Microsoft Fires Mac Fan For Blog Photo

christor writes "Microsoft has fired a full-time temp employee after it discovered that the employee posted in his blog a photo and story concerning Microsoft's purchase of what looks to be around 18 G5s. Check out the blog entry, Even Microsoft wants G5s, and the one that follows it. Microsoft fired the blogger, despite an offer to take the posting down. Note that this is not a free speech issue, even though the blog was hosted on a non-company server, because Microsoft is not, yet, the government. But it does present several other interesting issues, including that of the trade-off between the bad publicity that comes from the firing and whatever bad results follow when employees feel free to post such things."

Comments

In case of /.ing

[Anonymous Coward]

Even Microsoft wants G5s

October 23, 2003 @ 10:34 PM | Macintosh

It looks like somebody over in Microsoft land is getting some new toys...

I took this shot on the way into work on the loading dock (MSCopy, the print shop I work in, is in the same building as MS's shipping and receiving). Three palettes of Dual 2.0Ghz G5's on their way in to somewhere deep in the bowels of Redmond. Hopefully they're all in good condition when they arrive -- the boxes are slick enough that a few of them took a bit of a tumble (you can see them back in the truck)!

October 27, 2003 03:08 PM

And that simply, as of about 2pm today, I once again joined the ranks of the unemployed. more

The day started like any other day -- get up, dink around for a bit, bus into work, and start working through the stack of jobs. Just shy of an hour after I got in, my manager came in and asked me to step into his office when I had a chance. Sure, no biggie, and I headed over as soon as I finished the job I was setting up.

"Okay, here's the first question. Is this page," and here he turned his monitor towards me, letting me see my "Even Microsoft wants G5s" post from last Thursday, "hosted on any Microsoft computer? Or is it on your own?"

"It's on mine. Well, it's on a hosted site that I pay for, but no, it's not on anything of Microsoft's."

"Good. That means that as it's your site on your own server, you have the right to say anything you want. Unfortunately, Microsoft has the right to decide that because of what you said, you're no longer welcome on the Microsoft campus."

And that simply, as of about 2pm today, I once again joined the ranks of the unemployed.

It seems that my post is seen by Microsoft Security as being a security violation. The picture itself might have been permissible, but because I also mentioned that I worked at the MSCopy print shop, and which building it was in, it pushed me over the line. Merely removing the post was also not an option -- I offered, and my manager said that he had asked the same thing -- but the only option afforded me was to collect any personal belongings I had at my workstation and be escorted out the door. They were at least kind enough to let me be escorted out by one of my co-workers, rather than sending security over to usher me out, but the end result is the same.

More frustrating for me is that, having read stories here and there on the 'net about people who had for one reason or another lost their jobs due to something on their weblogs, I thought that I had done what I could to avoid that possibility. To my mind, it's an innocuous post. The presence of Macs on the Microsoft campus isn't a secret (for everything from graphic design work to the Mac Business Unit), and when I took the picture, I made sure to stand with my back to the building so that nothing other than the computers and the truck would be shown -- no building features, no security measures, and no Microsoft personnel. However, it obviously wasn't enough.

So, I'm unemployed. I am somewhat lucky in that I'm not technically unemployed -- I am still on the roster for my temp agency, who has been very good to me so far (and hopefully will continue to be), but as their ability to place me anywhere does depend on the current job market, it's not a foolproof guarantee of employment coming in quickly. I've put a call into them and let them know of the situation and that I'm available and willing for whatever can be found, so with any luck, they'll be able to find a placement for me. However, it appears that it's also time for me to start hitting the streets and shopping my resume around again.

Wish me luck.

Should've put a password on his blog..

[Faeton]

I almost had the same experience, only that I was fortunately not fired (Unions ARE sometimes useful). I work at a nuclear power plant, and I posted some things in my blog that I thought was benign, as I self-censor myself when I write. Too bad the company didn't think it was that benign, even though what I posted is publically available info. PR, security, upper management all nit-picked my blog. After a "chat" with my boss's boss, I took down my site (but still confused about the fuss). Trust me, during that few days I was really combing through my blog making sure I didn't let something REALLY important slip through!

It didn't take me long to realize that the company (or a contractor) had some spiders out there looking for websites with key words (company name, nuclear, etc) and probably found my blog. So, the easiest way to defeat them and still have my blog was to put up a simple login/password to my site. Only my friends/family view it anyways, and I just create one login account for everybody.

Since then, I've had 2 other friends (A teacher and a programmer) go through almost the same thing, and they've all put passwords on their sites. I would recommend ALL bloggers to do that if they decide to post anything about work, co-workers, etc if they value their jobs. If this guy did that, I bet he would still have his job.