I don’t want to come off hypocritical as I have used my own blog to vent against a community, but fortunately for me it was a fan website and not my job. Back in 1999, I started blogging so I guess you can say I invented the blog just like Al Gore invented the internet.
On my gaming fan site called DFWorld.com now DFWorld.info, I wrote a month article called “Truth Be Told.” I would write about all the ramblings that went on in the community, tournaments and whatever was worthy of news. In some cases I was kind, but many times ruthless and the fans of DFWorld loved it.
Suspended ... Natalie Munroe. Photo: AP
With today’s technology and social networking, a high school English teacher in Philadelphia was suspended from her job after she blogged that her students were “rude, disengaged and lazy whiners.” Her biggest mistake was sharing her blog article on Facebook with a handful of friends until one student discovered the article and shared it on Facebook and that’s when it went viral.
Here’s an excerpt from the blog
“My students are out of control,” she wrote. “They are rude, disengaged, lazy whiners. They curse, discuss drugs, talk back, argue for grades, complain about everything, fancy themselves entitled to whatever they desire and are just generally annoying.”
If you are going to vent about people at your work place, try doing it one on one with a friend or family member and not on a public domain where there’s a risk of it being seen by your boss or co-workers.
Source: Reuters
Frank, I know many, many teachers that share Ms. Monroe’s observations of her students. However, you are absolutely right: she shouldn’t have vented about them online.
My policy, both in real-world communication and online communication, is to always stop myself before I say something negative and ask myself these questions:
1. Is it true?
2. Will it overall make the world a better place if I say this?
3. What are the potential repercussions for me of saying this?
John,
I go by the same process, but at times we all tend to blurt things out and most times we know it was bad timing and in front of the wrong audience.
That’s why I’m careful about what I post online. I’m most opinionated on Facebook, but even there I think about whether or not I’d be comfortable if what I said was published in my local newspapers.
John,
Public domain is exactly what it means – anyone has access to it.
True advice and this is how we can keep our professional and personal life apart.
Hi Frank,
You’re right on with this post. Especially now, when nearly anything you say online is discovered by Google, you have to be extremely careful about what you write. It’s true in a personal and a business setting, but clearly a slip of the tongue can have more serious consequences in your professional life.
Alex @ Jackrabbit.com
The biggest problem in Internet is that one the info is in the WWW it can’t be wiped off.