5 ms·

My boss discovered my secret blog

threatofrain 5y ago
> A few months later I was back in the same office, being made redundant. I can’t be sure the two events were linked, but if you have to let someone go, the person who wrote about how boring her job was might not be the worst choice. “Why are you still here if you hate it?” the HR manager had hissed at me one day in passing. It was a fair question, and unhappy as I was, my redundancy felt like a fair cop. > I didn’t try to find another legal job: my indiscretion had made me unemployable in the sector. That was terrifying, but also galvanising: I needed to find another way of earning my living, fast. Blogging had showed me that living could, just possibly, be writing: 12 years later, it turns out it is.
michaelmrose 5y ago
A world in which one can't even expose the fact that your boring job is boring without fear of losing your livelihood is a world not worth building and the right of management to run their company like their own tiny kingdom is not worth protecting especially if 99% of the people voting on the ground rules are the peons.
- leeroyjenkins11 5y ago
  I think there is a difference complaining to friends and family VS having a blog on the internet for the whole world to see. Would you want to work with someone who will broadcast mistakes you make to the world, or using their following to leverage things to their advantage?
- ufmace 5y ago
  Somehow I suspect that she wrote things a good bit spicier than that her job was boring. And I suspect that her firing wasn't just a result of her boss being so offended that she called the job boring. She probably wrote a bunch of things that were less than kind about the personal habits and personalities of her co-workers. Would you want to work with somebody like that, always wondering if you might be the next person targeted?
- secondaryacct 5y ago
  Oh yeah how the world has changed. When before your grandad, between two wars, worked to feed himself and his kid and could not even fathom complaining about what was paying the rent, now, we cant even whine to millions of people on the internet that the job that costs us nothing to leave is terribly boringg.
  - michaelmrose 5y ago
    They are owed 40 hours of good proficient labor, decency, and respect but we are employees not serfs. They aren't owed silence in the rest of our life or fear.
  - CRConrad 5y ago
    What, you think people didn't complain about their jobs in "the good old days"? What a remarkably wird idea; where did you get that from?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- wussboy 5y ago
  I, for one, love living in a world where this is a pressing concern. And may it become more so!
  - rglullis 5y ago
    Do you enjoy being a slave?
dmckeon 5y ago
> I found myself with an offer to appear in, and be photographed for, a Sunday Times article about blogging. So, the “boss discovered”? In any case, this seems like another facet of the impression of privacy and solitude at the keyboard, made possible by one’s apparent separation from “real life”. Another facet is that of people whose online behavior is far from what they would exhibit in person, or in a public meeting. _Caveat poster_
ufmace 5y ago
It seems like it isn't so much "discovered" as that she made the boneheaded decision to talk to the press for an article about the blog that would include her real name and the name of her company. Doesn't like every company ever tell you that you are not permitted to make statements to the press on the behalf of the company, and that all press inquiries should be directed to the PR department? I thought this was too obvious to need stating, but I guess it isn't to everyone. Not to say you should never do it of course, just that if you do, you should take appropriate precautions and be prepared for the potential consequences.
- smnrchrds 5y ago
  It depends on what the labour laws and culture are in the Netherlands. Labour protections are generally higher in the Netherlands compared to the US and Canada. The fact that they didn't fire her immediately and found an unrelated excuse to fire her months later makes me wonder if firing her for the blog would have been legal.
  - softveda 5y ago
    In Australia a public servant was sacked for anonymous social media posts that criticised the government’s immigration policy. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/aug/07/high-court-rules-public-servants-can-be-sacked-for-political-social-media-posts https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/aug/07/high-...
  - jlelse 5y ago
    Brussels is in Belgium not in the Netherlands.
    - smnrchrds 5y ago
      Oops. Sorry. You are right.
- Anthony-G 5y ago
  In fairness to the author, the word “discover” in the headline would have been written by an editor or sub-editor – who like to over-dramatise the reality to pull readers in. In the closing paragraph, she also acknowledges her youthful naïvety or – as she refers to it – the “sloppy idiocy” of her actions at the time.
zxcvbn4038 5y ago
On the bright side she wasn’t claiming disability then posting pictures of her jet skiing in Aruba. That seems to happen a lot in NYC, particularly among the police and transit workers. You think they would notice their buddies on the front page of the NY Post and not do that.
cmckn 5y ago
“My boss discovered my blog” is an interesting way to phrase “I disclosed my blog to the press using my real name”.
commandlinefan 5y ago
For the record, everything work related I ever complain about on here refers to a former employer.
tomcam 5y ago
Nothing acknowledging the fact that she was literally stealing from her employers because she wrote extensively on a personal blog during company time?
- Borrible 5y ago
  Ah, no morals please, they're such a waste of good lawyering.
Borrible 5y ago
A lot of relationships end out of boredom. And a lot of people end them that way, with chatter about little infidelities here and there.

> A few months later I was back in the same office, being made redundant. I can’t be sure the two events were linked, but if you have to let someone go, the person who wrote about how boring her job was might not be the worst choice. “Why are you still here if you hate it?” the HR manager had hissed at me one day in passing. It was a fair question, and unhappy as I was, my redundancy felt like a fair cop. > I didn’t try to find another legal job: my indiscretion had made me unemployable in the sector. That was terrifying, but also galvanising: I needed to find another way of earning my living, fast. Blogging had showed me that living could, just possibly, be writing: 12 years later, it turns out it is.

michaelmrose 5y ago

A world in which one can't even expose the fact that your boring job is boring without fear of losing your livelihood is a world not worth building and the right of management to run their company like their own tiny kingdom is not worth protecting especially if 99% of the people voting on the ground rules are the peons.

leeroyjenkins11 5y ago
I think there is a difference complaining to friends and family VS having a blog on the internet for the whole world to see. Would you want to work with someone who will broadcast mistakes you make to the world, or using their following to leverage things to their advantage?
ufmace 5y ago
Somehow I suspect that she wrote things a good bit spicier than that her job was boring. And I suspect that her firing wasn't just a result of her boss being so offended that she called the job boring. She probably wrote a bunch of things that were less than kind about the personal habits and personalities of her co-workers. Would you want to work with somebody like that, always wondering if you might be the next person targeted?
secondaryacct 5y ago
Oh yeah how the world has changed. When before your grandad, between two wars, worked to feed himself and his kid and could not even fathom complaining about what was paying the rent, now, we cant even whine to millions of people on the internet that the job that costs us nothing to leave is terribly boringg.
- michaelmrose 5y ago
  They are owed 40 hours of good proficient labor, decency, and respect but we are employees not serfs. They aren't owed silence in the rest of our life or fear.
- CRConrad 5y ago
  What, you think people didn't complain about their jobs in "the good old days"? What a remarkably wird idea; where did you get that from?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
wussboy 5y ago
I, for one, love living in a world where this is a pressing concern. And may it become more so!
- rglullis 5y ago
  Do you enjoy being a slave?

dmckeon 5y ago

> I found myself with an offer to appear in, and be photographed for, a Sunday Times article about blogging. So, the “boss discovered”? In any case, this seems like another facet of the impression of privacy and solitude at the keyboard, made possible by one’s apparent separation from “real life”. Another facet is that of people whose online behavior is far from what they would exhibit in person, or in a public meeting. _Caveat poster_

ufmace 5y ago

It seems like it isn't so much "discovered" as that she made the boneheaded decision to talk to the press for an article about the blog that would include her real name and the name of her company. Doesn't like every company ever tell you that you are not permitted to make statements to the press on the behalf of the company, and that all press inquiries should be directed to the PR department? I thought this was too obvious to need stating, but I guess it isn't to everyone. Not to say you should never do it of course, just that if you do, you should take appropriate precautions and be prepared for the potential consequences.

smnrchrds 5y ago
It depends on what the labour laws and culture are in the Netherlands. Labour protections are generally higher in the Netherlands compared to the US and Canada. The fact that they didn't fire her immediately and found an unrelated excuse to fire her months later makes me wonder if firing her for the blog would have been legal.
- softveda 5y ago
  In Australia a public servant was sacked for anonymous social media posts that criticised the government’s immigration policy. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/aug/07/high-court-rules-public-servants-can-be-sacked-for-political-social-media-posts https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/aug/07/high-...
- jlelse 5y ago
  Brussels is in Belgium not in the Netherlands.
  - smnrchrds 5y ago
    Oops. Sorry. You are right.
Anthony-G 5y ago
In fairness to the author, the word “discover” in the headline would have been written by an editor or sub-editor – who like to over-dramatise the reality to pull readers in. In the closing paragraph, she also acknowledges her youthful naïvety or – as she refers to it – the “sloppy idiocy” of her actions at the time.

zxcvbn4038 5y ago

On the bright side she wasn’t claiming disability then posting pictures of her jet skiing in Aruba. That seems to happen a lot in NYC, particularly among the police and transit workers. You think they would notice their buddies on the front page of the NY Post and not do that.

cmckn 5y ago

“My boss discovered my blog” is an interesting way to phrase “I disclosed my blog to the press using my real name”.

commandlinefan 5y ago

For the record, everything work related I ever complain about on here refers to a former employer.

tomcam 5y ago

Nothing acknowledging the fact that she was literally stealing from her employers because she wrote extensively on a personal blog during company time?

Borrible 5y ago
Ah, no morals please, they're such a waste of good lawyering.

Borrible 5y ago

A lot of relationships end out of boredom. And a lot of people end them that way, with chatter about little infidelities here and there.