News about fired bloggers
Hopefully this week I will update the list of
fired bloggers, but for now let me post on three pieces of relatively recent
news.
1) The Christian Science Monitor published an article on blogging and jobs.
Office memo: 'Blogging' can get you bounced
By Randy Dotinga | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
SAN DIEGO – Suffering from "pure boredom" while working as a features writer for a North Carolina newspaper, Rachel Mosteller began keeping an online journal. Anonymously, with names changed to protect the guilty, she chronicled the people who inhabit just about any newsroom - the foul-mouthed female reporter, the chubby sportswriter, the co-worker who hoards the free books sent in by publishers seeking reviews.
But her blog, called the "Sarcastic Journalist," didn't stay secret for long. Her bosses found out last year, and Ms. Mosteller, eight months pregnant at the time, promptly found herself sacked.
She learned a valuable lesson: If you have a job, blog at your own risk - "unless you're writing recipes and about how much you love puppies and kittens," Ms. Mosteller says.
Please note that Ms Mosteller is #18 on the updated list #1 of fired bloggers!
2) There are rumors circulating that a Google employee, Mark Jen, was fired, apparently after blogging about financials of his company. I never read his blog, before he was asked to clean it up, but here is some cached text:
i had a bunch of liquid capital in my checking account last time i checked, and now all of a sudden i have nothing....i realized the root problem was that google's relocation process requires the employee to pay all the expenses up front and then get reimbursed for them later....on the plus side, this first paycheck is going to be huge
the "benefits" package at google. as i thought about it, i realized that most of the "benefits" actually seem to be thinly veiled timesavers to keep you at work...if you think about the fact that the employee now probably only takes a half hour lunch break and also stays late working, the company actually realizes far more than an $8 gain in employee output. not to mention that most people think this is a great "benefit" and google gets a ton of positive press on it. in short, this "benefit" is designed benefit the company, not the employee.
despite these rants, i still chose to come to google. the work environment, projects and risk/reward equation were all more enticing than up in redmond. but just like when you look for apartments in SF, no option is ever perfect.
Apparently, he was told to clean the posts relating to compensation, but was later fired anyway... Jeremy Zawodny posted a conversation he had with Mark Jen last night:
First off, nothing Mark said surprised me. Yes, he was fired from Google. It was directly related to his blog. He was employed there for just a couple of weeks.
Mark's a good guy. He doesn't believe he was doing anything wrong (neither do I based on what he told me). In fact, he wasn't even aware of the blogosphere's Google obsession--or at least the search bloggers who watch every little thing Google does--until this happened. Let's just say that he was surprised by his sudden fame.
3) And lastly, it is looking more like I will be doing SXSW this year instead of camping at Big Bend. One of the keynote speakers at the multimedia conference this year is Wonkette, who outed Washingtonienne. I don't know what she will be talking about, but I hope some of the discussion is around blogging and employment...
1) The Christian Science Monitor published an article on blogging and jobs.
Office memo: 'Blogging' can get you bounced
By Randy Dotinga | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
SAN DIEGO – Suffering from "pure boredom" while working as a features writer for a North Carolina newspaper, Rachel Mosteller began keeping an online journal. Anonymously, with names changed to protect the guilty, she chronicled the people who inhabit just about any newsroom - the foul-mouthed female reporter, the chubby sportswriter, the co-worker who hoards the free books sent in by publishers seeking reviews.
But her blog, called the "Sarcastic Journalist," didn't stay secret for long. Her bosses found out last year, and Ms. Mosteller, eight months pregnant at the time, promptly found herself sacked.
She learned a valuable lesson: If you have a job, blog at your own risk - "unless you're writing recipes and about how much you love puppies and kittens," Ms. Mosteller says.
Please note that Ms Mosteller is #18 on the updated list #1 of fired bloggers!
2) There are rumors circulating that a Google employee, Mark Jen, was fired, apparently after blogging about financials of his company. I never read his blog, before he was asked to clean it up, but here is some cached text:
i had a bunch of liquid capital in my checking account last time i checked, and now all of a sudden i have nothing....i realized the root problem was that google's relocation process requires the employee to pay all the expenses up front and then get reimbursed for them later....on the plus side, this first paycheck is going to be huge
the "benefits" package at google. as i thought about it, i realized that most of the "benefits" actually seem to be thinly veiled timesavers to keep you at work...if you think about the fact that the employee now probably only takes a half hour lunch break and also stays late working, the company actually realizes far more than an $8 gain in employee output. not to mention that most people think this is a great "benefit" and google gets a ton of positive press on it. in short, this "benefit" is designed benefit the company, not the employee.
despite these rants, i still chose to come to google. the work environment, projects and risk/reward equation were all more enticing than up in redmond. but just like when you look for apartments in SF, no option is ever perfect.
Apparently, he was told to clean the posts relating to compensation, but was later fired anyway... Jeremy Zawodny posted a conversation he had with Mark Jen last night:
First off, nothing Mark said surprised me. Yes, he was fired from Google. It was directly related to his blog. He was employed there for just a couple of weeks.
Mark's a good guy. He doesn't believe he was doing anything wrong (neither do I based on what he told me). In fact, he wasn't even aware of the blogosphere's Google obsession--or at least the search bloggers who watch every little thing Google does--until this happened. Let's just say that he was surprised by his sudden fame.
3) And lastly, it is looking more like I will be doing SXSW this year instead of camping at Big Bend. One of the keynote speakers at the multimedia conference this year is Wonkette, who outed Washingtonienne. I don't know what she will be talking about, but I hope some of the discussion is around blogging and employment...
And yes, I promise promise promise to get
something in the blog this week on an updated list of fired bloggers. It has
been a month and we have updates! (Woe are we)
Posted: Wed - February 9, 2005 at 07:45 AM
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Published On: Feb 09, 2005 07:45 AM
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Published On: Feb 09, 2005 07:45 AM