4 ms·

The article goes out of its way to tell us that this guy received extensive training in what he was and was not allowed to say on social media from the PR team,

The article goes out of its way to tell us that this guy received extensive training in what he was and was not allowed to say on social media from the PR team, and was doing well enough that he was a founding member of that company’s social media team. I’m not sure where you’re drawing your conclusion from.

citilife 4y ago
I replied in this thread to a different comment, but suffice to say, we're only seeing this engineers view on the topic. From a company perspective, how do you handle someone who's gained a social media following and is posting about the company and acting as a company spokesman without being approved to do so. You would collect all the information you can, then tell the guy to knock it off or be fired. That appears to be what happened.
- throwawaymaths 4y ago
  Well no you wouldn't say "company financials" to escalate it, you would just be generic and say "proprietary information". There was enough suspicious stuff going on (being uninvited from internal group chats) that you can't chalk it up to one-off accidental miscommunications. Besides, unless I misunderstood, it doesn't seem like the "knock it off" was directly communicated to the employee by the svp at any point, which a good faith manager would probably do, unless they have a severe nonconfrontatiomality issue (some managers do)
  - wesley83 4y ago
    For the record. I had zero infractions on social. None. All allegations were made up and unfounded.
    - throwawaymaths 4y ago
      I believe you, I'm trying to counter the narrative that there is some way you could have misinterpreted otherwise "normal" administrative disciplinary communication
  - citilife 4y ago
    If the company was publicly traded and if the author was discussing unreleased products and speaking as a company employee, then yes it could impact the FTC reports (i.e. financials). However, those details weren't shared. (Speaking of which, if this was AMD -- I likely traded on this guys information lol I made a boat load off employees sharing information they shouldn't have publicly) > There was enough suspicious stuff going on (being uninvited from internal group chats) that you can't chalk it up to one-off accidental miscommunications. We have no idea what actually happened, what we can say is that from the author's own statement(s) they continued to post on social media and stopped sending it to the PR team. To me, this reads that the author was given repeated hints / directly told to stop and wasn't listening. My guess is the training was, "hey you're probably not supposed to be posting this, review the training please". That said, we don't know. I'm not saying this was handled well, but this definitely wasn't being "bullied" out of a job. Their job was engineering, they were pushed out of social media, at best; after not being hired for it.
    - amrocha 4y ago
      I don't know if you're ESL or if you just didn't read the article but none of what you wrote is in the article. You're assuming so much here.
- Arainach 4y ago
  Strong disagreement. If there's any problem (which there usually isn't) you bring them into the loop. I've seen this repeatedly even at huge companies like Microsoft.
- ghaff 4y ago
  Whatever the specifics of this particular situation, it may be worth observing that this seems to be in the context of rather early social media days. "When Twitter was launched, I was an early adopter." And a lot of companies were really feeling their way into social media at that point (and by no means were their strategies necessarily broadly agreed to internally). I've seen first hand how many companies did not have well-articulated and specific policies and individuals were sort of on their own to do the "right thing" the interpretation of which was likely to differ depending upon what exec you asked. It's hard to say what exactly happened in this case but in the mid- to late-2000s, it would have been very easy for an enthusiastic social media user posting about company matters to run afoul of someone used to company communications happening through tightly controlled channels.
- deltasevennine 4y ago
  From what the engineer explicitly details and according to your own logical rules that you laid out.. nothing was violated. You're simply saying you believe the engineer is lying and dishonest. This is possible but there's nothing compelling about your assumption unless you provide evidence that supports it. Otherwise it's just sort of a random assumption. I mean, Yeah sure, for example, I could assume that he also has anger issue problems that he's unaware about, but that's a random assumption... Why would anyone care? In short I'm saying what compelling evidence do you have to make your assumption more relevant?
- tspike 4y ago
  This is the kind of risk-averse, backstabbing claptrap that prevents companies and individuals from rising above local maxima.
- yellowapple 4y ago
  > without being approved to do so You'd think if he wasn't approved to do so then they would've actually told him to knock it off and not, you know, give him PR training and put him on a social media council.
  - PKop 4y ago
    Imagine the scenario where they did do this. And the employee was intransigent and didn't follow orders. Do you think it's possible this sort of person would also present a skewed account of what happened? You have no idea if the perspective presented it accurate.
    - yellowapple 4y ago
      > Do you think it's possible this sort of person would also present a skewed account of what happened? Sure, but it's pretty hard to skew being included in the very part of an organization that presumably influences how said organization represents itself on social media. Are you insinuating that the author is outright lying about that?

citilife 4y ago

I replied in this thread to a different comment, but suffice to say, we're only seeing this engineers view on the topic. From a company perspective, how do you handle someone who's gained a social media following and is posting about the company and acting as a company spokesman without being approved to do so. You would collect all the information you can, then tell the guy to knock it off or be fired. That appears to be what happened.

throwawaymaths 4y ago
Well no you wouldn't say "company financials" to escalate it, you would just be generic and say "proprietary information". There was enough suspicious stuff going on (being uninvited from internal group chats) that you can't chalk it up to one-off accidental miscommunications. Besides, unless I misunderstood, it doesn't seem like the "knock it off" was directly communicated to the employee by the svp at any point, which a good faith manager would probably do, unless they have a severe nonconfrontatiomality issue (some managers do)
- wesley83 4y ago
  For the record. I had zero infractions on social. None. All allegations were made up and unfounded.
  - throwawaymaths 4y ago
    I believe you, I'm trying to counter the narrative that there is some way you could have misinterpreted otherwise "normal" administrative disciplinary communication
- citilife 4y ago
  If the company was publicly traded and if the author was discussing unreleased products and speaking as a company employee, then yes it could impact the FTC reports (i.e. financials). However, those details weren't shared. (Speaking of which, if this was AMD -- I likely traded on this guys information lol I made a boat load off employees sharing information they shouldn't have publicly) > There was enough suspicious stuff going on (being uninvited from internal group chats) that you can't chalk it up to one-off accidental miscommunications. We have no idea what actually happened, what we can say is that from the author's own statement(s) they continued to post on social media and stopped sending it to the PR team. To me, this reads that the author was given repeated hints / directly told to stop and wasn't listening. My guess is the training was, "hey you're probably not supposed to be posting this, review the training please". That said, we don't know. I'm not saying this was handled well, but this definitely wasn't being "bullied" out of a job. Their job was engineering, they were pushed out of social media, at best; after not being hired for it.
  - amrocha 4y ago
    I don't know if you're ESL or if you just didn't read the article but none of what you wrote is in the article. You're assuming so much here.
Arainach 4y ago
Strong disagreement. If there's any problem (which there usually isn't) you bring them into the loop. I've seen this repeatedly even at huge companies like Microsoft.
ghaff 4y ago
Whatever the specifics of this particular situation, it may be worth observing that this seems to be in the context of rather early social media days. "When Twitter was launched, I was an early adopter." And a lot of companies were really feeling their way into social media at that point (and by no means were their strategies necessarily broadly agreed to internally). I've seen first hand how many companies did not have well-articulated and specific policies and individuals were sort of on their own to do the "right thing" the interpretation of which was likely to differ depending upon what exec you asked. It's hard to say what exactly happened in this case but in the mid- to late-2000s, it would have been very easy for an enthusiastic social media user posting about company matters to run afoul of someone used to company communications happening through tightly controlled channels.
deltasevennine 4y ago
From what the engineer explicitly details and according to your own logical rules that you laid out.. nothing was violated. You're simply saying you believe the engineer is lying and dishonest. This is possible but there's nothing compelling about your assumption unless you provide evidence that supports it. Otherwise it's just sort of a random assumption. I mean, Yeah sure, for example, I could assume that he also has anger issue problems that he's unaware about, but that's a random assumption... Why would anyone care? In short I'm saying what compelling evidence do you have to make your assumption more relevant?
tspike 4y ago
This is the kind of risk-averse, backstabbing claptrap that prevents companies and individuals from rising above local maxima.
yellowapple 4y ago
> without being approved to do so You'd think if he wasn't approved to do so then they would've actually told him to knock it off and not, you know, give him PR training and put him on a social media council.
- PKop 4y ago
  Imagine the scenario where they did do this. And the employee was intransigent and didn't follow orders. Do you think it's possible this sort of person would also present a skewed account of what happened? You have no idea if the perspective presented it accurate.
  - yellowapple 4y ago
    > Do you think it's possible this sort of person would also present a skewed account of what happened? Sure, but it's pretty hard to skew being included in the very part of an organization that presumably influences how said organization represents itself on social media. Are you insinuating that the author is outright lying about that?