Watching your back
A couple days ago 9rules Member Bryan Veloso wrote an interesting piece asking the question Am I Condemning Myself? It goes on to talk about how blogging can effect your career and it kind of sucks to think that once you pursue something with a passion you have to restrain yourself somewhat as to avoid any trouble. Now I understand the consequences of talking about work (either positively or negatively) and bad-mouthing co-workers, but what if you are talking about non-related stuff? Do you still have to worry?
It seems we live in an age of conflict. We scream for privacy yet are willing to throw all of our information onto dating sites and Myspace with the hopes of getting a little something, something. We want the freedom to talk about what we want, but that doesn’t include when people talk bad about us. If you caught one of your employees running an erotic blog what would you do and I ask this from the perspective of being a manager.
Whenever you write a passionate piece do you think of not only the short-term ramifications, but the long-term ones as well? It’s easy to say well we shouldn’t work for people who base our careers solely by what happens online because they don’t understand the new age of information we are in, but we know the world doesn’t work like that. Maybe in a couple more years when the last remnants of the old guard remain we can breathe a sigh of relief and get on with our lives, but till then it’s sad to think that we must always watch our footsteps, even when we know they aren’t treading on anybody’s path but our own.
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I’ve always been of the opinion that people’s personal lives should be their own to do what they want with. As long as they’re doing their job, and their personal lives don’t affect it, who cares?
That said, I don’t know much about that sort thing, so that might be a pretty naive opinion.
By Richard on May 8, 2006 1:31 pm
I agree, I’ve always thought that peoples personal lives (ie blogs, etc) should should not be looked down on by managers and such as long as nothing effects the work habits. Unfortunately it’s not like that, and I’ve learned that the hard way in almost losing a job over blogging.
As much as blogs can be personal and for friends only, they can still be found and aren’t as private as some may think. The sad part is, people judge, and you can’t do anything about it.
By JWP on May 8, 2006 2:10 pm
Well, here in the UK a politician (John Prescott) was discovered to have had an on-going affair with his secretary, and someone else before that.
However, it seems both party and public (or the majory of the public) are of the opinion that public and private are separate. When it comes to jobs where the decisions one makes has the potential to effect lives I totally disagree!
The reason being that, unless you’re schizophrenic you are not a different person in public than private. It’s usually considered to be good for your mental health if you whole in body and mind. So if a guy can’t be trusted to be faithful to his own wife, why should I trust him to keep his promises to me?
Now, the work situation is slightly different. In my opinion, as a manager, even if I read something such as you suggested, that’s no reason to dismiss someone (or at the interview stage to preclude someone). However, it’s the case in the UK that even if you want to run your company against certain moral (or religious) standards, you’re really not allowed to take things like that into account or else you’re being discriminative.
So, I suppose yes, when working someones private life is their private life. Unless their private life raises issues that might be threatening to others. (e.g. you wouldn’t hire someone with a paedophilia conviction to work in a nursery, but they could work in structual engineering or whatever else)
At the same time I think religious organisations (e.g. mosques, ‘faith’ schools, churches etc) should have the right to discriminate against people who do not share their faith when hiring workers.
By Matt Turner on May 8, 2006 2:17 pm
When you start bringin up religion you are opening up a completely different can of worms since that institution is based upon values that differ than those in the business world. I do agree though that they will discriminate if your values aren’t the same as their’s, but why would someone apply anyways then?
Because we gotta pay the mortgage they say…
By Scrivs on May 8, 2006 3:57 pm
I think the main problem is that people do not think before they act online. Think about it. Let’s say a stockbroker has a personal blog and writes on the personal blog that he/she was drunk the entire weekend. A client comes across the blog, puts two and two together and realizes that the Monday after the drinking binge the stockbroker recommended stock that did not do well. Does the reader (and client) have the right to question the judgment of the stockbroker? Absolutely. Will that reflect badly against the company? Absolutely. Should the company have to pay the price for what happens in their employee’s personal lives? Absolutely not.
If the stockbroker thought about the possible problems that might occur, weigh them out and then decide if he/she wants to continue the blog, that’s one matter. That’s usually not what happens.
Companies should have policies in place where employees are clearly aware of the consequences of what they do. If they keep the job, they accept the policies – simple as that. I think this is needed because the weight of questionable content is vastly different per industry. An erotic blog would kill a teacher’s career but might not have any impact on a sale person, web designer, etc.
By Tyme on May 8, 2006 7:54 pm
Here’s how I would handle an employee running an erotic blog: I’d promote it on my blog. I’d make it known that they work for me, and then I would review the site. If the employee is ashamed by it because it’s pictures of themselves, then they should have known better about starting the site.
Although if they’ve tried to hide their identity on their site, then I wouldn’t discluse that and it’s questionable if I should divulge their place of employment.
I think their privacy could be respected, although having a headline like CEO Blogs About Porn Site would cause the truth to come out.
By Nolan Eakins on May 9, 2006 2:05 am
Reminded me of married to the sea’s latest:
http://www.marriedtothesea.com/050906/FIRED.gif
Very funny.
By Tim Anderson-Bonsor on May 9, 2006 7:08 am
Tyme, I completely agree with you on that, which was my first mistake. I just didn’t think about the consequences, and it almost cost me my job. BIG lesson learned for me.
By JWP on May 9, 2006 8:55 am
I considered this very topic for the first post to my site.
It was aptly named “P vs P vs P vs P vs P” Here is what I wrote:
Personal vs Professional vs Private vs Public vs Plethora?
This question has been asked me by others and I have considered it myself over the past few years, namely during the past few weeks upon the decision of the five “Wâ€â€™s of http://www.jessicadoyle.ca. These are the five “Pâ€â€™s I have been considering. It has occupied my mind in abundance!
Appropriately, I thought best to answer it in my first post as I enter into unkown territory. This website will be a Plethora – a superabundance of all the “Pâ€s as defined on http://www.dictionary.com. This plethora will not have walls, nor will it have secrets. It will progress naturally. Having different websites, one personal, one professional, one private and one public just overloads the internet with too much. And, mine own organic system of undertsanding and organizing what one person could like and what another person could not like is censoring myself creatively. Truth be told to do this could cause staleness or rather numbness; a state of feeling nothing.
It is impossible for one to know what another is thinking or feeling. Only is it possible to accept that everyone will have there own opinion, including me. There will be similarities in these opinions, thoughts and emotions. However, not everyone cries when they are sad, not everyone laughs when they are happy and not everyone gets angry when they are hurt.
On my business card there are two words on the reverse side which also appear at the top of this site; emotion creator. I create emotion. You create emotion. You touch it, see it, taste it, hear it, smell it and CAN think about it. Think about it?
By Jessica Doyle on May 12, 2006 7:04 am