Reciprocity in the workplace…and social media

…and the reciprocity just keeps getting bigger and BIGGER.  This article on Cleveland.com had a multitude of instances where folks found themselves at the threshold of hell for some of the things they posted, tweeted or blogged about.  Everything from nosey bosses to reckless employees at work was mentioned. Some of the stories were pretty entertaining as I found it difficult to believe people were so blatant about their activities online. 

It’s an age-old discussion that we’ve seen a hundred times about the place for social media in the workforce.  With the aided benefit of a mobile device, employees are going to socialize whether they have access via computer or their cell phone.  Yet apparently 54% of companies still actively ban social media sites from employee access.

The best part of this article was the comments at the end.  People are actually still of the mindset that what they post on the internet is their private business.  Amazing that they actually feel that whether they post something in the workplace or on their own time – it should remain as something to be read by their friends only.  Um, excuse me, but 99.9% of the junk that’s posted on the ‘net’ is “out there” and always will be.  Not only do your friends read it, but their friends read it, your employer reads it, your future employer reads it, your x-girlfriends, x-boyfriends, kids, in-laws, law enforcement, attorneys, fire marshal Bill, EVERYONE reads it.

I chuckled at the comment made by one user who was undoubtedly fed up with the rationale given by the other posts trying to justify online behavior as something that shouldn’t be used against them…. he says “Here’s an idea: DON’T POST ANYTHING ON FACEBOOK, TWITTER, MYSPACE, ETC!!! In fact, don’t even have any accounts anywhere. Somewhere over the past 10 years people have forgotten the fact that once something is on the internet, it’s there forever. How many people now have naked pictures or videos of them floating around out there? How many people have embarrassing or damaging things they said floating around out there? If you don’t want people to know everything about your life, don’t put your entire life on a web page! Employers have every right to fire people for dumb stuff they post on social media sites. Maybe this will finally get people to wake up. Stupid, stupid, stupid….”