Teen Fired for Facebook Post

A few weeks ago a friend posted on Facebook, while at work, that she had nothing to do and was bored. I thought to myself, "Hmm. That probably wasn't the smartest thing to say? What if her boss saw that? Doesn't she have enough work to do?" Later on I saw a response from one of her Facebook friends: "Why don't you come upstairs? I can give you some work to do." He may have been her boss — I don't know — and I think he was kidding, but maybe not.

Today, I read about a teenage girl in the UK who was fired from her job because she wrote a post on Facebook in which she complained about her job being boring (Office Worker Sacked for Branding Work Boring on Facebook. Telegraph.co.uk). Wow! Fired? I think that was a little extreme. The young woman, 16-year old Kimberley Swann, said she didn't even post the name of the company. Even if she had, she just complained about being bored. It wasn't like she revealed something private about her employer. At most, her boss should have talked with her about her job to find out why she was so unhappy with it. While I think this was an entirely outrageous reaction, I don't think complaining about your job online, where your boss can see it, is wise.