Authored by: Spine on Friday, September 09 2005 @ 08:11 PM

I haven't been following the story, but if the blogger has asked that links
to her site be removed from 802 Online, can't it be assumed that she'd
want them removed from Candleblog as well? Of course, you're under no
obligation to do so, but my impression is that your sympathies are with
the blogger here.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: billsimmon on Friday, September 09 2005 @ 11:24 PM

It's not so clear as that. I have no stake in maintaining a link to the site and would gladly remove it from this post if the blogger wishes me to. But in my conversations with Cathy about this it seems like the blogger just wanted Cathy, in particular, to remove the links and was unconcerned with others--though I may be misinterpreting what Cathy said. Either way, if anonymity is the goal, simply asking other bloggers to remove links won't do the trick. There are ways of keeping private weblogs and of being truly anonymous on the web. This blogger is choosing not to go that route for whatever reason. Anyway, I left a comment on the blog in question and my email and url is in their hands. I hope that this mess works out for them because it sounds like the situation really sucks all around.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: JIMO on Saturday, September 10 2005 @ 12:12 PM

Either this employer is bipolar, or something we don't know about has been brewing for awhile between him and this blogger/employee.

---
There's always gotta be a reason for something.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: Nato on Sunday, September 11 2005 @ 10:27 PM

Sorry JIMO, don't see what having bipolar disorder would have to do with Sarah's employer's conduct. Perhaps you can explain?

Turning to the issue of Sarah's losing her job, I think it holds some interest because it concerns an Internet activity (blogging) that's still novel in 2005, and it moves us because of the unjust circumstances around Roger's absence (National Guardsman shipped to support Bush's Iraq debacle).

But here's the rub: I think any employer has the reasonable expectation that an employee won't publicly make them look bad in any medium, whether in a letter to the editor, a TV interview, or a diary entry published online.

Is Sarah's boss a jerk? If we take Sarah's post at face value, the answer is "Without a doubt".

Should he have dismissed her for the post? If Sarah truly was a respected member of the firm, adding value to it, then the answer is "No". He probably should have taken it to heart and bent over backwards to pay for shipping Roger's bike.

Is he within his rights to dismiss her for making him and the company look bad in public? I hope you all will agree with me that the answer is "Yes".

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: billsimmon on Monday, September 12 2005 @ 12:22 AM

Nato,

Agree on all counts except that Sarah didn't make the company look bad in public. The blog is fairly anonymous. The only people who read it were friends and family of Sarah and Roger. She never used last names nor did she say what company she worked for on the blog. I still do not know any of that information. True, a little Google sluething would reveal the answers, but that's not the same thing as bad-mouthing your boss in public. I'm just saying...

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: Nato on Monday, September 12 2005 @ 03:30 PM

"Sarah didn't make the company look bad in public."
I think Sarah's own post about the sponsorship request proves otherwise:

---

Yesterday, I asked my employer, where I’ve worked for the past nearly 8 years, if the company could show support for me and my husband by sponsoring the shipping costs to send him his bike to Iraq...

...It’s not about the money....No, this was about asking for support and being made to feel crappy for doing so. It’s about a disconnect in expectations. I honestly thought the company would be glad to help. That it wouldn’t be such a contentious issue. I’ve never asked the company (or my boss) for any sort of financial help, nor do I practice emotional blackmail. This was truly an eye opener of an experience. And a sad one at that.

---

Regardless of whether Sarah's (ex-)employer is a huge multinational firm or a sole proprietorship with a handful of employees, she wrote about them in a very unflattering light. This leads to the next point:

"The blog is fairly anonymous."
Unless a web page is password protected, its content is very UN-anonymous, especially in this age where the search engines are trying to one-up each other in indexing a maximal number of web files.

"The only people who read it were friends and family of Sarah and Roger."
And Cathy Resmer. D-oh!

"She never used last names nor did she say what company she worked for on the blog."
Sure, but Roger used his work email at least once in a previous post, which was enough for some guy who happens to have the same initials as me to figure out their names and employers in minutes.

Look, my heart breaks for Roger and Sarah, but there shouldn't be any questions as to whether Sarah made her employer look bad in public.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: billsimmon on Monday, September 12 2005 @ 04:01 PM

Unless a web page is password protected, its content is very UN-anonymous, especially in this age where the search engines are trying to one-up each other in indexing a maximal number of web files.

There are tons of anonymous blogs that anyone can read (not password protected). Their enonymity comes from the use of aliases and withholding key information. One of my personal favorites is here. It's very sexy and deeply personal stuff that anyone can read and comment on and it's totally anonymous.

Now it's true, Sarah and Roger were not really great at making sure no one could do a little research and figure stuff out. That's why I used the qualifier "fairly" anonymous. And were I the employer and I read that blog I might be personally offended and I might say something to Sarah to that effect and I might request that she take take steps to make sure her blog is REALLY anonymous if she's going to continue to write about her workplace. Firing her was way over the line.

Companies need to have very clear blogging policies. It's so common now that this sort of thing is cropping up all over. I think Sarah has a great case for wrongful termination (assuming she's being 100% truthful in her telling). Her company had no blogging policy. The situation is no different than her boss overhearing her spoken remarks at a cafe and firing her for them.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: Nato on Monday, September 12 2005 @ 07:03 PM

"Companies need to have very clear blogging policies."
Hear, hear!

"Her company had no blogging policy."
I couldn't find anywhere on Roger's Blog where that fact was posted. You sure about that?

But say they didn't have a blogging policy per se. How do we know there wasn't some other clause in Sarah's employment agreement to the effect of "Employee agrees not to share with third parties information that might adversely affect the company"?

But say there wasn't even such language in her contract. Isn't it common sense that if you write something --a quasi-anonymous letter to the editor, a quasi-anonymous web diary-- that makes your employer look bad --even if it's deservedly so, as was apparently the case here-- the employer may up and fire you?

But was the firing legal? My intuition is that Sarah would not prevail in a wrongful termination suit, but I should stress that I'm not a lawyer. For all I know, she may have a good case. If I were giving Sarah advice, I'd tell her to consult with a lawyer.

"The situation is no different than her boss overhearing her spoken remarks at a cafe and firing her for them."
Gotta disagree with you there. Spoken remarks disappear, but web pages not protected by passwords are available for all to see. Worse yet, once search engines or The Wayback Machine come across it, the cached version can persist long after the blogger has yanked the offending post. Google's already got it cached.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: evening on Tuesday, September 13 2005 @ 09:28 AM

There are a lot of thoughts swirling around in my head, so please bear with me.

If I can't criticize my company in public, then I fear the world we live in even more. Can someone not have a bad day at work and talk about it (online or off)? Even if I said the CEO was an ass, why should that get me fired? Sure, it will make things tense at work, but that those are the consequences I have to deal with. If I did something to directly hurt the company, ok (like I was an influential person who said the CEO was a crook and the stock price fell as a result).

I also have to agree with Bill that there is a difference among blogs and how public they are. You also have to remember that most people aren't like us who read this blog -- not everyone is online-savvy. If my mother in law started a blog for the family to read, I would not consider that the same as Candleblog. I doubt she'd even think or realize that she could password protect her site, and even then I'm not sure if she would as it would be too difficult on everyone else (everyone would forget the password and it would be more trouble than it was worth).

So to say it is her fault for not having a truly private site is harsh, in my opinion. There is a reasonable expectation that few people are going to see her site. When she sees that that changes, then she should re-evaluate (like now). But I think it is besides the point. I think freedom of speech should rule in this situation.

But then again, private employers can fire for pretty much any reason, so the whole thing can be moot on that point alone. And that sucks for a number of reasons.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: Nato on Tuesday, September 13 2005 @ 05:04 PM

Oops, change of story.

What? You mean we can't take anything anyone writes at face value anymore? [;-)]

(Props to Bill for gettin' mentioned...)

[ Reply to This | # ]