty is important, but so is keeping your job, right?
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3 comments:
I agree with you. Actualy, I wrote about the same thing. I do not think google fires every employee who wrote something about it. I think the case of Mark Jen more like that he is new guy and just start to work and made these comments about the company. I do not think google will fire someone who work for them for years because he wrote blog about the company.
That is the right thing...Never lie, but there is always ways to be trutfhul about you professors in a professional way, such as using ratemyprofessors.com where professors would not know who had rated them, but only know that their performance is either low or high.
I absolutely agree with you as why Mark Jen was fired. However, under no circumstances should he have had published that information for everyone to see. In the end, there is a company policy that has to be followed.
I am sure as well that as if you were a CEO of the company, you wouldn't want anybody (your employees) publishing information that would be confidential.
Benjamin
Hey Anna, good points there. Different companies have different cultures which then translate into different tolerances for how open they allow their employees to be. Slowly, many companies are realizing that allowing their employees to be open and honest helps their brand image (i.e. Microsoft, Sun, IBM, Yahoo, etc.). In the future as more and more people get into blogging, I think there eventually won't be a difference between talking about something at the water cooler and blogging it publicly :)
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