I'm really private with my online postings about work, because I am paranoid it could affect me in the future - and because I've read about several people really fired or disciplined because of stuff online. I make it a point to not write about work anymore, or be really vague because of it. Is it fair? Naah. But it is my reality.

But then again, I only post on my blogs what I would tell people in person, so I am a cautious one. Neat question!

Great post. This is the perfect way to get the new Mo'times off to a running start. Thanks.

In answer to your question, your private life is, in no uncertain terms, off limits to your employer *unless* there is some direct connection to your work. But if you blog about co-workers or boss, for instance, and you leave enough clues on your blog to be identified, then it is you who are bringing the workplace to your blog and you should expect that it will be discovered and held against you. (If you share the address with allied co-workers, you are also asking for the same trouble.)

So, I would say this about that: human behavior being what it is on the net (exploratory, curious, snooping, stalking), anyone who does not build in protections to their private identity online is partly to blame for aiding and abetting the resulting violation of privacy.

This does not legitimize the invasion in any way, it is just an acknowledgment of collusion, even if the result of naïveté or subconscious auto-sabotage...

If you plan to be in the job market and you use your real first and last name in various social networks, you had best beware as to how you present yourself, or make sure to keep the privacy settings up to the max. Employers will certainly be doing "due diligence" by searching for your name online...

Thanks again, dear PS, for stepping up to the plate!

Thanks for letting me start doing this Howard. And thanks for the shout out. I love stuff like this.

I find it hard to believe that if someone really wanted privacy they could figure out how to open a blank word document and put a password on it, thus ensuring a truly private digital diary. The truth is we're all attention whores. As someone who is a social network fiend, I once said that my blog is but a kernel in the Cob of Self-Worship around which my life revolves. In fact, that's the motto of my blog right now.

Having said that, I never say anything on my blog that I wouldn't say to anyone to their face, in the real world and be willing to be held accountable for it. Maybe it's not like that for others, I don't know, but I've definitely deleted entire long posts because I realize that I didn't want all of that out there. If you want something private what in the heck are you doing here?! It's like that line from Cold Mountain "They make the weather and then they stand out in the rain and say 'Shit, it's raining!'"

If my boss were to fire me for something in my blog or something i admitted about my personal life, well I'd be more than happy to leave a place that fired me for my hamster obsession or penchant for a glass of wine over the quality of my work and work ethic.

Bloggers must face facts.

We are rendered unelectable to any political position because we leave "paper" trails. No one has ever been elected because of an abundant record of their opinions. The mere fact that our opinions have been made public, and that we have scattered them so, makes a blogger supremely unelectable. For those of us who hold politicians in less regard than prostitutes, this is not much of a disadvantage, but I can see some people feeling disappointed.

In the corporate world, the threat is not so much one's previously stated opinions on caturday or the deformed homeless man on the route to work, but the potential for embarassing details about the company. "Who is to say you won't suddenly post a detailed list of all the design faults in our product? What if you post about *ahem* me and my secretary?"

Throughout history, opinionated people have been made to suffer. The present is unique only in that for the first time in human history, those opinions are recorded in an eternal medium capable of surviving the nuclear immolation of the earth, and yet accessible to anyone capable of using electronics without getting electrocuted. Ostracism is now one click away.

A blogger can either censor herself in fear of retribution, or take the risk and let everything fall where it may.

Myself? I blog under my own name, often use fouler language than George Carlin on a coke binge, rant with more fervor than a Moonie, openly refer to my workplace as a den of despair and evil, and a host of other things which I am sure will not get me invited to a country club any time soon. No one ever became famous for playing it safe. If anyone calls me task about it, I have but one thing to say:

You can take my blog from my cold, dead hands!

Nice. I like that last line...

It isn't right, but I'm sure I'd be fired if my boss read that I think she's a skillet-licking bitch. But it's obvious I don't care since I use my name all the time, talk about daily job related situations, and post a real pic.

If you don't like what I write, don't read my blog! Or you can read it and then complain about it, but chances are I'm just going to make fun of you if you do.

Well, at least your resolute girl. lol Whether you fire me or not, I am still going to make fun of you. It's a good motto. lol

For those of us who blog from small isolated outposts to the rest of the world in order to feel connected to y'all out there reading, blogs are absolutely essential. But it is also absolutely essential that we curb our tongues over what we post that is work related. Perhaps I'm in a bit of a unique position in that I post for half the year from a station in Antarctica in which I live in a dorm, eat in a dining hall, and work with all the same people 24/7. I have no privacy, at work or online. I access everything online via "work" computers and each time I log in I tick a YES on the page that says I have absolutely "no expectation of privacy." I assume that. So I curb my tongue about specific nasty people and the things they do, or the unsafe things we do here that are frowned upon by our corporate minders, or the freedoms we find between the cracks of the safety system that seeks to reduce us to drones unable to enjoy the most beautiful continent in the world, because, well, duh, it's Antarctica, it's sorta unsafe here.

People here read me. There are a lot of bloggers here. We are mostly circumspect about firable things. By necessity. We could get fired and Sent OFF The Ice.

I love this place, I don't want to get Dooced for my blog.

I wish I could say Screw You I'll Blog What I Want to my job, but I am "at work" 24/7 here, and it is a small community. Even alluding to things causes social ripples, we all know to whom someone is alluding, we know the clues. It sucks, but there is no separation here between self and employee, no privacy.

I can't even take a dump without witnesses. =)

Show me someone who isn't suspect for doing fireable things and I will show you some lichen from under a rock. Anytime, anything we do can be reason for dismissal whether the infraction is real or a misunderstanding. I have had people outright lie about me to my boss and I never, EVER post anything to any blog that I would not say to someone's face.

Luckily, in my profession, keeping a blog is encouraged.

sorry, I should have said circumspect in reference to the previous comment - it is more correct :o)