Getting in trouble at the office

Almond

delete

Almond

delete

DOR

As someone who works for the IT dept of a major University (Not in the networking section mind you). Everything you do on the network can be known. Surfing/downloading/etc... Logging your MAC address and ID info.


Did you check your Blog from work ever? Could have been from that easily. 99% of the time IT guys could care less IMO.

We caught a dude who works for the Uni checking out pron recently on a classroom computer. Didn't help he was logging into facebook and MSN at the same time lol

Reynaldo

Was it like a private, password-protected blog?

fishmongerfunk

can you give us an idea of precisely what these supervisors found so offensive about your blog? did you ridicule someone by name?

"you should write about something positive"--- that is like telling someone they should smile more often--condescending and smarmy. who are these dudes anyway to be giving you advice on what you should write on in your free time? F*ck em.

Almond

delete

Reynaldo

I've gotten into the habit of never admitting/exposing any personal faults. It works. I suggest deleting this thread.

Lucious_Fox

get a diary

age

condescending and smarmy. F*ck em.[/b]

Yeah.. A BIG FU!

The last place I was working for, I spent most of my time uploading music from record day here a couple of years back. Luckly, I did not get in any trouble. Sorry about your mishaps..Do you still have any of your transcripts? Seems like they really went out of their way to look at all of your "75 pages of negative writting"

Lame and sorry to hear that homie!

Lucious_Fox

So you can say whatever u want about your job/co-workers/employers,ONLINE, yet they dont have the right to respond/call u out/react, if 'they' read it?

fishmongerfunk

generally, i think a measure of discretion is important and that if you put things in the public domain you forfeit any expectation to privacy and you better be prepared to deal with any reasonable consequences.

that said, the suggestion that he use his "talent" to "write something more positive" is something a parent might say to a five year old, and it is clearly a sign of disrespect (although he is an intern) and maybe what he wrote deserved that.

without getting majorly specific, what was so offensive about what you wrote?

DOR

So you can say whatever u want about your job/co-workers/employers,ONLINE, yet they dont have the right to respond/call u out/react, if 'they' read it?

Depends really. Did she write any of this stuff at work? Or name any names? How did they come across this info?

If she was writing any of this stuff not at the office and didn't name anyone specifically, than I think it's nobody's business really. More and more corps are using the net as a form of spying on their employees. Which I think is wrong.

Jimster

The boss is one of my fb friends. He's cool enough, we have no beef at all but I remember this every time I write on fb. I never talk work on fb, nor do I give myself enough rope to hang myself about anything else.

Dude next to me fb'd about being bored at work. Boss responded with a joke 2 mins later. Guess he was bored too.

It's the old quandary of "Should I reject friend requests from colleagues?".

ignasty

If your blog was really as hard to find as you say it was, and the work-related writing was so obscured and buried within a multitude of posts, I would be much more concerned in discovering exactly WHO was studying your life so intently. I would bring this up to your employer as a matter of personal safety. If they refuse to tell you, try to work the hypocrisy angle: "They know who I am, but I can't know them?" etc.

Of course, I'm sure you won't do this for fear of dragging it out/making a bad impression over a small matter. But I would. Seriously. Some dude in the IT department is probably building a shrine to you as we speak.

Jimster

Good point. Tell them you fear t3h stalkage and, cotdammit, you need a head to roll. Let's have some Ying up in this this motherf*cking yang.

Almond

delete

Almond

If your blog was really as hard to find as you say it was, and the work-related writing was so obscured and buried within a multitude of posts, I would be much more concerned in discovering exactly WHO was studying your life so intently. I would bring this up to your employer as a matter of personal safety. If they refuse to tell you, try to work the hypocrisy angle: "They know who I am, but I can't know them?" etc.

Of course, I'm sure you won't do this for fear of dragging it out/making a bad impression over a small matter. But I would. Seriously. Some dude in the IT department is probably building a shrine to you as we speak.

Huh. You bring up a point I hadn't thought of. If my boss was looking me up on Facebook and was only able to see some basic info (name, university name and profile photo), she should be able to tell that it's a private profile, right? I click onto people's private profiles all the time, and more times than not, they've accidentally left a photo album or two on the public viewing option. I mean, if I clicked on a profile of a colleague and saw that they had posted photos on their supposed "sick day," should I call them out for lying about being sick?

Whatever, I probably deserved what came my way.

magpaul

ignasty is spot on. I couldn't handle the notion that my employers have me under surveillance, it demonstrates a complete lack of respect.

It's not so much that they are protecting colleagues from online character assassination as totally violating your privacy.

Mjukis

So... what happens when your superiors read this thread?

Scott

You never get in trouble for sharing too little on the internet, only too much.

gravelheadwrap

Question to the IT guys: if you use Private Browsing on Firefox, is that traceable?

magpaul

They won't be able to extract the info from Firefox but it is possible that they're logging the activities of everything connected to their network.

ladyday

You never get in trouble for sharing too little on the internet, only too much.

I feel like I need to embroider this on a pillow or screenprint it on a t-shirt and send it to my younger cousins who splash their whole lives over facebook and livejournal or whatever.

Almond, I think you handled it as professionally as possible. I agree that the "you should write about something positive" was a little strange, but I think they probably meant "about this place" rather than in general.

I find it funny that some people in this thread are getting indignant that your employer should dare to check up on what its employees are writing about them, on the internet. A company has a right and, what's more, an obligation to protect its image and reputation.

Believe it or not, I was on the exact opposite end of this situation. I had an intern who was blogging about her job here, for the benefit of her family who live in the Philippines. I discovered it from a Google alert. Even though she didn't say anything negative, it was just a lot of detail about our trainings and things that needn't be public knowledge. I had to explain this to her and ask her to please make it private and password-protected.

I realize more and more kids coming up have a different relationship to the internet because it's always been the norm (and I don't mean to condescend, because I think I'm only about 10 years older than Almond) but I can't stress Scott's quote enough, you have to be really careful what you put out there because it is being archived somewhere, and it can and often will come back to bite you.

Fatback

I got fired from the Department of Veteran's Affairs in 1996 for sending someone an email with the subject: Fisty Grits + Your Pants = Cum

1996! That was back when shit was all DOS based and my email address looked like a giant product key or some shit.

HarveyCanal

Office managers are on some bullshit lately, knowing that the job market is too tough for folks to voluntarily move around...they're straight putting screws to folks and engaging in what they do best, which is being overbearing and repressive.

My suggestion for them is to quit thinking that their managing alone is enough to justify their presence. You know, actually contributing to the job at hand might be nice for a change.

And if my boss is reading this...so be it.

Horseleech

ignasty is spot on. I couldn't handle the notion that my employers have me under surveillance, it demonstrates a complete lack of respect.

It's not so much that they are protecting colleagues from online character assassination as totally violating your privacy.

This makes no sense to me whatsoever. She wasn't 'under surveillance' unless they hacked into her account.

If you post shit on the internet you have no expectation of privacy at all. And believe it or not, employers can be legitimately concerned with what their employees think and feel (and say) about their workplace.

Almond, I think your response is dead on, and I hope you employers respect that. Their response was slightly odd, but they may not know exactly how to deal with a situation like this, maybe it hadn't come up before.

BTW, I don't think your avatar is girly - I always liked that RCA sleeve.

Full disclosure: I am an employer myself, but it's never occurred to me to look at an employees Facebook or blog or whatever.

nzshadow

Some resources:

www.pipl.com
http://www.reputationdefender.com/

HarveyCanal

I completely disagree. This whole idea that just because you are at work and likely using work resources as you post on the internet justifies what would normally be construed as an invasion of privacy by your employer is on some draconian dumbshit. I mean, when you go use the bathroom...your employer doesn't have a right to barge into your stall just because it's during work hours and the bathroom is a work resource. Employers should certainly have some checks and balances in place to curb employees from engaging in activity that actually hurts the business at hand, but this carte blanche we-can-monitor-anything-you-say/post bs is just that. Yes, you have the ability to monitor me...but depending how much you respect my autonomy and privacy, you will use much discretion in your decision to actually do so.

ladyday

Full disclosure: I am an employer myself, but it's never occurred to me to look at an employees Facebook or blog or whatever.

I don't go looking for stuff to eavesdrop on what employees are saying, but I sure as hell have the company name on Google alert so that I can respond to any positive or negative usage of our brand. And I work for a non-profit, so it's not about some "we're out to screw people to make a buck, muahahaha!"

magpaul

This makes no sense to me whatsoever. She wasn't 'under surveillance' unless they hacked into her account.

Believe it or not, surveillance doesn't necessarily involve hacking someone's email/Facebook account.

Horseleech

This makes no sense to me whatsoever. She wasn't 'under surveillance' unless they hacked into her account.

Believe it or not, surveillance doesn't necessarily involve hacking someone's email/Facebook account.

Dude, the internet is public.