More Musings On The Dooce Lady In Utah

I found time last night to actually read her entire post on getting fired for blogging about work, and was struck by how differently things had gone than what I'd imagined upon first hearing the story, third-hand. Now, admittedly this is just her side of the story, but it's also likely the only side we'll ever hear given how close-mouthed employers tend to be about such things. So it's all we have to go by.

Her description of the run-up to the event includes:

"The Asian Database Administrator who often served as the subject of ridicule on dooce.com was one of my good friends at the company that fired me. He was fully aware that I was writing stray missives at his expense, and on several occasions he helped me write characterizations of himself. It was a joke shared between friends, and he was a willing participant. He thought it was funny. That was all that mattered to me. If you think it was racist, you have your own problems. Go and read someone else’s blog."

The famous Asian Database Administrator label was one I'd heard about, and immediately assumed it was someone she didn't like at work and was therefore slurring him or her as a cheap-ass attempt at revenge. The fact that they were friends, and that he allegedly helped her write some of the entries about himself, blew me away!

Next, I'd wondered just how the company execs found out about her blog, and how she reacted when it came out. She writes:

"The morning that the anonymous person sent the email to the vice-presidents of my company, I immediately pulled the human resources representative into a conference room and explained to her that I had no ill will toward anyone at my company and that I did not support the political intentions of whoever sent the email. I also explained to her that most of what I had written was grossly exaggerated for comedic effect, and that many of the personalities in my post were combinations of several people I have worked with over the last five years. She suggested that I send an email to everyone included on the original email to explain things. She did not, however, tell me that if I did not send an explanatory email that I would lose my job. Nor did she tell me to remove anything from my website. For the record, there was no formal warning or directive concerning what I needed to do in order to prevent the loss of my job."

Other than the fact that it sounds like she didn't follow the advice of the HR person (I don't see that she wrote any explanatory e-mail), it would seem she was completely upfront about it and tried to proactively do the right thing.

Finally, as to the big event itself, her version of it includes:

"When I returned to work on Tuesday, my boss and the human resources representative pulled me into a conference room and handed me my last paycheck. They explained that the company had a zero-tolerance policy about negativity (?), that my website was influencing the younger, more impressionable members of the company, and that the CEO demanded that I be terminated at once.

I received no severance."

Aside from the last line sending shivers down my spine (I have to think she could've challenged the termination-without-severance with the assistance of any competent labour lawyer), it's fascinating to see the reasons that were quoted. The fact that any company would acknowledge that an external website - not affiliated with the company in any official way, not even naming the company or using logos or trademarks - was actually influencing employees to the point where the company felt obliged to act so decisively, speaks volumes about what the culture at that place must've been like. She'd mentioned earlier that there were no warnings ahead of time, so it wasn't like her bosses asked her to shut down the website, or even just stop blogging about work, but instead went directly to termination. I think of Tammy's comment, on the original blog I wrote on this topic, that she wouldn't want to work anywhere that treated people that poorly. Having read the full account now, I'm with her!

Interesting episode to read, though. It makes almost a meta-comment about the value of blogging, in the sense that the woman in question captured all of this in near real-time, for others to be entertained by and potentially even learn from, for years afterwards. Go bloggers!