Worker Fears He's Getting Fired After Posting On Social Media About His Boss Constantly Being On Vacation
A perfect example of the importance of keeping your digital footprint clean as a whistle.
YAKOBCHUK VIACHESLAV | Shutterstock By now, we all know that if there's one universal truth about our jobs, it's that work and social media do not mix. One worker online learned that lesson the hard way after a post of his fell into the wrong hands and somehow made its way to his boss, even after he took precautions to keep it private.
The worker fears he's getting fired after posting about his boss on social media.
When it comes to social media, the general rule of thumb is that if you don't want your boss or a future employer to see it, don't post it, right? Gone are the days when we all felt we had some semblance of privacy in our online lives, so you have to be super careful.
But this worker did take precautions and it seems that, one way or another, it wasn't enough, and after an awkward meeting, he's sweating bullets.
In the post, he lamented about not being able to afford Christmas while his boss goes on vacation constantly.
In his Reddit post, the man, who works at a sawmill in his small town, explained that he had a pretty depressing Christmas this year due to his financial situation. So he did what many of us would do in that case — posted on Facebook to commiserate with friends.
He posted a status "along the lines of 'no Christmas here this year, just rent and bills.'" That in and of itself is no big deal, of course, but "then a random bootlicker commented about how hard everyone has it, even businesses."
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Understandably, this delusional and insensitive comment rubbed him the wrong way, and he couldn't help himself. "I replied with 'Well my boss has been on vacation more times this year than I’ve been to Walmart.'" Uh oh…
In a recent all-staff meeting, his boss made comments about so-called "Facebook warriors" making inappropriate statements while glaring directly at him the whole time. Worse still, he's noticed that his boss and supervisors are "nitpicking everything I do and attempting to train new people on my machine."
He'd taken precautions to keep the post private, but suspects word got around his small town.
At first blush, this all seems like the kind of situation where it's hard to feel any sympathy for this guy. What do you expect to happen when you drag your boss on a public forum on which you're "friends" with your colleagues?
But when Redditors pushed back in this vein, the worker explained that he actually has his Facebook page on lockdown. He is only connected on the app with a couple of people from work with whom he is very close friends and trusts that "they’d never roll over on me."
The problem; however, is that he lives in a very small, tight-knit community where "just about everyone has worked at this mill at one point." He suspects that one of his Facebook friends is a former employee who knows his boss and sent the post to him.
This is a perfect example of why experts say that it's best to avoid being connected to coworkers on social media unless your job requires it. As expert Matti Laukkarinen explained to the Harvard Business Review, "With AI tools, recruiters [and employers] can data-mine everything." So, if you wouldn't want your boss or a future employer to see your digital footprint, just don't post it in the first place.
Of course, there's always the option of a fake account to post your work gripes, or there are functions on nearly all apps that allow you to limit a post's visibility to only an airtight audience of people you truly know and trust.
Yet as this man's experience shows, those functions are only as good as your judgment on who qualifies as a "trusted friend." In other words, if you aren't 100% certain they'd never rat on you, leave them off your VIP list. Your job just might depend on it.
John Sundholm is a writer, editor, and video personality with 20 years of experience in media and entertainment. He covers culture, mental health, and human interest topics.