The Walls have Ears

Posted on | March 20, 2010 | View Comments

: Image via Wikipedia

I came across this blog post recently where a waiter was fired for twittering while on the job. This wasn’t a case where they were fired just for twittering, it’s because who the tweets were about which is a whole new kind of fail whale.

Let’s cut to the chase, if you work in a field where you work with other people, about 99% of the people reading this, you need to watch who you tweet about.

In this case – the waiter was sending “documentary” tweets about various guests they served. In this case the people who were tweeted about weren’t just John and Jane Doe’s – they were people who are considered celebs.

Needless to say, it’s safe to assume that you shouldn’t tweet negative things about people that pay you particularly if you hope to continue to be paid. Why? Because people can find out almost anything public on the internet. There was the widely popularized tweet that a potential Cisco employee sent previous to hiring. For example, I work at Ruby Tuesday, Inc. If I were to blog or tweet some pretty negative comments about our leadership that’s probably not a smart career move. Why? Because they pay me and opening up a public discourse on some deficiency I think my boss may have isn’t the best way to deal with any problem. Let’s be clear, I’m not saying you should cover something up for the sake of a career – I’m saying use some discernment when posting.

Back to the original person who was fired for tweeting about customers. First, I’m very pro people acquiring and using technology in their lives and people should have the freedom to post what they feel they want to, but posting publicly on the Internet isn’t quite the Wild Wild West it once was. On this issue, if you’re in a similar position you should think twice about tweeting about people. There is a very large difference between “My last customer was super messy” and “Sandra was my last customer and OMG she was messy” and matters get compounded a bit further if you list somewhere on your blog, bio, etc that you work for aka represent a particular company.

Key takeaway, be careful what you share. It’s global, discoverable and permanent.