I was interviewed this morning by KFWB Radio in Los Angeles regarding 27 employees of a San Diego auto club being fired for blogging at Myspace.com, according to an Associated Press report. The opening question was: "What is your opinion of 27 people being fired just for blogging and on their own time?"
My opinion is that that is not what happened at the Automobile Club of Southern California. What happened was 27 employees thought it would be cool to publish some nasty comments about the obesity and sexual preferences of co-workers. They also discussed how they could slow down roadside repair services for their customers.
The on catch is that I'm not certain that MySpace is a blog so much as a community bulletin board and I'm not certain, by the way it works, if it is really a public space. But the AP and KFWB Radio seem to be carrying it as another chapter in the exciting "Fired for Blogging" series.
In the case of attacking a co-worker, that co-worker had gone to management and said she felt harassed. Candidly, I don't blame her one bit. Twenty-Seven people ridiculing her repeatedly like a pack of schoolyard bullies sounds like harassment to me. In the second case, employees plotting to abuse customers and publishing it online sounds like a company crisis in the making.
It seems to me that the Auto Club did the right thing. To me either of these offenses should be punished by terminations--provided one warning is given first. I have a hunch the Auto Club just improved life for both their remaining employees as well as their customers.
I have still never heard of a case of people being fired "just for blogging." I have now heard of more than 100 people getting dooced for doing on blogs (if you count myspace as a blog) the sort of things that people have been getting fired for throughout history. There is a cry now for companies to issue blogging policies, which would be a good thing, and lawyers and HR departments really love to write new policy and procedure documents.
I maintain that a simple policy is perhaps best: "Don't say anything stupid on a blog, whether it is on your own time or company time. Even when you are off-the-clock, you represent your company and taking actions that will embarrass them is always unwise and will not be treated kindly in the workplace.
