The Bloggers With The Most To Say
HR READS my blog? WHAT
There was this HUGE HR debacle at work (seriously it could not have been handled worse). My coworker got called into our HR Generalist office. Sitting on her desk were print offs of her current blog postings that might have had something to do with work. A funny story about a co worker, pictures from a recent business trip, PRETZEL DAY. She was reprimanded and told to immediately take them all down.
She passed the word along to the rest of us so that we could promptly remove all work related content. I did, since I had pictures of by bosses boss WRECKING my car, antidotes about hating my job, IM conversations with co workers RE: how we get so bored, and even and email I sent to by direct report. I used to be an anonymous blogger, but thought what the hell, it’s my life and I want to share it. Several of us all got called in for blogging...
I was careful not to use our company name, or post information about my place of employment. Now I know HR reads my blog. I feel trapped. Like I cannot REALLY write what I want to. About my life or about work. I’m a 20 something career frustrated single girl. THAT IS WHAT I BLOG ABOUT. Now I wonder will the other content of my blog be held against me?
Anyone else out there come up against this problem? Where are the boundaries in this viral world? Does your employer have any “blog policies”? Mine doesn’t. And I am not sure how to handle this recent event.
HELP
♥ Single Girl
She passed the word along to the rest of us so that we could promptly remove all work related content. I did, since I had pictures of by bosses boss WRECKING my car, antidotes about hating my job, IM conversations with co workers RE: how we get so bored, and even and email I sent to by direct report. I used to be an anonymous blogger, but thought what the hell, it’s my life and I want to share it. Several of us all got called in for blogging...
I was careful not to use our company name, or post information about my place of employment. Now I know HR reads my blog. I feel trapped. Like I cannot REALLY write what I want to. About my life or about work. I’m a 20 something career frustrated single girl. THAT IS WHAT I BLOG ABOUT. Now I wonder will the other content of my blog be held against me?
Anyone else out there come up against this problem? Where are the boundaries in this viral world? Does your employer have any “blog policies”? Mine doesn’t. And I am not sure how to handle this recent event.
HELP
♥ Single Girl
Tags: Censorship, HR, Privacy, Work, blogging
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Amanda on -
I always write in my blog under the assumption that if I'm putting it out there, it's going to be found- whether by my family, friends, boyfriends, and yes- even my employer. It's a shame that they would use that as a way to reprimand you, but I don't understand what the problem is, as long as the content isn't detrimental to the reputation of the company. They may have a good point about productivity, however, if blog entries were posted during work hours- or if you posted (and more or less confessed) about not being productive (read: bored) at work.
I don't think most companies will go out looking for the blog URLs of their employees (if they do, then they have a lot of time on their hands!) But if you are accessing your blog while at work, most companies can track that activity on their server. My best advice is to not blog "on the clock," and when you do blog, to keep work-related information as anonymous and discreet as possible. If worse comes to worse, password protect those entries- and distribute that password to your followers, as you see fit.
Hope that helps, and goodluck!
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Permalink Reply by Single Girl on -
Yeah I need to move from blogger so I can protect certian posts.
They found one girls blog and then spent time looking for anyone else that worked with her and then looked through for work related content. It was a HUGE joke. I thought to myself they have bigger fish to fry then my stupid little blog.
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Permalink Reply by David Stehle on -
Are you actually blogging FROM work? If so, that is probably the biggest problem and the main reason why you got caught and why they reprimanding you about it. Because really it's their computers and you are on their time. So your IT guy is most likely seeing every single thing that passes on your computer screen.
And whether you realize it or not, many employers do view employee blogs, Tweets and Facebook pages. So play it safe. It's probably in your best interest to not post about work, even if you're blogging from home.
(I think I just repeated pretty much everything Amanda already said.)
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Permalink Reply by Single Girl on
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yeah i dont blog from work, though I do look at some blogs- which stopped promptly.
before all of this went down I deleted all my co workers from my facebook and even blocked them. i didn't want to give everyone I work with an all access pass to my life.
I wonder how the blogging world will mix with the work world.
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Permalink Reply by Karen on -
It won't mix well, just like socializing and work, and relationships and work. In this corporate world there are too many cracks in the sidewalk you have to be careful of or risk losing it all and that would suck in today's economy. Your best bet is trying to push your personal life as far away from your work life any way you can.
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Permalink Reply by David Stehle on
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Yeah, separate business and pleasure. Your personal life from your professional life. In the end, you'll be further ahead...and you won't have to deal with this stress.
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Permalink Reply by Erin on -
What you're going through right now is a fear of mine. I work in the newspaper industry, and while I don't really talk much about my work, I DO tell anecdotes from my day or write about the crazy things that happen to me. I don't know what they would do if they found out I had a blog, even though I've done a good job concealing my identity.
I would feel trapped if they DID know about it, just like you. I had a friend who went through a similar thing with her bosses, and she took her blog down because it was more trouble than it was worth. Maybe switch addresses?
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Permalink Reply by Single Girl on
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I hope you never get "caught" so you can write what you want! I thought about switching my address...that makes me sad too. For now I took all the content down. I still write posts about the things i love/hate about my job/work/coworkers and so on.
I figure when I leave I will post them all. Like a HUGE farewell.
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Permalink Reply by Erini CS on -
I've had our department head read/know about my blog. Someone tipped him off about it... we're not sure if it was HR or not. (Or even how HR knew!)
Basically, I only use my first name, but it's uncommon so it makes it easier to find me (Erini). I don't mention what school I work for, the department, or my office by name at all.. I don't really even mention what city I'm in (though I'll probably change that, it's pretty obvious I'm in Chicago)... but ONE time I slipped and put the initials of my department when I was posting about the holiday party... and so you could find my blog by searching "Erini _ _ _" ... on a different post I had pictures of some coworkers and I with one of our new faculty members out having dinner and drinking. The pictures weren't embarrassing or anything, we just looked REALLY happy. (Even the prof in question didn't care about them.) But the department head didn't like that, so I had to take down all the pictures with the prof in them.
The thing that bothered me was that he didn't approach me about this at all. Instead he talked to one of my friends/coworkers and relayed messages through her.
I try to be care and not talk about work, but I do talk about being frustrated and looking for another job -- I'm open with my boss about that too. I go under the assumption that my boss doesn't read my blog, and that's only because I think he might say something to me if he did (he's normally pretty honest), but I have to be okay with the fact that he could find it if he wants. Just like my parents though, I don't think he has interest in finding it. If I showed it to him/them it'd be different, but since I haven't said "hey, check out my blog", they haven't inquired into it.
One thing that's been nice about wordpress is that I can schedule posts, so sometimes if I write it the day or night before, I'll schedule it to post randomly during the work day. Or at times I'll work on my blog during lunch.
It interesting the number of cases involving work and blogging -- people losing their jobs and whatnot.
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Permalink Reply by Single Girl on
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Yeah I need to learn wordpress and make the switch, so I can password protect certian posts.
I actually signed up, but after being on blogger for years between my two blogs, I feel so out of my element.
My direct report didn't care about the blog posts at all. He has a blog and invited us all to his private blog. He was shocked when HR came down on it, since he reads/blogs from work.
I am curious to see what happens as HR/IT get more blog savvy. At least I still have a job, just not exactly my freedom of speach.
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Permalink Reply by Mila G. on -
That sounds terrible. I used to write my blog at work. Everybody knew about it and would read it sometimes. So I never wote anything to bad But i no longer work there. So who knows.
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Permalink Reply by Single Girl on
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I think that is what all down time is now used for. Blogging.
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