A Theory

I agree - although DOOCE claims she was fired, I don't know if I believe her. She brags about it like no other, it's even in her masthead! Head over to DOOCE.com, I'm sure you can find more than one entry regarding this issue.

She annoys the hell out of me, can you tell?

Heather seems like a fine person, and I'm quite sure she's telling the truth about her story. I don't know if anyone talking about losing a job can be described as "bragging".

Getting fired for reading a blog is an entirely different story.

Oh I would consider it bragging - it seems like it's the central focus of her whole site.

I think there might be a different interpretation for your theory.

Now please note that I am not talking about an incident in particular, because I probably do not know enough.

But, can we say that people got fired because they expressed themselves inappropiately, without sensitivity to context?

Its not really about blogging with all the weight we carry that term today, I suspect. Most firings of this type would be about the message conveyed, which the employer deem should be censored. Should the same message be made public in alternative channels, similarly knee-jerk action on the part of the employer would probably have happened too.

Donnie J: Have you read dooce.com lately? While it mentions her firing in the masthead at the moment, she doesn't actually refer to it all that often. I think she has far more inportant things to worry about, like her 11-month-old baby, at the moment.

Inclined to agree. Most of the people fired for weblogging as far as I can tell were actually fired because they bitched about their jobs, their employers or talked about not doing any work. No one gets fired for talking (well rarely), they get fired for what they talk about. That guy from waterstones in the UK the other day was vile about his employers and his boss and about the whole organisation. Twit.

So sheltered, Anil. You may be right, but the point I feel is that blogging can be used against you by your employer. Not to get personal, but I was very recently sacked, and while my blog was never mentioned specifically, "misuse of company property" and "working on non-company projects on company time" were. But then the idea of working from home (or using a modern database system) was anathema to my former employer.

Define "blogging." Are you separating the content from the action?

Has anyone ever been fired for just having a blog and posting items unrelated to work to it outside of work hours? Not that I've come across.

Has anyone been fired for what they've written on their blog? Absolutely.

If that's the distinction you're trying to make, I think it's a fairly pedantic one.

Can someone be terminated for blogging? Yes. Has it happened? I suspect it has. Is this anything new? Technologically, yes, but not in terms of establishing any really new legal principles.

If you look at the employment cases decided to date (not about "blogging" specifically, but more generally)you will find many cases where people have been terminated for such things as (a) missuse of Company time (ie. spending work time on non-work related activities, whether surfing the net, blogging or conducting a "side business") (b) disclosing confidential or sensitive business information (c) making public comments of a nature that would be harmful to their employers' interests or reputation (d) using employer resources, including technology, for an improper purpose or in contravention of an employer policy (e) sending email from work that are offensive or threatening (f) engaging in off duty behaviour or conduct that is inconsistent with continued employment. These are some off the top thoughts.

All this is to say that, at least at this point, employees who "blog" are accountable for what they do and say in the same way that they always have been. They do not, in other words, have any additional rights or priviledges by reason of the medium they use to communicate their thoughts or views (at least from an employment perspective).

Do you mean that in the Archie Goodwin sense? ("No woman alive can send a man to hell if he doesn't have tickets already in his pocket--or at least a timetable he's been fooling around with.")

I think you'd agree, however, that some employers have dredged up a blogger's past posts as the excuse when they fired someone.

I'm pretty much with you on this one Anil. Seems most of the people who claim they have been fired for "blogging" have actually been fired for bitching about coworkers or talking about company info, all in a public forum. Most of us these day have to sign NDA's when we're hired, and I guarantee what some people talk about on their blogs would be in direct violation of that.

It's not like they're getting fired for telling humorous stories about their cat or their weekend trip.

Blogging as in verb? Or having a blog?

I was fired for blogging. Once, long ago.

More because of the subject matters I wrote about (read: work-related angst with first and last names) than because of the blogging act per se. Some people just don't like facing the truth.

The company tanked three months after I was fired anyway.

Suffice it to say that I know better than vent internal work issues on a public blog these days.

What about Joyce Park, who got fired from Friendster last fall for blogging? She claims she only posted information that was publicly available (i.e., that Friendster uses PHP, which would be obvious to anyone who noticed the .php extensions).

Well, yes and no. 99.44% of the bloggers whose blog was a factor in their dismissal were, I'm sure, using company time and resources, divulging company secrets, libeling co-workers, etc., and THAT, not "blogging" was the reason. To tag onto another commenter, if these same people had stuck to posting pictures of their kittens on the weekends, it wouldn't have been a problem.

However, I once worked for an employer (long before I blogged) who was just paranoid enough that he might well have come down on someone who just innocently mentioned his company. Having worked (briefly) for someone like him, it's not hard to imagine that someone might hear of some employee blogging and say "they've got one of those things? Get rid of 'em." without too much more thought. People have been dismissed for less, with less thought.

As I recall, Cameron Barrett got fired for blogging (or the contents of his personal website, at least) back in 1997: http://www.camworld.com/screwed/

Most of the commenters do make some interesting points. In my recent situation, I wasn't fired for blogging, but rather severely reprimanded because of it. I talked about general situations there, but mentioned the people anonymously and never said where I worked or what I did. Anyone reading it would not have had a clue, including an employee I know who is a fan of the site (but didn't know I wrote it). Couple this with the manager already having a hate-on for me (being Black AND gay...yikes!) and the showdown was bound to happen eventually. I decided to quit because I got tired of the place and the people.

About signing an NDA...I didn't sign one when I started work at my former employer (just a W-2 and a requisition for a desk key), and to this day, there's still no clear-cut definitions in said company's employee handbook which discourages the pursuing of outside projects on company time. But you can get fired if you're caught dating a co-worker. Weirdness.

The UrbanDictionary.com defines Dooced as "Losing your job for something you wrote in your online blog, journal, website, etc.
Did you hear Mary got fired yesterday for writing about Becky in her blog? Yeah, she got dooced.
Source: Jennifer, Feb 26, 2004" courtesy of Jennifer, so its sort of tautological.

I agree with Anil. 36 months ago I was summarily dismmissed for "bringing the company into disrepute" and "disparaging the management", much the same situation as the great and wonderful Dooce. I got sacked for what I wrote on a weblog, it happened because I wasn't clueful enough to realise that this weblog was a loaded gun and if I wasn't careful it would take my head off, and it did. So I wasn't fired for blogging, I was fired for using a tool to harm my employer.

By the way, this Textarea is drifting as a type... I feel a little sea sick.