Friday, February 15, 2008
A SIMPLE GUIDE
How To Avoid Being Fired for Blogging
Step One: Does your employer have a policy that might prohibit blogging? Check to make sure! For example, this could indicate trouble ahead for the would-be online commentator:
“CNN has a policy that says employees must first get permission to write for a non-CNN outlet.”
If your employer’s policy is unclear to you, it’s best to ask a superior or someone fluent in English for further explanation rather than waiting until you’re unemployed then claiming you were fired “because of your views”.
Step two: Let’s say you’re a wild, reckless, egomaniacal type who doesn’t care for rules and runs a 167-word biography about yourself on the front page of your site announcing, among other things, that you’re a “nuisance to authority figures”. No way are you going to ask permission to write for non-CNN sources! To hell with you, corporate media! But be careful; those big CNN dollars might stop rolling in if you fail to post anonymously. Otherwise, CNN is likely to be troubled by a senior producer at a vanilla deal like American Morning writing the following:
We’ve come to understand that Bush has the IQ of a lemon and accept that he’ll never be able to approach any situation, no matter how significant, with anything but the most rudimentary of motor skills. He’s a dumb, lumbering jackass, and we know it.
And this:
I was never one of those people who believed that Condi Rice was a genius to begin with, despite a doctorate and her admittedly masterful skill at concealing her secret life as a hardcore lesbian ...
Lines like these might lead to workplace tension.
Step Three: Don’t post pictures of yourself looking like you’ve just eaten the planet’s entire supply of smug. This won’t necessarily stop you getting fired, but it might stop a few people being happy about it.
