Faute de Mieux: Why Blogs, Jobs and the New York Times Don't Mix

Tuesday, July 26, 2005

Why Blogs, Jobs and the New York Times Don't Mix

It's happened again. Another innocent blogger has gotten fired for her on-line musings. The only new detail is that this time the employer wrote a whiny piece in the New York Times Style section describing why she fired her children's nanny. The nanny wasn't fired because she was bad at her job. As near as I can figure from Helaine Olen's Times article and the nanny's excellent blogged rebuttal, the blogging nanny got fired because she had a life and was foolish enough to write about it.

Plenty of people have commented on how unjust the firing was. Plenty of people have commented on how unfair Helaine Olen's article was. I agree with them, but I also think that this whole incident - this includes the blog and the article - is yet another symptom of the erosion of private life. Tell-all talk shows and tabloids throw the details of other peoples' private lives at us all the time - and we treat it like it's something we've a need and a right to know. We don't need to know about Jude and Sienna or Brad and Jen, or anyone we don't know. And that goes quadruple for private citizens like the guy in the next cube over, the folks next door, or the nanny - they're not as pretty, they're way less interesting, and nosing into the private details of an acquaintance’s or an employee's life can have a direct negative effect on your life.

Helaine Olen wrote:

Not only were there things I didn't want to know about the person who was watching my children, it turned out her online revelations brought feelings of mine to the surface I'd just as soon not have to face as well.

Maybe it's time we started respecting other people's privacy, even when they don't seem to respect it themselves. If you don't want to know private details about someone don't read their blog. Simple, yet profound, huh? Ok, well, then, it's at least simple, right? In this age of information, overload we do not need to know everything - we do not need to consume every bit of data that comes our way. A good old fashioned set of boundaries is great protection against TMI. Oh, and firing someone for the mostly innocuous, perfectly legal things they do in their private lives is so not ok.

posted by Amanda, Tuesday, July 26, 2005

9 Comments:

Okay, this is a rare occurence and I am so clearly in the minority on this, but I disagree with you on this.
I read back every post of the "innocent" blogger's blog. I am predisposed to dislike her which I will admit up front. She makes multiple disparaging comments about her Mawrtyr roommate's "girl school bullshit." She also is ridiculously immature for a 26 year old woman. When I first started reading I thought she was 22 or so and just out of college and had more sympathy. I was floored when I saw how old she was. She really should know better.

Yes, the article was stupid. Absolutely. It was whiny and irritating. But... if I had kids (which I do not) and I heard the person I paid and trusted to care for them say that work sucked more than anything she could imagine and was considering voluntary sterilization, I would fire her too. And I wouldn't hesitate for even one second.

Do nanny's always adore the kids they work for? Probably not. But women who work are in a bind. They need to trust someone to care for the most important people in their life and they let themselves believe this woman they hire will love the kids as much as she can. When you then hear Nanny contemplating tying her tubes because of your bratty kids, it breaks that illusion and the relationship is no longer workable.

Do I care about the rest of the article? Not so much. Let the two of them analyze each other and themselves and write in circles. I am just saying that if I was privy to information that was literally GIVEN to me that made me think the caretaker I trusted with the most important people in my life was resenting them and bitching about it, I'd fire her too. Simple as that.

The blog part of it is so overblown. It's an irrelevant detail. She could have overheard it in a coffee shop or on a cell phone call or any other of a thousand ways. The girl handed over her blog address, invited her employer to read it on multiple occassions and then bitched about the ladies kids in a particularly hateful way. She's fired. Period.

commented by

Tiffy, 6:01 AM

Just to clarify one detail...
when I say on a cell phone call, I mean like in the house where the lady can hear it, not like tapping her phone or anything.
My point is, she said it in a place/forum she knew her boss would "overhear." That's just stupid. And irresponsible. And an offense I consider fire-worthy.
By writing her dumb-ass article the lady has lost all sympathy she may have gotten. My point is, blogger chick deserved to be canned. Writer lady deserves to be slammed for writing such a whiny article. They are both unsympathetic. And, despite what everyone is saying, this is not an assault on blogging. It's an assault on people with really freaking big mouths. :)

commented by

Tiffy, 8:30 AM

I have to also disagree with you on this one Amanda, albeit for different reasons than tiffy.

The internet is not Private, it is the antithesis of private; it is public and for everyone to read. Sure, her employer could not read the blog but if you don't want to be fired for something you write in your blog, make sure you are anonymous and make sure you don't say something that can get you fired. You will notice I stay pretty close to that on my blog.

commented by