Post personal information at your own risk!

[Dave1982]

This already needs to be bumped.

Seriously people, no publicly guessing or outing where other members work! People obfuscate where they work for a reason.

Please consider the potential ramifications to YOUR job security if you posted something unflattering about your job and another member said "Oh you must work at [company]!" and that resulted in an SC or your upper management finding it.

Is that something you'd wish on another person?

[CrazedClerkthe2nd]

Thought it might be beneficial to share a few tricks I use aside from purposely obscuring where I work.

I change timeframes. For example, if I am posting something that happened yesterday, I usually write it happened a week ago or a month ago, you get the idea.

I gender switch. This includes genders of both customers and CWs relevant to the story.

I change minor details (for example if I am telling a story about something that happened at a games store I will change an Xbox 360 to a PS3).

To me these methods further insure I won't be found out.

[sms001]

Seriously people, no publicly guessing or outing where other members work! People obfuscate where they work for a reason.

I know you mods are hella busy, but do you PM the perpetrators when they do this? I'm asking out of sheer laziness () - I often backtrack my recent posts to see if I've done this unwittingly, and it'd be nice to know that if I haven't been hauled on to the carpet, I'm cool.

(NOT suggesting you take on this added task, but if you already do it, I can save myself some redundancy.)

And good points CCt2, I'm going to throw some of those in the mix myself, although my anonymity is more for form than function.

[Dave1982]

We don't have a procedure set in stone, but as a general rule we will send someone a PM if they've broken a serious rule but they have little-to-no history of causing problems. PMs are far preferable to issuing infractions or banning someone, and most of the time a quiet word to a member will solve a problem and we don't have to take any further action.

By "serious" I mean anything that causes or might cause trouble on the forum, like fratching or failing to see the suck. Little stuff like excessive quoting or posting a thread in the wrong sub-forum isn't usually worth PMing about.

So if you haven't been PMed by a mod, then in all likelihood you're safe.

(Either that or you just haven't popped up on our radar yet. )

[emax4]

(I'm thinking of more of the postings from Morons in Management or Cursing out Coworkers with this one)

Just out of curiosity, what if the poster no longer works at such and such a place? The rule about announcing the name of the business was written in present tense, but not past tense. Couldn't a former worker at that place name the place anyway? Can they name the place if it was an independent shop and no longer in business?

Now I can see some overzealous member going to such and such a place that the posting member left or got fired from aeons ago, going up to the current supervisor and saying, "How DARE you treat so and so that way. I oughta give you a piece of my mind.." Unlikely? no. Possible? Of course! I realizes that the overzealous person confronting the former supervisor of such and such a place might open up a can of worms and say, "I read about it from so and so on customerssuck.com.." but what risk is there if the company is still succeeding without the coworker? If that happens and the company believes that a CS.com member has intentionally bad-mouthed the company, whether or not the company is really at fault, I understand that the site can be held somewhat accountable. But if the same former coworker simply mentions his or dislike of the former company to anyone on the street, the company can't track down that former employee.

I have a feeling that the rule is in place just as a safeguard.

[Peppergirl]

Emax,

I get what you're saying about past employers. It's really up to the OP. If they've obscured the name, regardless of whether its past or present, the rule is we don't ask - at least not publicly.

People need to remember we have private messaging here. There's been many a time I've asked a nosey question via message.

[PepperElf]

good point cos... they may still be using said "fake name company" for references. Or may go back for a job. Or, perhaps even worse the old company is on speaking terms with the new one and shares the gossip.

[emax4]

I was also thinking of the lines that people who hear (or in this case, read) about bad service are less likely to go to said place of business based on that; but really it's up to the second person to see, hear, or experience the service for themselves. For instance, I love Chik Fil A because of their food, but in my opinion, I also believe they have great customer service along with Bob Evans. Someone who has never visited these businesses might take my word for it and try it out for themselves. No harm, right?

Now let's say that I worked at Bob Evans posted about some of the horrible things that have happened there and how I got screwed over, multiple things can happen. Another forum member might go to a random Bob Evans in their area and tell customers what happened to me and bad mouth the company themselves. What that person may not know is that just the specific Bob Evans location I worked at had a huge turnaround of managers while other Bob Evans restaurants were top notch, and that's not fair to the business. I personally believe Wal Mart falls into this category, as the closest one I used to live by was not always the cleanest and had people from all walks of life, but there was another Wal Mart 40 minutes away that was always clean, tidy, and worth making the trip out to visit. All in all, I can see how mentioning working for a former company may hurt the place of business and potentially risk trouble on cs.com. I have a self-published eBook on Amazon.com with no ratings yet, so I would be concerned about constant negative feedback about the product. I realize negative feedback about a product and bad-mouthing a company are two different things though, and that not everybody can be pleased. I can't go after an anonymous reviewer who gave my eBook a bad rating like I could someone who disliked the food I served them, and if that were the case I would be curious as to why they didn't like my food and how I could or should tailor it to be better (within reason).

From the cs.com standpoint, I'm also aware that members who post can suggest some things, but not force readers to do something. I used to work as a call center rep at a satellite company, and really hated it there. There's another member here who used to work at a different call center for the same company who shares my dislike for that company. The company is still thriving and has more customers now than it did when I and that person worked there. Even when applying for other jobs, other companies knew about the turnaround rate for the company I worked for, which is really bad. But, if they're still gaining customers and staying in business despite the revolving door and former customers badmouthing the company, they must be doing something right to stay in business. If I go to Glassdoor.com, the majority of feedback of that company is negative. Not all people are aware of websites like Glassdoor.com that allow current and former company employees to post their opinions of working at the company.

Another point that should be taken into perspective is that someone who posts negative things here or on Glassdoor.com about a company could have been let go because of legitimate reasons such as tardiness, not treating customers right, etc. They could just want to drum up sympathy from others, so they might fabricate a story or tailor the original story to put them in a good light and put the company in a bad light. There's no real way to tell unless you contact the former employer, and it's not worth it. Heh, maybe I just answered my own question...

[PepperElf]

Although... contacting the person's employer is perhaps why it's best to not reveal this on others.

It happened on another message board I go to. One of the infamously-banned members got his infamous ban specifically because of this. He had a fight with another board member and got butthurt about the outcome. So... he contacted the other person's boss in an attempt to get the guy fired over his personal views.


So... I kinda look at it like that. By revealing where someone else works, we put them at risk for the same. Someone could say, "I hate so-and-so's personal views! I think their boss should know how this employee acts in public!"... so a non-work-related issue, or disagreement, or incident... suddenly gets turned into a work-related issue, just because the offended party tries to contact the boss.


and remember it might not always be a member who does it. threads are visible to non-members too.

[emax4]

You're so right! I believe my intentional thought was that if a former coworker bad mouths a business, that's sort of word-of-mouth advertising warning others to not apply to the same business for employment, rather than advising one not to do personal business there. Better safe than sorry, and let the readers make better judgement for themselves.

[BroSCFischer]

People need to remember we have private messaging here. There's been many a time I've asked a nosey question via message.

I like to think about it as similar to my "Parody Policy" on The Crazy is Taking Over.

(Now bear with me) When I write a parody that is just generically customer related, I post it with no qualms whatsoever. BUT, when I started writing parodies that referenced individual members I PM'd them for permission before posting. Most of the members I PM'd I had NEVER PM'd before, but I felt I needed to do so, out of RESPECT.

And that right there is the point.

It is a matter of respect to be considerate of another contributors right to keep the details private. And respect of everyone else on this site is a big reason why it has been in existence for as long as it has, without devolving into the petty bickering so many other similar sites have been known to do.

Heck, I bet most (not all) of the Rules on CS.com can be boiled down to "Be Respectful".

SC

[MadMike]

Unfortunately, we have to bump this one again. One of our long-time members got "outed" by a co-worker, who signed up on here as a member, and then proceeded to tattle to the other member's manager. This member didn't get fired, thankfully, but now finds themselves on thin ice at their job.

I can't stress this enough -- be careful about any identifying information on here, and be careful who you reveal your identify to. We have no rule against it, but you do it at your own risk, and the consequences can be severe, which our member has found out the hard way.