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Dec 31, 2005

Blogging about Boss


Aargh another one. A blogger in UK has been fired for calling his boss "evil" in his blog. So if you thought you were safe as long as you dont mention company's secrets, or said the company was wrong immoral and unethical and the next Enron, well think again. He didnt name the boss or the company, just dropped a hint about the company's name and mentioned, his Boss is evil, in his blog.

So here are some tips to help those who blog and work, and especially those who blog about work.

1.Your Boss will read it.
Thanks to office gossip, search engines and karma, your boss is bound, to read your blog. Especially if you write something bad about your Boss.
So write something good about your Boss. If you cant, be sarcastic, without giving the details. A blogger can get fired for calling his Boss "Evil" not for calling the Boss "Inspiring".
What matters is not what they know you think, but what the blog says.

And more importantly you have made it tough for the Company PRO to explain, they want to fire you for calling your Boss (sarcastically) Inspiring.

2.Write in codes.
And give the key to your readers after verifying their identity. (Dont be dumb enough to mention it your colleagues at work.)
Simple code, your Boss can be called the Alien from Saturn. (Dont use this name because your Boss could read this post too). And write a fictional series about the Alien from Saturn.
Now you have made it tougher for your company PRO to explain that they think your Boss is an Alien from Saturn.

3.Write in smart code.
Instead of words like stupid, irritating, dumb, hitler, idiotic,moron, use a single word "wonderful". And let your friends know when you say wonderful you dont mean wonderful.
Makes it tough for the company PRO to explain they are going to fire you for calling your Boss "wonderful". And earns you points with your Boss too. If you get tired of wonderful, include amazing,inspiring,fab,marvellous, brilliant, encouraging, cool.

4.Be careful about abusing another Blogger
You could end up abusing your Boss who is using an annon id. You might not get fired. But then you value your appraisal dont you.

5.What applies for your Boss applies for your colleagues too.
Who knows they could become your Boss oneday. So dont directly blog about them.

6.Never ever support action by other corporates against bloggers.
Say Freedom has Responsibilites too.
I know its sad, but then, they should have listened to wise donkey and read this post and followed the instructions.

7.Avoid talking about yourself.
Oh sorry was that a bucket of ice water on you?I know you want to desperately mention that you just won an Oscar (or its equivalent in your life).
The best way to deal with this would be to write two blogs ,one official and another unofficial.
In the official one write how life is wonderful and how you are wonderful to everyone. And how you are thankful to God your family, friends, colleagues, and Boss for something you have won or got.
In the unofficial, make it annon and refer frequently to your official blog. Point out the person mentioned in that is so amazing inspiring and caring and unreasonably modest. So your unofficial blog readers would know about the official you. And your official blog readers need not know about your dark side.

8.Its not just boss, it could be family too
Today it was a worker for calling his boss evil. Tommorrow it could be your spouse who could ask for a divorce because you said, my spouse is evil.
So apply the same rules as above for family.
Your Boss is the Alien from Saturn
Your Colleague1 is the Alien from asteroid 1
Your Spouse is the Alien from Mercury and so on.
The divorce case becomes tougher when you claim, you are just an aspiring sci-fi writer who thinks the aliens from mercury are evil.

9.What others blog about your Boss
Find out what others blog about your Boss through search engines or office gossip. And inspite of these extreme measures, if you get caught, mention to your Boss "I called you evil" But colleague ___ called you "extremely evil".
Atleast you will get the satisfaction of taking down someone else with you.

10.Encourage everyone you know to blog
If everyone blogged and if everyone wrote their Boss is evil, it would be tough for companies to fire and hire. It would become normal and ok. Even if some "evil" people would say its not ethical.

11.When your Boss asks you to blog.
Just because they want you to blog doesnt mean the company wants you to blabber.
Be formal and polite to everyone who comments. Even if you think they are a Pain.
This would just mean you will need to have three blogs.
A.The official company one.
Where you can safely say the weather is beautiful (unless you are in weather forecasting, then you could be fired for leaking secrets).
B.The official private one.
Where you can praise your Boss and thank God for giving you a challenging work environment and an adorable family.
C.The unoffial absoloutely annon one.
Where you can talk about the Aliens in the universe (here too no names or hints of the characters in your life) and the inspiring blog you came across (link to your official private blog.)

12.Blogging hours.
Your family might pout when you blog for hours.
Your company might not mind your blogs, but could be firm on not blogging during office hours.
Give the remote control to your kids and convince the spouse that you would mention him/her in the first page of your Sci-Fi Book. But for that you must blog everyday.
Tell your Boss you came across a research which mentions, "Blogging if done for 37 minutes during office hours, increases employee productivity and loyalty." Throw in couple of universities. Mention USA or Japan. And throw in the Koreans and Chinese. Who knows your Boss could believe you.

If you think you have to exercise caution about just your Boss,Company,Colleagues,Spouse, Family and friends,neighbours, you are wrong.

You have to watch what you write about your country too. Even if you are in USA. Well I think especially if you are in USA. If Bush popularity slips more due to Bloggers, and you arent his fan, who knows, the next war can be against you. You could be the new axis in Evil.

But even if you decide to disregard all the above, never ever write against the media.
They could organise stings when you decide to catch up with another blogger and call your meet a failure. Or ridicule you and your blogs, or worse the entire blogger community. (Hey why should I get a bad name for what you wrote).

And even if you decide to be brave about it, Never Ever write against the media in the blogsite of that media, especially in O...
(I meant Omega Galaxy blogsite, what did you think, I would say?)

Happy New Year:)



27 comments:

  1. Gayatri ji,

    Aapko nav-varsh ki hardik shubhkaamnaaye!

    And quite useful post about blogging and bosses. Although the rebel in me says that it will not stop about blogging about work - however personal it may be. Freedom of speech zindabad! :)

    Pleez don't start talks about blogging less. We lurrrrve your posts.

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  2. Vaibhav,
    Aapko bhi nav varsha chi hardik subheikhsa (did i get it right?)
    Happy new year vaibhav,

    Well all the Best to the Truly Brave:)

    Will try to blog, Love to blog, but what to do, there is life beyond blogs:)

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  3. Aapko bhi nav varsha chi hardik subheikhsa A khichdi of Hindi-marathi huh??

    Marathi: Tumhala nav varsha chya hardik shubechya!

    Now say that 3 times.

    PS: With Vaibhav, everyday you learn something new! ;-)

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  4. Hilarious, especially the weather comment on the offical company blog :-D. My first boss in my first company was a maniac (thats too small a word to describe the person), but since I am not in that company anymore, I guess I can blog about that without the honey-coating :-D.

    But blogging about my work/boss has never been an interest of mine, I don't know why. Maybe there's nothing interesting to tell... :).

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  5. G3(Akka),

    Maja la vadivelu solra mathiri enime neenga dan en akka...naan dan unga thambi..."

    in immortal blog "OMG pluto! he is like a thambi to me of course emotionally he is my "dei guru" ..."dei" va????...

    good read again...though lengthy:)

    good tips for those who r working...but...me...planned to take a break... desperately... unable to find time...

    vl keep it in mind...if i have to say something abt my boss...

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  6. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  7. :))
    :))
    :))

    lovely gaya!

    Wishing u a wonderful Year Ahead:)

    With Each step u take and make:)

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  8. vaibhav:) well at school too i got confused between hindi and marathi. (probably day dreamin in both the classes)
    Tumhala nav varsha chya hardik shubechya
    Tumhala nav varsha chya hardik shubechya
    Tumhala nav varsha chya hardik shubechya
    learning is always fun:)

    deeps wonder if next there would be defamation of character lawsuitson blogs. while there is less chance of someone readin our diary, we can argue blogs are online diaries, but our luck , only the person we write something less flattering about reads it:D

    deeps thanks and well your blogs are interesting even if they dont have some tales about the maniac:)

    well i do have some grudges against my boss but i really cant imagine myself blogging about it even now. if i wanted to tell someone , better if they know it directly, rather than read my blog to find out:)

    pluto i am used to people calling me g3/gaya3 etc, so i responded to a comment meant for amusing musing gayathri's comment. the dei guru, because u had used it.


    thanks vyom. Thankfully I am a stay at home blogger:)

    thanks rams:)

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  9. wishing you and your family a happy,prosperous,healthy and beautiful 2006

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  10. thank you shrawan and wish you and your family a very wonderful 2006:)

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  11. Oh Oh......Me be just back....Hav to delete a statement bout my boss from one of my recent posts....:(

    Maybe I shud also remove all my replies to leos in the Horoscope post 2...:D

    BTW....quite a superb and hilarious post....:D

    And since its not office time, I wont write a detailed reply, cos am in a cafe...:D:D:D

    Happy New Year

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  12. konfusd, thank you.

    Well i can understand your apprehension on bloggin about boss, but deleting the leo post! why do is your boss a Leo? :D


    Happy New Year:)

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  13. what crap?? Are they going to fire people for blogging...eh!! Now I have to search all of my posts to see if there is anything against my manager...shit..and I have to delete one whole post abt the girl sitting in the next cube...lest she charges me with sexula harassment...

    btw, google who runs blogger has fired one employee for blogging :)

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  14. sure others have been fired b4, but this is the first in Uk and the reason behind it sure, interesting.

    on the girl, stop being stupid about sexual harrassment:) anyway if you have doubt about it, you can read the definition here

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  15. "They could organise stings when you decide to catch up with another blogger and call your meet a failure. Or ridicule you and your blogs, or worse the entire blogger community. (Hey why should I get a bad name for what you wrote).
    "

    ROFL

    Oh btw, you can get away with ridiculing the media on O3 - at least I have!

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  16. toi sent a "james" to a blog meet as a blogger. check desi media bitch blog and wrote about it.

    and then couple of references in outlook to blogging

    i had in mind when i wrote the blog bangaloreguy

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  17. yup know about Ranjan Yumnam(dunno if I got his name right). He taught us the word "undercover" dint ya know?

    The references in outlook were pretty okay except for the pretentions (a)vivek(a)

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  18. LOOOL. Count the number of O's ;) Really enjoyed reading! :) I wonder if I'd be able to develop your kind of sense of humor ever. :(

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  19. ketan thanks:)
    everyone has it, perhaps just write immediately as i do, without thinking and without caring if you are going to make a fool of yourself:)

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  20. Do you really feel I actually think before writing if I would make a fool of myself? I don't, that's why I wouldn't mind writing something like 'insanity personified'! :)

    Being a female yourself, you couldn't get that I was only using feminine form of 'fishing for compliment'? :P

    I just wanted your reassurance that my sense of humor IS good, and not that I merely have a POTENTIAL to write well. :( I'm disappointed with you; I'll stop commenting on your blog. :,(

    TC.

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  21. u missed the compliment..
    that you dont Need a compliment from me, is THE compliment:)

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  22. Feminine form of defense, eh?!! ;) Anyway, thanks! Of course, was just joking in the above 2 comments, except for the praise part.

    In all likelihood, I'll keep on reading and commenting on your blog as long as you yourself don't ask me to not comment. :P

    And commenting on your posts also has some fringe benefit, viz., some form of immunity from getting killed by you! ;)

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  23. :D seriously, i wrote the impulse comment only because i read in ur post or comment u spend time on post before posting and i wanted to tell u post something immediately..u must have mentioned re a particular post and i assumed all post..

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  24. Yes, typically I do take time to publish posts, 'cuz I've to either post through cell phone (and honor the limit of 17 smses), and go to a cyber cafe to publish them! So actually very few posts on my blog are written with real time emotions, and you've incidentally read most of them! :) Two of the posts that were very impulsive are - 'communalism' and 'a few responses to criticsm of atheism'.

    TC.

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Have a Great Day!