Comments on: Company Fires Facebook Using Employee After Stalking Her

By: DuWayne

DuWayne — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 16:28:01 +0000

Spiv –

For the guy who got fired for his facebook status: That sucks. I would never fault an employee for taking a “mental health” day like that. Every so often everyone needs such a thing. If you’ve got sick time or vacation time built up (as many of us have put in more than our fair share), however you need to use it to keep your own morale up.

I don’t have a problem with an employee taking a mental health day – I’ve taken my share over the years, both when employed by others and in business for myself. My problem is with the notion of one, the employee lying about it and two, being so fucking stupid as to post it on facebook, where he knows it will be visible to people he works with.

By: Sven

Sven — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 15:58:05 +0000

“Immediate dismissal without notice is an extraordinary measure and may therefore be resorted to only under very serious circumstances, namely if the offending act actually destroys the trust between the two parties.”

Thanks for destroying your previous claim that “most employment is at-will and the employer can terminate for whatever reason or no reason”. At-will employment is very rare here in Europe (we actually have laws that protect employees, figure that), generally speaking the only people you can “fire” without notice are temps.

By: qbsmd

qbsmd — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 14:49:54 +0000

“She said the company had created a fictitious Facebook persona which become “friends” with her, allowing the company to monitor her online activity.”
This requires her to have accepted a friend request from a non-existent person, then done some detective work to find out who was responsible for that non-existent person. The company’s claim that “a colleague had inadvertently noticed her using Facebook” seems more likely, especially if “a colleague” was responsible for the work she wasn’t doing, or up for a promotion, etc.

By: Spiv

Spiv — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 08:39:12 +0000

Usually when I have a migraine the primary issue is that it is very unwise to embark on a 45min-hour drive while experiencing bouts of vertigo. Even so, being at work in a chair staring at monitors (LCD or CRT, doesn’t matter) for sustained hours is a terrible thing. As would reading a book, or any other single sustained activity other than sleeping.

But intermittent activity is another thing altogether. If they would let me work from home I could probably still manage to plug a few hours of work in over the course of a day.

I do, however, suspect they were just waiting for a vaguely mediocre excuse to fire this person. People who are valuable tend to get a lot more leeway than that.

By: zayzayem

zayzayem — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 21:00:53 +0000

I think the company using a fake facebook account breaches the trust first.

But, I agree, you can’t complain about the company accessing publicly available information on your activities (but was it publicly available?)

There was a case in Sydney about a guy who got fired via facebook activities. He’d called in a sick day, but his facebook status said something along the lines of “F*** work today, I’m going to the pub”. Too bad his line manager was one of his friends.

By: NewEnglandBob

NewEnglandBob — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 20:28:21 +0000

What is YOUR problem, “The Last Liberal Artist”? Do you have something to say? Can you be direct instead of a passive aggressive tool? What does ego have to do with this thread? Are you on drugs?

Chocobob, Under swiss law:

By: The Last Liberal Atheist

The Last Liberal Atheist — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 18:01:29 +0000

Uh-oh, everyone back up – NEBob is in the thread, and his ego is at full size.

By: Chocobob

Chocobob — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 17:03:29 +0000

“… most employment is at-will and the employer can terminate for whatever reason or no reason. ”

Where? Where is this the law? In the US? In certain states in the US? Labour laws are different all over the world. Please remember that country is only one among many.

By: NewEnglandBob

NewEnglandBob — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 16:48:37 +0000

You can disagree all you want, larkspur, but most employment is at-will and the employer can terminate for whatever reason or no reason.

By: Matthew Platte

Matthew Platte — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 13:05:37 +0000

CRT monitors are nigh-impossible for me when my eyes are backed-up by severe headache. The LCD display of a laptop is less difficult but still unsustainable. I haven’t tried an iPhone under similar circumstances, but the much smaller size of the display would likely be a positive factor, allowing me to perform some tasks.