Airline staff sacked after Facebook insults

Thirteen staff at Virgin Atlantic were sacked for making disrespectful comments about passengers and derogatory allegations about poor safety standards on public areas of the Facebook social networking site. Less than a week later, British Airways staff were reprimanded for whingeing about "annoying" and "smelly" passengers.

The events highlight how companies are realising how powerful the web is at shaping reputations, as this Economist article, Losing Face, explains.

No doubt PR companies who specialise in mediating and monitoring how brands are represented by bloggers and denizens of social networking sites are jumping at the chance to promote their own 'damage control' services.

Clearly, companies haven't been doing more to let their staff know what is and isn't acceptable in the first place? Every workplace has an internet usage policy, but it seems that people assume it's switched off when they leave the office, or they forget that things they post online can be traced.

After the Virgin Atlantic sackings, the company posted on its official fan page:

"Virgin Atlantic has been made aware of some malicious comments that have been made on a social networking site by a small number of its staff. The airline has started an immediate disciplinary investigation. We do not tolerate any criticism of our passengers or industry-leading safety standards and we are taking this matter very seriously."

When your boss is your Facebook friend... SICKIE WOO!

So. You're sick. Sick of work, that is. And you don't want to come in. So, what do you do? You call your boss and say, "I can't come in this morning. I'm unwell."

In the old days, your boss would sigh and say, "I hope you feel better soon."

But these days, your boss doesn't feel sympathy. They know how to prove you were lying. It doesn't involve hiring a private investigator and having someone follow you to make sure you don't leave the house.

All they have to do is log on to Facebook. Now, this particular story may turn out to be urban legend, as the alleged e-mail exchange is denied by boss and culprit... but the story goes like this:

Kyle Doyle chucked a sickie, as they say in Australia, and on his Facebook status update were the immortal words,

Kyle Doyle is not going to work, fuck it i'm still trashed. SICKIE WOO!

When Kyle refused to give his boss a medical certificate, saying it was unnecessary, his boss then pasted the status update into an email as 'proof' of the deception.




True or not, the email illustrates rule number one: your current boss should never be your friend on Facebook. That's what LinkedIn is for. Rule number two you can work out for yourself...

Source: http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=651937