An over-reaction to Facebook?
An Essex teenager was given her cards after describing her job as "boring" on her Facebook page. Were her employers justified in that action, or have they over-reacted?
It has been widely reported that Kimberley Swann, aged 16, was summarily dismissed from her job as Office Administrator at Ivell Marketing & Logistics after she described her job as "boring" on her Facebook page. She was summoned into Steven Ivell's office and handed a letter which read "Following your comments made on Facebook about your job and the company we feel it is better that, as you are not happy and do not enjoy your work we end your employment with Ivell Marketing & Logistics with immediate effect."
What were the comments that prompted this response from the company? They included "first day at work. omg!! So dull!!" along with "all i do is shred holepunch n scan paper!!! omg!" and "im so totally bord!!!".
Notice that she did not actually name her employers in these comments, or mention anything connected to its business or clients, and I'm sure everyone of us has, at some time or other, complained that they are bored at work. But what would be an innocent remark over lunch to a few close friends becomes something else when posted to a public space and preserved forever more. With the benefit of hindsight, perhaps Swann was naive to think her Facebook comments were "private" comments. Likewise perhaps Ivell could have found a better way to handle this matter because surely the bad press it has received far outweighs any minor damage done by the Facebook remarks.
It is not the first time that people have landed in hot water with their employers after making comments on social networking sites. Hopefully the rest of us will learn from cases like this. If you are an employee, it is probably best if you never blog, twitter or facebook about what you do in work. If you are an employer, perhaps you should discuss cases like this with your staff, and help them understand where to draw the line?
19th March 2009
This article comes from the SKILLZONE email newsletter, published monthly since January 2008, and covering topics related to technology and the internet. All articles and artwork in the SKILLZONE newsletter are orignal content.