Wrongly Fired or Just Desserts?

I recently wrote an article called Fired for Facebook and Twitter, where I shared stories of folks who posted less than flattering notes about their place of employment…and were then terminated from their positions.

One comment I got merits some far deeper conversation. Julie offered this very difficult question I’ve been thinking about for a few days:

I had been a manager at a local company and had been with them for 3 and a half years. During this timeframe I was promoted 3 times, never received any disciplinary action, and consistently had strong performance reviews. Yesterday I was fired for complaining about my job on my Facebook status. NOW, however I am very aware that perhaps this may be wrong or not the smartest… I also have my profile privacy blocked so that you would have to be my friend to see it. With that in mind, it was not as if I was providing this “Complaint” to the entire world wide web, and in fact, there would have been very very few people that worked for this company that would have seen this. I also never named the company, any other employee names, etc…

How am I still in the wrong and losing my job over this? Don’t I have some sort of protection that at least requires them to not only warn me that they think this is an issue, but provide me with some sort of documentation on how I violated a policy??

Though I don’t know what if there’s an employment contract or any other information other than what was shared above, I don’t think Julie has much of a leg to stand on. Most employees have at will employment, which means either party can break the relationship for any reason except for discrimination.

As someone who writes a lot of articles online, who has a presence on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and more, I’d encourage you to keep your dirty laundry to yourself and not put them anywhere anyone could read them. You wouldn’t make photocopies of a note disparaging your employer, you wouldn’t say it to a report for the Wall Street Journal, so don’t say them anywhere online where anyone could see them. It doesn’t matter if you don’t think anyone can read it, someone who shouldn’t can and will see it, and then they will make the decision whether it is relevant or not.

As a friend, I’d encourage you to think of this like you think of unflattering pictures of yourself: Keep them to yourself and your spouse, and maybe a few close friends and nobody else. Keep them off the internet, out of e-mail, and don’t put them anywhere they could fall into the wrong hands.

Lastly, as a manager, I’d say there may be more at play here than what Julie is saying. Her manager may have an ax to grind and was just looking for a reason to fire her. Or maybe she’s shown other bad judgment and though nobody has ever said anything before, this was the opening they were looking for to term. Or any number of other reasons.

What’s your advice for Julie?

Disclaimer: I am not an HR lawyer, nor do I work in HR, so my commentary is my own, and it is not meant to give any legal advice. If you or anyone you know needs official HR advice, consult your company’s HR department and/or an employment attorney.

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