My boss discovered my personal website!

[Plaidman]

Nooooo..... *Twitch* LIBEL is written, SLANDER is spoken....

Gah. WHen I wrote that, I was already up for several several several hours . Sorry.

[crazylegs]

Cominatcha,

If there is nothing on your blog to connect it with your workplace, f@ck em', unless you are accessing your blog through the work connection, there is no need for them to tell you what you post, what pictures you post (that only include yourself) unless it defames/brings into disrepute your company. I have a friend who has full nudity shots of herself on facebook but because it doesnt track to her company there is nothing they can do about it, she's a grown woman and if she wants to display those images then it is up to her and her only.

[Monica]

Is there a private option on it? Maybe for the time being, it should be private. That will help cut down on a lot of unwanted views?

[LifeCarnie]

I don't think you did anything wrong.

BUT.

A lot of career sites now advise you to watch what you post on-line, particularily in blogs. Since, you could potentially lose a job based on content.

This is an extreme example:
For instance, if you are in a high view, high profile position in the store AND also have a personal blog dedicated to photo's of you doing outrageous sexual acts, than it's may not really be in the store's best interest to be affiliated with you. Even as an low level employee. Especially if their customer base is conservative.

Same way as if you walked in with a swastika tatoo on your forehead and applied for a customer service position. A company would have a hard time justifying your tatoo to it's customers.

The problem with the internet can be, while your comments and blogs are private, the internet is a public venue.

The good news is I've heard that this can work in your favor. I've heard of bloggers who were offered jobs or interviews for jobs, based on the writing skills/content of a blog.

So it's not always bad to be noticed.

[tropicsgoddess]

If there's a privacy option for restricted viewing, I would suggest using it. I have my Facebook and MySpace pages restricted to only where Friends can see it. Regardless, I would suggest making sure no work stuff (confidential info or anything that ties you to the company) is on there.

[Gravekeeper]

Grey area, but yes, a lot of companies watch this now. Mine does. Well, they don't actively look for employees on face book or anything but if your facebook comes to their attention and there's something inappropriate on there + the name of where you work, yeah, you're going to get smucked. I've seen one person fired over it because she decided to rant vehemently about her boss and two coworkers on her blog and was traceable to the company from the website. Instant job death and rightly so. I also know a guy from high school that was fired from eBay / Paypal for doing something similar on web forums while ID'n himself as a Paypal employee.

Which is understandable, honestly. You can say its personal all you want but the second there's something that can link you to your employer, its no longer personal so to speak as it can potentially reflect on your employer. ( Not referring to the op specifically, just in general. ).

Also, nothings private on the Internet. If you think its fun to put a picture of yourself on your Facebook dancing in your undies, just be aware that you've basically just shown the entire world you in your undies and if the world goes "Hey, she's in her undies!" you will never, ever, EVER be able to get that picture back off of the Internet ;p So I definitely recommend using Facebook's private option. Regardless of whether you have anything questionable on there or not.

Think of it this way: There's a pic of you in your undies somewhere in your office, just waiting for a coworker to find it and show the entire company. Do you really want to be known around the office as the undie guy/girl? Some companies will fire you just for that ( Creating the disturbance ), and there won't be anything you can do about it.

[RammsteinGirl]

Cominatcha, I think you should've questioned it before you deleted the pics. Why were your co-workers looking for pics of you on the internet anyway? That just reeks of pervyness to me. I guess I'm much too cynical, but I bet your boss made sure he looked through ALL the pics too. It's such crap.. what we do on our personal time should NOT be the business of our employers. Even I have *cough* questionable pics on the internet, a lot of us do, but it's definitely none of Kfart's business. Hey, it could actually increase sales for them.

[PepperElf]

personally, unless you're posting stuff that could directly damage the company - such as photos taken at work, etc... i dont think they have a right to fire you for stuff like that.

now i've seen places where they decide to not hire people based on their MySpace pages - like ... some guy trying to get a job working in PR...only to see his MySpace is full of "bi***es & h**s" kinda talking.


My personal recommendation... If you can, move everything to a private place online, where you need permission to view the photos & content.

for my own examples...

LiveJournal - i can have posts set to private (no one but me), friends-only, or i can specifiy which friends can see the post.

MySpace - you can set your profile up as private

Also, some web space companies let you set up privacy on your folders... my own webpage is hosted by Yahoo, and I have a few folders set to private... if anyone wants access, they need a login & password - and I control both.*

* I did have one person try to use my old rant-blog against me. He worked for an online service & ...turning a long drama-filled story shote, he wanted me banned. So he tried to get one of his friends to "innocently" ask me for a password to my private blog... Yeah right. To this day, I'm still the only one with a password. (one other person had a PW but I took hers away after she started blabbing about my rants).


so yes, what you say or post online can hurt you... i dont believe he has a right to fire you for it, provided it doesn't hurt the company directly. I'd just suggest making it so he can't find it anymore.

then poke the other person in the eye for trying to get you in trouble.

[Gravekeeper]

Why were your co-workers looking for pics of you on the internet anyway? That just reeks of pervyness to me.

Facebook finds people I never wanted to talk to again in my entire life all the time without my intervention. Not to mention it picked up half my coworkers. I wasn't looking for any of them. ><

I doubt its that her coworkers actually sat down and went "Hey, I wonder if I can find pics of her in her undies online!" or some such. Heck, they could have been one of the people IN the pictures.

[Pagan]

I find it creepy that Cominatcha's boss' boss had cut and pasted a whole bunch of her pictures. What else had he done with them? Kind of makes one wonder if it really was "someone" else that "discovered" the pics.

[powerboy]

It is your own personal pics. And unless you mentioned the companies name or shown a logo in each pic, they really can't do much except for asking you. I could see about your friends/coworkers, but if you get their permission. Then it is all good.

[Shangri-laschild]

Going to agree with the "so long as you aren't identifying your company it's not their business." See I'm lucky in the sense that I have several coworkers including a higher up that are friends on various online profiles and none of them would care about what I was posting so long as it wasn't illegal (what with it being a police dept. and all).

[Emrld]

check your company's policy
Some places now have clauses that state even when on your own time you are a reflection of this company. . .and if you make public anything that is deemed not appropriate behavior we will terminate employment.

I see both sides of this - it is fun to have a site where people can get to know you and see what you look like and even inflate your ego a bit.
On the other hand it is a way for someone who wishes you harm to learn more about you.

I personally do not have a myspace or facebook or any such . . .nor do I have online dating profiles. Not because it would put my job at risk but because it is my choice what information people know about me. I chose to limit that.

[COMINATCHA]

I find it creepy that Cominatcha's boss' boss had cut and pasted a whole bunch of her pictures. What else had he done with them? Kind of makes one wonder if it really was "someone" else that "discovered" the pics.

Now this is exactly what my main problem is with the whole situation - it's creepy that he went to that extreme and told me about it! I don't have a problem with the photos, but if his point is that it's not good how any old guy could look at them, why would he make a point of doing exactly that by singling them out - and then forwarding them on to the I.T Administrator?

*UPDATE*
Okay so I've just found out who it was who decided to go over my boss's head and 'dob me in.' The factory supervisor, who I considered a friend, she was very upset that her photo was on the site. Apparently her daughter found my site and went through it all and then recognised her mum. She said she's also upset that her daughter was able to access it, when it has photos of me drunk on there amongst other things. If she's that concerned then she should be supervising her daughter - there's alot worse out there she could have stumbled across! She could have come straight to me to talk about it - I never thought she would be upset about it. It's a photo of me and her dressed up at our work function (no work logos, nothing bad, it's just a nice photo). If she had come to me and said she was upset, i would have apologised and removed it straight away. But no, she has to go straight to the top, and the top LIED to my face about who it was. He said it was a 'guy who used to work for the company.' WTF? So i'm not speaking to her now, i'm annoyed. She's just gone and made me look bad to the bosses when there was no need for that.

[blas]

Gotta love tattletales, right babe?

*hugs*

Although the best thing to do, for future reference, if you take photos that you are thinking of posting on your site that have other people in them would be to ask them if it's alright. That way they can't get upset when someone clicks on it.