WHAT HAPPENS ON TWITTER, DOES NOT STAY ON TWITTER

TBK, a 37-year-old single mother, was fired from her day job after only a month of working there once her St. Louis area nonprofit employer discovered she was a sex blogger. How did they find out this information? On Twitter of course. TBK says that she was excellent at keeping her office life and her extracurricular life separate. But when creating her Twitter account TBK put her real name and for some reason expected only her handle to be visible. When she saw that her name did show she went back to delete it and she thought by doing so had solved the problem. But it was too late. The Twitter search engine Topsy already had cached all the details and her name remained next to her handle. And when her boss, googled information about his employees he discovered her Twitter account that included tweets about her fetishes of the day, other erotic material and links to her sex blog. And when she came to work the next day, she was fired immediately.    

It goes without saying that trying to live a double life on the Internet is not smart. People have to realize that once they put their information out there, they cannot take it back. The Internet is just as, if not more public than broadcast television or radio. Anyone can find anything that is uploaded onto it. And while the subject matter of her blog may seem inappropriate, by most, there are some who may find it of interest. However, if someone chooses to be an icon in that realm they can’t expect to be able to carry on the same lifestyle as prudent people. She instead should have chosen work where her reputation wouldn’t be so critical. Good luck.

Do you think the subject matter of TBK’s blog should have affected her employment status?

TWITTER’S NOT FOR TIRADES

After a Sunday night baseball game Sports radio 1310 “The Ticket” talk show host and former MLB player Mike Bacsik was fired from his job after expressing his feelings about the Dallas Mavericks loss to the San Antonio Spurs. When the Mavericks lost the irritated Bacsik tweeted, “Congrats to all the dirty Mexicans in San Antonio.” The story aired nationally on CNN and the next Tuesday Bacsik said he understood why he was fired; he just wished he had a few minutes of airtime to apologize. Bacsik also said he was drunk at a bar that night and after the game was when he started his tweeting tirade. But Bacsik says, “I learned my lesson. I’m owning up to what I did. I did a horrible thing. I’m very sorry and will try my best for my actions to speak louder than my tweets.”

Obviously Twitter is not the place to express your racist positions, especially someone who works in front of the public eye. He probably does really regret it, but is it just because he was fired? The next day did he feel the need to take it down and apologize? We’ll never really know, but we do know that a lot of times how people really feel slips out when they’ve been drinking. And no matter how sorry he was for his remarks he’s now revealed himself as someone with a somewhat negative disposition toward another race and in that case he certainly cannot represent the radio station anymore.

Do you think Bacsik should still have his job? 

TWEET ABOUT JANE ADAMS... LOSE YOUR JOB

Barney Greengrass waiter, Jon Barrett Ingels, claimed the loss of his job due to his twitter post about “Hung” actress Jane Adams. Barney Greengrass, located in Beverly Hills, CA is frequented by celebrities and under the Twitter name PapaBarrett, Jon would talk about who he saw as he waited tables there. And when Jane Adams visited Jon tweeted, “Jane Adams, star of HBO series “Hung” skipped out on a $13.44 check. Her agent called and paid the following day. NO TIP!!” Jon also says Adams did return a month later to tip. But Barney’s corporate found his Twitter account and pushed his manager to fire the waiter of five years, despite the fact that he never said where he worked in any of his tweets.

There was no reason for Jon to be fired. He didn’t do anything that the press doesn’t do everyday. He spotted a celebrity and talked about what they did. He was simply telling the news. It seems that the restaurant should have had a more outraged reaction to this. What if Adams hadn’t sent a representative to pay it? Then they lose money as well. The customer may always be right but even when they don’t pay? Maybe the company should have protected their employee on this one, rather than throwing him under the bus over 140 characters. Jon says, “I understand they want to keep a safe environment for the celebrities and I think that I broke that safety. Had they come to me and said you need to take this down or change it to private, had I been told if you don’t do this, you’re going to lose your job, I would’ve done that.” Jon was Barney Greengrass’ side. They should have been on Jon’s side too.

Since the firing Jon has tweeted, “Working at the LA Opera today. WooHoo a job! That is all that I’m gonna write about THIS job.”

Do you think Jon deserved to lose his job?

@CHRYSLERAUTOS' FOUR LETTER FLUB

The Chrysler Company hired social media strategist Scott Bartosiewcz to manage their social media affairs eight months ago. All was going well until one day in early March on his way home and stuck in traffic Scott tweeted “I find it ironic that Detroit is known as the #motorcity and yet no one here knows how to f*cking drive.” Scott meant for the tweet to appear on his personal account but he mistakenly sent it to the Chrysler brand’s feed. The flub resulted not only with Scott’s dismissal but Chrysler also let go of his employer, New Media Strategies, a Virginia based marketing firm.

Everybody makes mistakes, and if the public were a more forgiving audience Chrysler should have been able to keep Scott and New Media Strategies because they have been doing an excellent job for Chrysler. But people like to overreact to any little thing they can and Chrysler knows this. In order to avoid the unwanted press and loss of business that Chrysler invested so much into to building, Scott had to go. And Scott says he understands Chrysler’s position.

Chrysler apologized via twitter writing, “Our apologies- our account was compromised earlier today. We are taking steps to resolve it.”

Do you think Chrysler took the right steps to resolve it?

REALGILBERT TWEETS HIMSELF OUT OF JOB

The TV voice of the popular Aflac bird, Gilbert Gottfried has been fired for his insensitive Tweets about Japan on Twitter.  Gottfried wrote, “Japan is really advanced. They don't go to the beach. The beach comes to them." Apparently he thought the tweets were just funny, not mean. But while Gottfried has been spokesperson for Aflac for 10 years now, 75% of Aflac’s business is done in Japan and thus Aflac had no choice. But even if the company didn’t have so much presence in Japan they most likely would have gotten rid of him anyways.

The tweet was a bad move on Gottfried’s part. Because he is a comedian he probably approaches issues like these with a lighter heart than most but he failed to take into consideration peoples real devastation.  But a lot about being a comedian is about timing and this comment came way too soon. But now Gottfried has his own new crisis. He needs a new job and someone who would consider hiring him after all this. Hope he can find the comedic relief in that.

Turns out he may have, yesterday (March 21, 2011) RealGilbert tweeted: “I’ve got it! A new version of Full House with me, @charliesheen and Mel Gibson!”

Do you think Gottfried should have been fired for his 140 characters?