Posted 6/16/2005 05:13:00 PM by Douglas

These stories about "my blog got me fired" are really starting to annoy me.

Like a growing number of employees, Peter Whitney decided to launch a blog on the Internet to chronicle his life, his friends and his job at a division of Wells Fargo.

Then he began taking jabs at a few people he worked with.

His blog did find an audience: his bosses. In August 2004, the 27-year-old was fired from his job handling mail and the front desk, he says, after managers learned of his Web log, or blog.

His story is more than a cautionary tale. Delta Air Lines, Google and other major companies are firing and disciplining employees for what they say about work on their blogs, which are personal sites that often contain a mix of frank commentary, freewheeling opinions and journaling.

What a dipshit. Anyone in the world can read your blog, so if you don't want your co-workers to see pictures of your cat or hear your rants about Wal-mart and the hydrogen powered car, better off just keeping them to yourself, chief.

"Right now, it's too gray. There needs to be clearer guidelines," says Whitney, who has found another job. "Some people go to a bar and complain about workers, I decided to do it online. Some people say I deserve what happened, but it was really harsh. It was unfair."

So he's not just stupid, but a whiner, too. Bitching about your boss to your coworker at happy hour over a few beers is as old as work itself. Writing it down is a monumental leap of stupidity, and putting it on the internet defies all reason. This mouth-breather ever heard of google?