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How To Lose Your Job, Thanks To The Internet
The New York Times has up an article discussing the trend of employers tracking the 'free time' activities of their employees via their web presence. "When they do go off the clock and off the corporate network, how they spend their private time should be of no concern to their employer, even if the Internet, by its nature, makes some off-the-job activities more visible to more people than was previously possible. In the absence of strong protections for employees, poorly chosen words or even a single photograph posted online in one's off-hours can have career-altering consequences." The piece likens this activity to the 'Sociological Department' that the Ford Company ran to monitor the home lives of their workers. Overstatement, or the corp as Big Brother?
To keep your real name offline to the best of your ability. I see no reason for people online to know my real name, or tie it to my internet activities.
You don't even need internet to get fired for what you do off job.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/workplace/2005-02-16-pregnancy-bias-usat_x.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-11-22-pregnant-teacher_x.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4636907.stm
http://businessshrink.biz/psychologyofbusiness/2007/09/27/employees-fired-and-fined-for-smoking-obesity-and-blood-test-results/http://www.digg.com/health/Employees_getting_fired_for_smoking_or_being_obese
http://www.workerscompinsider.com/archives/000587.html
http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2006/11/30/off_the_job_smoker_sues_over_firing/
http://www.thehighroad.org/archive/index.php/t-28029.html
google for more
On the one hand, I have very little posted under my real name, and what I do is just general responses on tech forums. I don't have a myspace page; I have photos but they are on a home webserver. Probably based on my posts, people could tell I use Linux, don't like Windows, and don't like Apple's attitude (but forced to chose between Windows and OSX, would chose OSX.) If they saw the photos they could tell where I've gone on a few vacations.
On the other hand, it's simply none of the employer's business what happens off-hours. In the case the NYTimes uses as an example, I hope she wins. A single photo of someone drinking..something.. is not a big deal, and the other excuse of a "well-groomed and dressed" rule is ridiculous -- this obviously means at work. If they mean 24x7, employees would have to stay dressed while asleep, and have their face waxed so they don't get 6 o'clock shadow while they sleep.
I know for a fact *I* wouldn't be fired for that kind of photo. At work, people at my work are casual but reasonably professional. Off work, they drink, some people I used to work with got into barfights like every weekend, they smoke pot, a few have done 8-balls now and then, a few have been into tatoos, knives, and guns. People don't drink, do drugs, fight, or play with guns and knives at work, so what they do offtime is simply irrelevant, period. That's the way it's supposed to be.
Damned right. From the linked article:
In his day, the Ford Motor Company maintained a "Sociological Department" staffed with investigators who visited the homes of all but the highest-level managers. Their job was to dig for information about the employee's religion, spending and savings patterns, drinking habits and how the worker "amused himself."
This is why I quit going to K-Mart. (Actually, I only went there for cases of oil -- they had the best prices in the area.) There was a long piece on one of the network investigative reports about their practice of having employees whose job it was to cozy up to fellow workers to get themselves invited to dinner. Then they'd report back to the company about the family's social interactions, mealtime habits, evidence of marital discord, problems with child-rearing and any other information they could gather, probably including contents of the bathroom medicine cabinet.
The company would then evaluate whether the information pointed to potential instability which might come up in the future, making the employee less productive, susceptible to embezzlement or likely to gp to the competition with corporate information. If there was suspicion of any of this, plans could be made to document dismissal-worthy behavior to be used when convenient.