I just got home from a barbecue with some people I work with at and I walked into the middle of a conversation about a new policy I hadn’t heard about. Apparently, employees can expect to be fired for posting that they had ‘a bad day at work’ on their facebook page (or, you know, anything negative — workwise).
My immediate reaction was ‘isn’t that illegal?”, but my boss (well, one of them, who was there) told me that there was plenty of historical precedent for these types of policies, and that the company does need to protect itself. After all, I couldn’t just take out an advertisement in the paper that says their hotel sucks, now could I? I guess not, because that’s libel? But, me posting my opinion of my day on my Facebook page?
I’ve never once mentioned my job on this site or on facebook because I don’t mind my job. Anyone who follows this site at all knows my position on wage slavery, etc, but for being a wage slave, my ‘masters’ here aren’t too bad at all. It’s a pretty decent place to work. So why am I posting this?
Because, on this planet, when the interests of a company (their ‘image’) can trump the free speech interests of an individual… there is just absolutely nothing more disgusting I can think of (maybe one or two things). If I wanted to say that I had a bad day at work, I should be allowed to.
And I don’t even want to. I like my job and my bosses, but the fact that they signed off on this gross restriction of human freedoms is something I can’t abide. It’s disgusting, it’s atrocious, and I plead with the management to reverse this policy. Not for the sake of the company, but for the people who work there. When you start acting in the interests of a company, a fictional entity rather than in the interest of real human beings, I think it is time to take a look at your priorities in life, and if I believed in a soul, I’d say this was quite a soulless act.. How much freedom are you willing to take away from real people for a corporate entity? But what can I expect? There are no friends in business, as they say.
To my bosses: why does your job matter to you more than the people you work with? How are you ok living in, and supporting, a world where people are not free to express their opinions openly? Even if this is only a fractional microcosm of a much larger problem (as I believe it is), I implore anyone involved in making this decision to find their humanity, to realize that freedom isn’t something to be taken for granted and to re-examine your stance and role in today’s society. Do you believe the past impossible to repeat itself? Do you believe that these tiny, incremental, steps towards FASCISM are insignificant, or are you just ignoring them.
I’ve worked there for almost three years now. I’ve never had a problem with a co-worker, I’ve never even asked for a raise, I just do my shit and go home for the day. I’m gonna hit publish, right now, because I feel I have to. Maybe this will never be read by anyone at my work, maybe I’ll get called into the office on Monday… all I can do is what I know to be right.
Because what they are doing is wrong. Companies do not deserve the same protection as humans. Common sense people. We are all unique biological individuals who deserve respect, and the money and the companies we work for are abstractions. Buildings and logo’s and bullshit.
When a companies ability to control your actions extends outside of the time period you are ‘working’ for them, that sets a dangerous precedent. So Jane, Dave, (whoever the head office people I don’t know are)… I’m willing to lose my job, but please don’t fire me. It is my fundamental right as a human being to express my opinion on this disgusting infringement on human rights and my contempt for a system and a society that allows these things to pass without massive outbursts of dissent.
