Minions, serfs and peons...unite

I ran across this article at MENTAL FLOSS ( if you have never been to the site I do recommend going. You can actually hear your brain expanding.)..My notes at the bottom

http://blogs.static.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/56041.html

How to Tweet Your Way Out of a Job
by Rob Lammle -

Hate your job? Want to leave without giving two weeks notice? Thanks to Twitter, it’s never been easier to get fired. All you have to do is sign up for an account and follow these simple steps. You’ll be unemployed in no time!

Step 1: Drunk Tweet

As any Spring Break partier knows, drinking impairs your judgment. It seems to have also impaired the judgment of Major League pitcher-turned-sports-radio-host Mike Bacsik, who put on quite a show during a San Antonio Spurs and Dallas Mavericks NBA game in April. While watching the game, Bacsik bragged that he was “About 12 deep and some shots.” He proceeded to unleash a string of insults aimed at NBA commissioner David Stern, accused the refs of fixing the game, and even threatened to blow up the NBA’s offices. But the one that really got people riled up came after the Mavericks lost the game, when Bacsik tweeted:

@MikeBacsik: “Congrats to all the dirty mexicans in San Antonio.”

After sobering up, Bacsik deleted the offending tweets and issued an apology. But it was too little, too late. Numerous people complained to his radio station, which first suspended Bacsik and later fired him. After his dismissal, he told ESPN Dallas, “When you tweet like that, it’s not a playful, harmless thing…I’m very sorry and will try my best for my actions to speak louder than my tweets.”

Step 2: Break the Law (or Just Anger Your Governor)

Twitter has become a great tool for politicians to connect to the voting public. Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, for one, has really embraced the technology as a way to share his opinions and views. For example, in December 2009, he sent out a tweet saying:

@HaleyBarbour: “Glad the Legislature recognizes our dire fiscal situation. Look forward to hearing their ideas on how to trim expenses.”

One of his Twitter followers, who worked for the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMC), read this message and offered up a suggestion on how Governor Barbour could personally save the taxpayers money:

“Schedule regular medical exams like everyone else instead of paying UMC employees overtime to do it when clinics are usually closed.”

This “Oh, snap!” moment referred to an incident that had occurred three years earlier, when the governor requested the medical center open on a Saturday, when they were normally closed, and bring in a staff of 15-20 people who were paid overtime to administer his annual check-up. This happened before Carter worked for UMC and she was simply repeating what she had been told by other employees.

The governor’s office tracked down Carter and made a formal complaint to UMC, saying Carter had violated the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, a privacy law that states no employee of a medical facility can reveal any information about a person’s “protected health information.” Some argued that Carter didn’t violate HIPAA, since she didn’t actually give out any information about the health of the governor. However, others believe that simply saying the governor had even visited a doctor is a violation.

Semantics aside, UMC administrators said it was a violation, so they suspended Carter for three days without pay and strongly suggested she resign to avoid further disciplinary action, which she did.

Step 3: Have an NSFW Lifestyle

St. Louis-based blogger “The Beautiful Kind” had been writing online about her polyamorous sex life for years. Knowing that not everyone would agree with her chosen lifestyle, she was always very careful about maintaining her anonymity, especially when it came to the workplace. So when she signed up for Twitter, she wanted to be anonymous there as well. She thought that, thanks to the similarities between the two, it was like signing up for an online message board – you supplied your real name to the website privately, but could choose to be known publicly by your username only. But when she logged in for the first time and saw that, not only did it show her username (@TBK365), but also her real name on her profile, she immediately went back and removed it.

Thinking she was now safely anonymous, she used Twitter to promote her blog and to discuss sexually explicit topics with her followers. However, when her boss at the non-profit group where she worked did a Google search of employees, TBK’s Twitter account information—with her real name still associated—came up on the Twitter tracking site topsy.com.

The next day, TBK was called into her boss’ office and fired on the spot. Afterwards, her former boss sent her a letter saying, “While I know you are a good worker and an intelligent person, I hope you try to understand that our employees are held to a different standard. When it comes to private matters, such as one’s sexual explorations and preferences, our employees must keep their affairs private.” Because Missouri is an at-will employment state, meaning employers can fire someone for just about any reason, TBK was SOL.

Step 4: Question Company Policy

When California Pizza Kitchen (CPK) traded in their standard white shirts for black ones, employee Tim Chantarangsu wasn’t happy with the change. So he tweeted @calpizzakitchen his opinion:

@traphik: “black button ups are the lamest s**t ever!!!”

He didn’t expect anyone to notice or care, but the next day he received a direct message from corporate asking what restaurant he worked for. He knew better than to respond, but they tracked him down anyway and he was fired. They not only referenced his tweet about the shirts, but also an earlier one where he had said he was getting ready to work at “Calipornia Skeetza Kitchen.”

Little did they know that Chantarangsu is kind of a big deal on another social website, YouTube. Under the name TimothyDeLaGhetto2, Chantarangsu has nearly 367,000 subscribers, accounting for over 10,500,000 views of his videos. Of course he made a YouTube video telling his Twitter story and it has currently been viewed nearly 200,000 times. Shortly after the incident, he asked his followers to bombard CPK’s Twitter account with RTs (re-tweets) of his offending message, which they were more than happy to oblige.

Step 5: Make a Celebrity Look Bad

During his five years on the job, Jon Barrett-Ingels had served a lot of celebrities as a waiter at Barney Greengrass, an upscale restaurant in Beverly Hills. One day, Jane Adams, star of the HBO series Hung, came in and had lunch to the tune of $13.44. Unfortunately, when the bill came, Adams realized she had left her wallet in the car. Ingels knew who she was, so he told her she could run out and grab it and come back. The actress left, but didn’t return. Instead, someone from her agency called the next day and paid the bill. However, they didn’t leave a tip. Ingels had recently signed up for Twitter and so, his sixth tweet to his 40 followers said:

@PapaBarrett: Jane Adams, star of HBO series “Hung” skipped out on a $13.44 check. Her agent called and payed the following day. NO TIP!!!”

Over the next few weeks, Ingels started using Twitter to send out a few harmless observations about celebrities that came in to eat—mainly what they ordered or what they looked like that day. Then, out of the blue, Jane Adams came back to the restaurant. According to Ingels’ blog, she was clearly upset and begrudgingly slapped $3 on the bar for Ingels as a tip. Surprised, Ingels told the actress she really didn’t have to do that, but her gesture was appreciated. She allegedly replied with, “My friend read about it on Twitter!” before storming off. Adams complained about the tweet to management, so someone from Barney’s corporate started following Ingels on Twitter to see what he was up to. After reading his celebrity tweets, it didn’t take long before they gave him the boot.

Step 6: Don’t Get Hired in the First Place

If you’ve followed steps 1 – 5 and you still have a job, here’s the ultimate way to make sure Twitter will keep you from gainful employment.

When recent college grad Skye Riley heard back from Cisco, the computer networking giant, about her job application, one of her first instincts was to tweet about it. Unfortunately, this is what she tweeted:

@theconnor: Cisco just offered me a job! Now I have to weigh the utility of a fatty paycheck against the daily commute to San Jose and hating the work.

The unfortunate part? An employee of Cisco, Tim Levad, came across her post while doing a Twitter search for Cisco. He replied to her by saying:

@timmylevad: Who is the hiring manager. I’m sure they would love to know that you will hate the work. We here at Cisco are versed in the web.

Riley’s story was the tweet heard round the world. It became a hot topic on tech blogs for weeks afterwards, with writers calling it the “Cisco Fatty” incident. She later claimed that the tweet was taken out of context—that part of her message was referring to a well-paid internship she had turned down—but it appears the damage had already been done. While only she and Cisco know what really happened, according to her online resume, she has never worked for the company.


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Now I realize (not stupid you know) that some jobs hold a higher standard to their employees then others. I think that someone in a high profile position should expect to have their private life brought into account as well.
to a point.
First off some of these people on this list should have just shut up but some were just blowing off steam or voicing a opinion that is valid in their lives.
For instance, Cisco had no right whatsoever to not hire that girl.
for starters, The whole world is a public forum now days. what is said in such is freedom of speech. The girl was not an employee yet and was on her own time and any remark made by her was irrelevant at best.
secondly where does a employers ability to meddle with a person's life stop and start. I believe that if I am on company time then I am a represenative of my company and strive to conduct myself as such. However, once I am not "at work" my employer has no say over what I do or say. If they want to have a say then they need to be willing to pay me 24/7.
for example: lets say I work for Wal-Mart (God help me if that ever happens. I have heard of the atrocities of this company since Sam's death. If someone were to step in TODAY with a new retail chain using the customer focused atmosphere that Wal-Mart used to have, they would knock the giant to it's knees in a very short time.. but I digress)
Lets say I am on my day off and I go to a baseball game wearing a t-shirt that says "WAL-Mart Sucks".
In today's society if this got back to my employer I would be fired.
WHY?
I am not clocked in and not on company grounds.
I am a faceless minion working for a giant corporation.
I am voicing my opinion at that time.
I am my own man at this time.
so why can my employer step in and say "you are fired."
Why? because we let them.
because today every position has 10 people waiting to take it.
because we have become so dependent on our jobs and income that the loss of such has caused us to give our voice and freedom of voice over.
We have sold our lives for a paycheck.