Watch out when blogging about your work: Nintendo Contractor Fired for Blog

[Farid]

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=322407

n August 31, Jessica Zenner was driving her 3-year-old son to day care when her BlackBerry rang. It was the human resources director at Zenner's work calling to tell her she was fired. The cause, Zenner says, was because her bosses at Nintendo discovered her personal blog, Inexcusable Behavior.

[...]

Zenner's page—inexcusablebehavior.spaces.live.com, which she refers to as her "daily mental vomit"—is essentially an online diary. She rambles about lunches with friends, smoking, old movies, and boob jobs. Zenner's former job as a technical recruiter at Nintendo—although she's technically a contract employee through Parker Services—was not directly referenced on her site. She also mentions several of her coworkers, although not by name, which is what Zenner thinks got her fired.

One post on Zenner's blog—titled "The Daily Weed"[...] She digresses into a wry tirade against one of her bosses: "One plus about working with [a] hormonal, facial-hair-growing, frumpy [woman] is that I have found a new excuse to drink heavily," Zenner writes. "My gut tells me that this woman hasn't been fucked in years."

[...]

According to the Washington State Attorney General's Office, there isn't anything in current Washington State law that specifically protects bloggers.

[...]

Nintendo spokeswoman Perrin Kaplin says Nintendo doesn't bar employees from having blogs, but "we generally don't encourage them."


Well, I guess insulting your bosses publically, even behind a, thin, cloack of anonymity, is still a fast and sure way to get fired, even in the internet blog era.

[digitalwanderer]

Pagh, you don't blog that kind of shit...you whine about it on forums! :roll:

[Rainbow Man]

Civilized countries would have legislation against arbitrary firings, where people get laidoff for blogging about their life/work.

That said though, insulting your coworkers publically on a persistent medium like a blog probably isn't a very good carreer move! Jeez what was she THINKING? :lol:

Peace.

[Dresden]

At first I almost sympathized for her, then I visited her page, only to discover she was stupid enough to use her real name. Albeit, while in the midst of ranting about her job she never addressed her coworkers by their real names, it's common sense if you decide to expose every petty detail of your mundane life while in the process of making your company look bad, you can expect repercussions. The cloak of anonymity the internet poses as shouldn't protect those speaking out in a gross attempt to humiliate the one's who hired them. It's reminiscent of a loud mouth 14 year old kid spouting racial epithets over his mic in Counter Strike, then wondering why a gang of individuals kicks down his door looking for him.

Enjoy the job search, Jessica.

[weaksauce]

It seems to me this has very little to do with her blogging about work and more about her insulting the boss.

Civilized countries would have legislation against arbitrary firings

You think the government should be able to force an employer to have an unwanted employee, or punish him for firing a such?

[_xxx_]

You think the government should be able to force an employer to have an unwanted employee, or punish him for firing a such?

No, but the protection against random firings, as we have it here in Germany. The boss needs a good reason, just firing randomly is not legal (talking big companies here, not little private workshops or such). Though this would surely be a reason enough even here, I think.

[Rainbow Man]

You think the government should be able to force an employer to have an unwanted employee, or punish him for firing a such?
Depensd on how oyu define "unwanted"..

If the employee's arab or jewish for example and the employer is a racist then yea I'd like the employer to be punished and the fired to get the job back (or other form of compensation).

And if the employee blogged about something connected to work that does not reflect badly on the company and anyone working for it and gets fired becauyse the employer is an oppressive freedom-of-expression-hater then I'd like to see some punishment/compensation handed out also.

If you blog that your boss is fat and unfucked (and it's possible to figure out who you're talking about) then it's debatable wether you really belong working there though, as that's rather offensive really. And chances are it'd reflect poorly on the company.

So there should be grounds for dismissing people. But not just for any random reason the employer feels like coming up with. There has to be a justifiable rationale for it.

Peaec.

[SugarCoat]

No, but the protection against random firings, as we have it here in Germany. The boss needs a good reason, just firing randomly is not legal (talking big companies here, not little private workshops or such). Though this would surely be a reason enough even here, I think.

If you walk behind your boss and mumble "you dumb ****" i think they'll find a good enough reason to fire you. Its not like the person was venting anonymously or to a friend. I see very little difference between what she did and her standing up in her office and saying the same thing out loud in a room full of people to no one in particular.

[ninelven]

Watch out when blogging about your work

FTFY: Don't blog about work.

[weaksauce]

Depensd on how oyu define "unwanted"..

If the employee's arab or jewish for example and the employer is a racist then yea I'd like the employer to be punished and the fired to get the job back (or other form of compensation).

The only one who really has a say in what is to be of the employer is the owner of the company, if that ain't the same person. If the company wants an All-White-Aryan policy then that's their business, the state shouldn't have anything to do with it unless you want to impose some dictator politics telling people how to live their lives.
The only thing that matters is that everyone is equal before the law.


And if the employee blogged about something connected to work that does not reflect badly on the company and anyone working for it and gets fired becauyse the employer is an oppressive freedom-of-expression-hater then I'd like to see some punishment/compensation handed out also.

But the employer isn't some government official, he can have whatever opinion he wants and have whatever demands he wants on his workers, and if they don't like it they may change to some other company. If he treats everyone the same then he'll soon be out of business.


So there should be grounds for dismissing people. But not just for any random reason the employer feels like coming up with. There has to be a justifiable rationale for it.

I think in the private sector, the only ones who decide who should work there and for how long is the companies' owners and the contracts the employers sign. Having the government interfering in this matter is really socialism trying to keep everything under it's hand.

[Frank]

Just get a job where nobody cares whatever you do as long as your customers pay enough.