Money & Work

How to Lose Your Job without Really Trying

Fallout from casual Internet posting is on the rise

  lindseyweber@nyu.edu

Thanks to the Internet, there are now heaps of high-tech ways to upset your boss, or lose a shot at a coveted job.

From diary confessions to drunken moments caught on film, a range of dangerously embarrassing things can appear about you in cyberspace - and stay there forever. New York University student Adam Shuck learned that the hard way after typing his name into Google. He was shocked at what he found.

An old Livejournal entry included his current address, plus a picture of him drinking at a bar (and though his name brought up 149 references, only seven were really about him).

"I felt, first of all, creeped out, and second of all, worried," Shuck said. "Because anyone could've done the search and found out a whole lot of things about me."

Just as Shuck suspects, employers and workers alike have begun to use the Internet to sleuth for personal information. A recent Harris Interactive poll that asked: "Is Your Boss Googling You?" found that some 23% of adult U.S. Internet users had searched online for their clients, customers, workers, potential employees or bosses.

The unlucky lost jobs. Sydney Morning Herald staffer Erin Biba (herself blogging in her paper) ticked off some Internet-related firings: Google employee Mark Jen blogged about his first few days on the job and was sacked. The same thing happened to Delta Airlines employee Ellen Simonetti, after employers found out about photos she'd posted of herself in her Delta uniform. Even a journalist, Rachel Mosteller, was fired after complaining (she thought anonymously) about her job at The Durham Herald-Sun in North Carolina.

The story of the nanny blogger further charged the debate. Writer Helaine Olen read the blog of her (now former) nanny, after the nanny offhandedly gave her the blog's address. Though nanny was a trusted 26-year-old former teacher with excellent references, after Olen discovered that she "liked to touch her breasts while reading The New Yorker...took sleeping pills...[and] determined she'd had more female sexual partners than her boyfriend" she and her husband felt uncomfortable about having her care for their children. So they fired her.

After Olen's tale was published in The New York Times, bloggers everywhere weighed in. Many protested Olen using the nanny's blog as a reason for firing her. But most argued that the nanny shouldn't have shared its address in the first place: that she'd crossed a boundary by doing so. And there were comments about this inevitable truth: if you electronically publish your no-holds-barred writing, you're likely to get caught.

"People seem to think they can blog anonymously, but this really just sets you up for being "outed," an anonymous blogger on "The 15-Minute Hipster" wrote. "I absolutely censor my thoughts in view of what my employer (or other people) might think."

This workplace trend has prompted action from lawmakers to protect the free-speech rights of employers and employees. A new Workplace Surveillance Bill would require employers to inform their employees of email and Internet usage policies before they could legally begin surveillance, more clearly defining the line between business and home use. The bill would repeal and replace the Workplace Video Surveillance Act of 1998, which only applies to camera surveillance.

This type of protection is also important for students who haven't yet started careers, observers say. Social networks, including the popular Facebook.com, encourage students to post both personal information and often-inappropriate pictures that can pop up years later.

Dr. Kim Yousey, an NYU academic advisor, has noticed a surge of NYU officials eager to "Facebook" their employees: "I've actually had cases where I've had colleagues who have to decide whether they are going to hold a resident assistant accountable in their job for the things that are posted on Facebook," he said.

Even finding a job can be tougher if a job seeker's Internet presence seems inappropriate.

Student Ben Livian is sure prospective employers are Googling him.

"Some of them definitely do," he says, "There have been tutorials at Career Services recently that talk about putting any information on the web."

He says that "now I definitely think twice about putting my full name on the Internet."

"Anything anyone can find on you is considered public, and people will look at it and it will make an impression," warns Dr. Yousey. "As you get older you realize that, whether it's professional reputation or personal reputation, those cross over. You know, it could even be 15 years down the line; you're running for president and people will find it. You're probably not thinking about that now, but you should."

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