I definitely take my working from home for granted when it comes to the role my blog plays in my employment. For the most part, it doesn’t play any role, unless you count the initial contact between a few of my clients and myself that occurred because they stumbled across my blog. Or the occasional post or promotion that I’ll post here on behalf for one of my jobs. But otherwise, my blog has no bearing on any of my work, nor does it threaten any of my freelancing or employment arrangements. In fact, the closest it has come to causing anything remotely close to trouble happened a few months ago, when one of Dan’s employees found out about it and spread it around, and word of my job with sex toys got back to the big wigs, who in turn misunderstood and thought that it was Dan spreading my blog and my job with sex toys around. Once that was ironed out, and once my sites were blocked from the work network (and I blocked the work network’s IP address from my sites), that was that.
I got to thinking about blogs and jobs after I found out about The Beautiful Kind and her recent termination because of her blog. If what she says is accurate, then she was fired for the existence of her blog, and the content on it which her employer(s) found to be objectionable based on their own morals and beliefs. Needless to say, I find that to be outrageous, and I hope TBK sues the pants off of them for discrimination and wrongful termination.
My take on blogs and jobs is concise enough: if you’re not bringing your blog to your job, and you’re not bringing your job to your blog, then your blog should have no bearing on your employment, and it should not be used against you. Simply put, if an employer doesn’t like that you write about sex, doesn’t agree with your sexual lifestyle (ooh, BDSM, for shame!), or your opinions on everyday stuff or politics, tough shit. If you’re not talking about your job on your blog, or blogging on the job, or promoting it at work, etc., then legally there should be nothing that employer can do, besides sit on it and rotate!
I agree with you here. I could see if she (or anyone else) was using her blog as an online place for slander against her workplace, but that doesn’t seem to be the case here. This violates freedom of speech in my opinion, and she did nothing wrong!!
Agreed. Your blog is exactly that, YOUR blog, and should have absolutely no bearing on your job unless you are openly slandering your workplace or people in it. I certainly hope TBK sues the daylights out of them too.
kinda reminds me of facebook and employer issues.
I agree with what you said, sure I could understand someone losing their job if they’re discussing things about the company on their blog, customers, certain job information, or even defaming it. That’s horrible, if it is the case, that she was fired because of the content on her blog unrelated to her job.
The only problem with this is.. it’s completely legal for you to be fired for your blog. IT sucks, sure. Sex shouldn’t be so taboo but it is and we have to remember how easy it is to find people and what they post online.
I purposely ensure I never ever mention my employer by name, although it appears it doesn’t matter if what I post about is work related or not. It really opens up the debate on whether what you do outside of your work time is irrelevant to the workplace. As long as you do your job well, I can’t see any reason for being dismissed. Obviously, if you blog about particular things and mention your employer then you’re directly relating the two, and it could have an impact on their market. But if you’re not, then what you write about should be none of their business.
Bit scary how little privacy we all have anymore as a result of being online!
There’s a clause in our employee handbook stating that you can’t mention where you work on your blog and to post no photos taken on company premises online at all. I can name about 20 people who break that last rule, at least.
I do mention that I work in convenience and I call the company I work for something very similar to what it actually is called (much like RetailHellUnderground users giving their company an alias) and you’d never find my blog for searching for my company’s name – I’ve pretty much ensured that won’t happen. I still worry that somebody might search my name and come up with my blog… but then again I don’t post anything that could harm my employment or the company in any way. I’d freak out a little, maybe, about my employers or staff reading my blog but again there’s nothing there that I’m ashamed of or wouldn’t want any of them reading.