Has Your Blogging Got You Into Trouble At Work?
Has your blog ever got you into trouble at work? According to a survey produced by Croner in the UK, a third of UK bloggers were at risk of getting the sack because of derogatory comments they’ve written about their workplace, boss or colleagues. According to the research firm, many bloggers are oblivious to the problems their posts could be creating.
I deliberately try not to write about the company I work for and also my business partners if I can help it, and I also don’t use my real name on my blog to try and limit any potential fallout from any of my posts. My boss also reads my blog which is handy, as hopefully he will give me an early warning if I ever do step out of line.
I did have a close call about a year ago though. I’d written a post about my firm which included information that I thought was in the public domain. However, even though the facts I had used were being published by many other sites and newspapers, they weren’t actually official numbers, and the in-house PR and IR teams were working hard to get the numbers they wanted to be used out.
Someone from the IR team found my post in their daily clippings, and based on my post worked out that I worked for the company. It was handed to the Head of PR to deal with and based on the content in the post he worked out that I must be ‘Everton Blair’ and he had a quiet word with me rather than initiating any disciplinary action, and asked if I wouldn’t mind removing the post.
Do you ‘censor’ yourself, or do you write freely about any and all topics?
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Comment by Vijeesh on 29 May 2007:
I usually refrain from writing about my company or its services/products. Off course, I never write about customers (I have a non-disclosure agreement with my company), even if I didn’t have a NDA with my employer.
Anyway, my blog only includes content relating to tech tips, tricks, softwares, some cool sites and ocassionally some news, which is in no way related to my company.
Comment by hongkiat on 29 May 2007:
You’ll be surprise even if you didn’t disclose your blog, your colleagues might be reading them. I have colleagues came up to me and start telling me about the entries I blogged recently, and start asking so do you know this person, that, etc. So usually I do not blog about any company related, and definitely prevent myself from blogging during office hours too.
Comment by Alpesh Nakar on 29 May 2007:
Nope, just cant blog in work hours. No ways close to mentioning anything that happens at work.
Never being negative is good I am sure.
Comment by Dennis Bjørn Petersen on 29 May 2007:
Several of my co-workers read my blog. Luckily I can’t even write about Web 2.0 and beta-tests and mention my company at the same time. Yes we are that old fashioned
Comment by Everton on 29 May 2007:
I don’t post during the day either so there’s no chance that anyone could ever say I’m spending too much time on my site, which is why all my posts appear overnight. I do respond to comments and delete spam though which is easy as I get email alerts
Comment by nexium on 29 May 2007:
Yes. I really got into trouble at work. I hope that I won’t get fired. I am very surprised that people are so narrow minded and can not understand that it’s not a good thing to fire people just for posting on blogs.
Comment by Lady Banana on 29 May 2007:
I definitely have to be careful what I write as I work in NHS! Often wish I could be more open, but alas.. need to very cautious. Never blog at work though, we do have internet available but just do not get the time - lucky those that do!