Another day, and another sacking due to blogging, with a report on Silicon.com an employee of UK book chain Waterstone’s has been fired for material he included in his blog.
Joe Gordon, who has been running his Woolamaloo Gazette first as a satirical newsletter since 1992, then as a blog since 2003, was dismissed last week after working for the bookseller for 11 years, following a disciplinary hearing.
Before jumping up and down though, the report continues that “Gordon occasionally used his online diary to vent steam about his working life” and used the terms “Bastardstone’s” and “Evil Boss” when referring to his employer and fellow employees.
The company, unsurprisingly, said that the blog had brought it into disrepute.
“I was gobsmacked,” Gordon said of his sacking. “I’ve done so much promotion for this company, it’s not true.”
How promoting a company by referring to it as “Bastardstone’s” was not specified in the report.
Gordon, taking surprise offence that his employee could find such terms offensive, stated “I could live with not talking about that… they’ve been so heavy-handed,” he said, and he would have stopped bagging his employee online if they’d asked.
We know Ellen Simonetti, The Queen of the Sky, will be all over this, particularly with her International Bloggers Bill of Rights page (which we support, by the way), but unlike her case, in which she neither slandered her employees nor mentioned them by name in her blog (her only offence was to appear in a photo in uniform), this goose got what he deserved.
Damn, and ye shall be damned in return.
