Your boss does not own your thoughts

NESLIHAN KUROSAWA says:

06:42am | 26/08/11

Hi Lucy,

It all depends on what kind of boss you actually happen to have!!  I personally do not like the world boss, is it not all about working as a team that matters??  When we look at the productivity rates & happy work environment, they actually go hand in hand.  After all in most industrial nations like Germany & Japan as role models, most workers are seen as an integral part of their companies all the way down from very top managerial positions to the very bottom.  After all it is a team effort, right??

Those days are gone where you can actually boss your employees around, I personally believe!  Of course, that does not mean the misuse or abuse of the company time during office hours.  Somehow I presume in any business,  if you happen to have dedicated & intelligent employees, it is very important to hang on to them.  Staff turn over is not a wanted situation, it is not practical as well as profitable in my opinion!!

Since we are all hard working & mature adults, it would be pleasant to have a good dialog between the management and the other staff members!!  Just think how valuable employees who have been trained in their field and have somehow managed to earn your respect & trust, all of a sudden become obsolete??  There has to be a very good reason & explanation, if any one is about to lose their jobs.  Best regards to your editors.

Wise One says:

08:28am | 26/08/11

Don’t “friend” your boss on Facebook. Be selective with co-workers too. The goal of having the most friends on Facebook drives many a bad connection decision. Work has a much higher change of knowing what you are doing on your social media pages if you invite them in

Sarah says:

08:29am | 26/08/11

Simple. Do not use social media for personal purposes while you are at work and when you are at home, don’t use social media to complain/bitch or vent about anything specific about work.

Problem solved. Anyone who is dumb enough to use social media and rant black and blue about their workplace, people in it, projects they’re working on, customers or their boss is just asking for trouble.

Venting on social media about work is entirely uneccessary. Yes yes yes I know its a stress relief - but why not vent to your partner, your friend, a family member - even the dog for pete’s sake. Its what you would have had to do before Facebook and Twitter etc came along.

10 years ago, you didn’t run around with 200,000 flyers that you created, bitching about your job and everything and everyone to do with it, and ran out sticking said flyers up all over town, did you?

So why would it be any different with FB or Twitter? Its called common sense and then - should you still choose to use Social Media in that way - owning up and suffering the consequences to your actions.

Gabo says:

08:36am | 26/08/11

Keep your personal and professional networks separate. 
Better yet, you can manage both on Facebook without mixing them. Check the new BeKnown app on http://apps.facebook.com/beknown  and build your professional network on Facebook keeping your social life separate. Pretty cool huh?

Al says:

08:59am | 26/08/11

Simple, create 2 profiles, a work and a private.
Just remember to keep the posts ‘private’ and don’t ‘friend’ any of your work colleagues on your private profile.

BTW it is only ‘innovations, ideas, inventions’ that are created during your employment or primarily during your employment that they can claim ownership of. If you have done it in your own time it is still yours.

Rick says:

09:04am | 26/08/11

Agree with the tram driver being sacked for sure, the other guy doing his own thing in his own time not sure but he could have set his privacy to include only his freinds but if he meant to abuse his boss online well he get what he deserves.

Aaron says:

09:08am | 26/08/11

I don’t ‘friend’ people on facebook unless they’re actually a friend I see very often, OR, a friend who I don’t get to see very often for whatever circumstances. I went through a “Cull” a year or two back, chopped my ‘friends’ down quite a bit.

Anna C says:

09:35am | 26/08/11

I think it’s best to avoid Facebook all together. I love the fact that now days whenever someone does something stupid or illegal you can pretty much guarantee that the media will be able to get a picture of them off their Facebook page.  Now days people definately seem to undervalue the importance of privacy for the sake of technology and innovation.

Ted says:

09:43am | 26/08/11

The tram driver clearly wasn’t driving his tram when he took the photo of the controls. So if that’s their justification, it’s unfair dismissal.

Markus says:

09:47am | 26/08/11

I don’t really see how this is about owning thoughts, as opposed to protecting the company/brand name.

You wouldn’t go around yelling your rant about work to clients of your company. You wouldn’t print off your rant and post it up on walls outside your place of business. So why are people so shocked when they face ramifications for doing the online equivalent of this?

Twitter, blog posts and Facebook wall posts are not private conversations. The sooner everyone realises this simple fact, the quicker this non-issue can go away.

Ella says:

09:54am | 26/08/11

I had a boss who used to try and guess my thoughts based on my facial expressions. She was usually wrong, and I never bothered correcting her because I always thought it was none of her business.

dancan says:

10:47am | 26/08/11

It’s pretty simple.  Don’t post anything on the internet that you don’t want read or kept in record.  If you want to moan and complain about your boss do it at the pub over a beer, the next day whatever you said will be forgotten in the haze of a hangover.

Anything you post on the internet will be there FOREVER.  I capitalised that last part because it seems the majority of people just don’t get it

Soames says:

11:23am | 26/08/11

His Lordship, Sir Cumference,  (whose pseudonym one can reveal was Captain Cook,) and his descendants, are unaware of my private thoughts, and ever will be, and since one’s retirement from the RN,  one’s sinecure in the legacy of his most gracious employ, one ought not write anything on letterhead, that downstairs, in my retirement employment, my diligent staff would have access to. Indubitably, their place in their order , indeed from their wretched beginnings, to even contemplate such a gift of supreme charitable thought, would hamper their chances, if ever such an individual were to secrete one of those, in a misguided attempt to help a homeless vagabond with a food basket,  by such a conspiracy.  There are some here who would criticise, but one ought to stand by one’s morals and principals, (Mr Thornbury, Eton, circa 1895). The most advisory letter here, is from Mr/Mrs/Ms gobsmack, about to choose a pseudonym. With that, in confidence of course, one is about to change one’s own pseudonym, from Soames to Smithers, or Jeeves, or Carstairs.

Lisa Glyde says:

12:34pm | 26/08/11

Anybody that is stupid enough to rant about their work life on a public forum like Facebook deserves to lose their job.  Those ‘hidden’ status updates can easily be found, haven’t you ever heard of open book. Facebook’s privacy settings are a joke and people can always find ways around them, and major corporations will do that, if it will affect their reputation as one of the ‘good guys’.

Ashlee says:

12:41pm | 26/08/11

The tram driver definitely shouldn’t have been tweeting while working. A friend of mine got fired for things he said on Facebook - he didn’t have his page protected properly. I only have one co-worker, who is also a good friend outside of work, and I won’t be adding any others. My fiance has several of his employees as Facebook friends, which I disagree with. Turned out to be pretty handy for him though - one worker posted that they were eating easter eggs in the freezer instead of doing their work, another ‘checked-in’ at the casino after calling in sick. People who post things like that on Facebook deserve what’s coming to them, especially when they are stupid enough to do it with the boss as a friend!

Anon says:

03:42pm | 26/08/11

I work in politics, and the old adage there suits me well for this job and for future ones: “Don’t say anything on [social media] that you wouldn’t want splashed on the front page of the SMH.”

Wilma J Craig says:

04:25pm | 26/08/11

Lucy,
Your fourth sentence could well have been taken out of the South Australian Public Service Handbook for Bosses. They think the do actually own your thoughts. They forbid you to express any you might have - unless it is to heap praise on them!
The SA Public Service, probably like all the others is virtually a “Closed Shop”. All promotions are, initially, done from within. With at least 98% of all the jobs they advertise those jobs are restricted to applicants who are already Public Servants. It is only on the odd occasion they can’t find someone who is a friend of a friend of another Senior Public Servant do they open those jobs up to the General Public.
It is therefore no wonder the Public Service is moribund, have, with few exceptions, people in managerial positions who are totally unsuitable. They, & in this they are sly, get around their unsuitability & lack of intelligence by ensuring only those with a lower intelligence than themselves, there aren’t many, get selected for promotion.

sensibleposter says:

08:45am | 27/08/11

facebook and twitter, block your boss and don’t befriend your work colleagues, protect your postings from all but friends, problem solved

gra gra says:

06:38pm | 27/08/11

Erick.. You did not respond. So sad, you failed. But we all knew that, didn’t we. What a sad, sick, person you are . I hope I never see you back on here. But I fear I will. Dreadful, isn’t it.

Utopia Boy says:

09:27pm | 27/08/11

6. My employer has no right to interfere in any fucking thing I do or say, or say I will do, outside the actual time that I am being paid.
Blume is an idiot (obviously).
O’keefe is human.

Not Andy says:

02:31am | 07/09/11

Might want to check your facts,
Andy Blume was not sacked for “tweeting while driving”, Andy Blume was fired because of “offensive internet postings”, his blog - which while it certainly could be rude, was not illegal in any way - and was none of his employers business.

Andy was fired because of the furor kicked up by the vitriol spouted by the Herald Sun, after various articles online as well as a page 3 article, Yarra Trams decided that Andy was an embarrassing liability.

It’s also interesting to note how four of the Herald Sun articles that Andy took the piss out of on his blog were written by the very same “Wayne Flowers” that destroyed Andy’s career, coincidence?

Was it also a coincidence that the Herald Sun has yet to authorise a single comment supporting Andy on their website? Classy how they can quite happily destroy a man for having a laugh at their “news” articles, yet they can’t possibly allow anyone to say anything in his defense.