Fired because of Facebook?

This is a short post. I was thinking about all the cases where people were fired because they published something on Facebook thinking only friends would see and forgot that work colleagues or even the boss were connected to them. Or when they were tagged by friends in not very complimenting pictures.

First of all, I believe you have to be careful with what you do in real life and on Facebook alike. Don’t want a picture of you drunk in a frat party to pop up on Facebook? Don’t get drunk in a frat party. It is not about Facebook, it is about you, what you choose to do and what you believe is cool or OK. If you do what you think is OK, than you won’t have a problem if it gets published, regardless where.

The second thing is that, in many cases, people didn’t get fired because they got drunk in a frat party. What you do in your own free time is none of your boss’ business, and, usually, bosses know so. I read some cases where people when to a party on Sunday, got wasted and called in sick on Monday. Well, the problem is not getting wasted, it is calling in sick when you are not. And that’s a lie. And that is reason to be fired. So, again, social media is not the cause for being fired, but just another way that the real reason for such was found out. In Brazil we say that lies have short legs (they don’t go far). Internet shortened their legs a little bit more.