Club of the Dismissed

I have, as of Monday, joined an unlucky (and yes - somewhat dumb) fraternity of folks who have been fired from their jobs for blogging about them.  You may be a little confused, since you don't even know what company I was working for, I never having mentioned it by name.  Or any of my co-workers.  In fact, the references to my job are contained here, here, here, here, and here, best as I can tell.  There are probably others that offended, but they must be buried in other entries, and frankly, I can't be bothered to look for them all.  In spite of all of this non-mentioning of the place where I used to work, I was summarily dismissed for having a "negative attitude," as exemplified by this blog.  I would point out that the previous week I had put in 40 hours in four days for a visit from one of our corporate bigwigs, without complaining, and that the week (or maybe two) before that, I had helped deal with the flood.  So it was just that my blog "reflected poorly on the company."  To the bitter end, eh, boss?

So now I'm in a club with this guy.  But of course, he mentioned the place he worked.  I didn't do that.  And this Croatian diplomat.  A diplomat being fired for being undiplomatic makes my situation look pretty banal.  There's also this guy, who gave away Microsoft "secrets" on a blog.  I don't think I gave away any secrets, like who has a secret coke habit, or anything like that.  There's also this guy, and the person for whom the phenomenon is named, Dooce.  She even warns her visitors not to be stupid and do what she did.  I always did learn things the hard way, though.

Ultimately, it's hard for me to feel too badly about this.  If you get let go for being late or something, that's kind of embarassing, but this is something I'm proud of, which has a fair number of readers, and which makes people happy.  I suspect that (especially after reading all the stories about these other people in my club) firing folks for blogging is really just a way corporations have of cutting malcontents loose, but I still don't think it's fair.  And again, I didn't much like the job anyway, and mentioning it is why I ended up getting fired.  You're going to miss us malcontents when we're gone, and nobody has the balls to say anything against the system!

Yeah.  Anyway, I haven't decided whether to post revealing details about the company on this site, yet, or maybe some kind of open post to those responsible for my demise - but you'll know about it when I do.  Well - or shortly thereafter.

Comments

[B]

Hey man, sorry about you being in front of the firing squad. I'm glad to hear you aren't too upset about it. All this shit is making me paranoid. Your blog does make people happy, so fuck the fuckers!

[Matt Olson]

Shitty. Or perhaps shitey. Not much more to say at this point, except perhaps that you always knew you weren't the corporate type, I guess.

[jonathan]

Leapin' lizards...what is it about some people that think that being boss gives them some sort of oversight on employees personal lives?

I vote you tell all on the firer. What can they do? I assume this isn't a person that's going to give you a good reference anyway. They have obviously have no idea what a "negative attitude" is...

Be sure to use the person's name (preferably in a variety of forms) in the title of the post. Any future prospective employers are likely to do a Google search on the person's name. That would be fitting vengance.

In any case, that sucks. Hope you find something better--that's the best way to forget a bad job.

[eric:p]

Sucks. Like rock stars who do PepsiCola commercials. [satan noise]

[Brett]

Who would you be if you kept your mouth shut and took it in the pooper like the masses? Not the G-Man I know. Your talents are deserving of a better outlet, not a corporate receptacle.

[Josh]

Wow, that sucks. I'm sorry to hear that, though I'm sure it will ultimately work out for the best -- that place was hardly doing you justice...

[T2]

don't forget bunny's sister in the hilarious industrial sink bathing incident. that was a doocing to remember.

http://lethalgeneload.blogspot.com/2004/11/yeeeah-i-just-got-fired-its-kind-of.html

http://lethalgeneload.blogspot.com/2004/12/i-should-probably-blog-again.html

[G]

Yeah, Cabbage Rabbit's Doocing makes me wish I had been naked for mine, instead of just a disgruntled prick.

Anyone out there ever been gruntled? I got gruntled once, and oh - it was great.

[Greg]

I agree with all the above and will add that what you were doing was on your own time. In this country of dwindling freedoms, it is sad and sick to see corp america firing hard working personnel for what they do on their own personal time.

I guess in right to work state they lso have the right to fire with no reason, good luck on the job hunt and just hang in there.

[Jonathan]

its kinda creepy that your employer would actually go looking for your blog unless he/she was specifically invited to visit or something. I mean who sits at home in front of google and randomly runs searches on co-worker's names?

[T2]

I'm seriously gruntled right now but then I'm self-employed so I'd better be. If I was disgruntled with myself that would really suck.

[Jesse]

Fuckin' A!

[Erin]

Shit! I can't believe that. How in the world did your boss find your blog? I have a blog, but I don't think very many people know about it (yer wife does and that's about it). But I don't have my picture up. but that's about the only difference. I just don't get this. I think you should retaliate if you have nothing to lose. It does violate your basic rights (and mine) that you would be fired for this.

[Josh]

Erin: depending on the particulars, it's frequently very easy to find someone's blog. Try googling G's first and last name, together in quotes (like "Garrett Smith") - it's the first hit. Mine is as well, though I've used my name nowhere in it. (The perhaps-more-expressive corollary to it being easy to find someone else's blog is that it's hard to hide online -- once one person uses your name to link to you, it's pretty much public and googleable forever...)

[Hi, BTW - congrats on the PhD!]