Another case of how someone’s Facebook account got them fired.
This is first of a long trail of increasingly inappropriate comments that Lee Landor, who worked for a politician in NY, left on Facebook. She “resigned” effective immediately within a day of the comments.
Now there are a few things to be learned from this:
1. Don’t use Facebook or any other social networks while working unless it is part of your job description. It can be hard to resist the urge but you’re getting paid to fulfill your responsibilities and not talk to friends. A good quote from the article below:
Dick Dadey, the executive director of Citizens Union, a good-government group, said ‘Landor’s comments were inappropriate because they were made on government time and with government resources.’ Dadey added that ‘allowing government employees, especially those involved in representing elected officials to the public, to comment on political issues on personal websites made it difficult to discern official policy from private opinion.’
2. There are certain things that you should and shouldn’t do when it comes to social media.
- Hate speech
- Showing drug use
- Commission of any other crimes
- Nudity
- Egregious swearing
She broke three of these rules (see the her full remarks here) during work, on government computers – which can be traced.
3. Horror stories like this spread like wildfire online, scarring personal brands forever. I doubt Lee will ever get a job working in politics again. I guarantee her Google results will only get worse as the story spreads.
Everyone always jokes and thinks that things online through social networks will never come back to haunt them. Everything online is public and permanent. If your profile settings aren’t set properly anyone can see what you say and do. She deleted her Facebook account the day after that slew of comments, but they were already immortalized in screenshots, which will undoubtedly plague her forever.
Just a friendly reminder to be careful!
Trace Cohen is a rising senior at Syracuse University and bleeds orange! He is double-majoring in Entrepreneurship and Marketing. Trace has always been fascinated with technology and how stuff works. Once he gets his hands on a new gadget, rest assured it will be taken apart and put back together in a matter of minutes. Trace is a hands-on kind of guy whose first love was video games, which he loves to this day.
