Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 68 total)
  • facebook comments, possible disciplinary, advice please?
  • PhilipMorris
    Free Member

    i’ve made a boo-boo at work.

    i work at a site owned by company a
    i work for company b, who are contracted by company a
    company a provides the catering for the site, also contracted by company a

    after many months of woeful dismal food from one employee of company c- who has received many written complaints and verbal warnings- i wrote an email of complaint to their boss. that should have been the end of it but i vented on facebook too. yes, i know. 😳
    no company was named nor was any individual although the site was. i basically said the food on one particular night was “the worst i’d ever eaten” and “shit”. people have accepted and agree with the content of the email I sent, but taken umbrage to the facebook thing.

    should i start polishing up my cv?

    batfink
    Free Member

    The place where I used to work had a social media policy that made it clear that this sort of thing was a disciplinary offence. Do you have anything like that?

    You’ve named the “site”….. but how generic was that description? Ie: was it “Newcastle” or the actual name of a depot or something?

    PhilipMorris
    Free Member

    actual name of worksite.

    i don’t remember any social media policy stuff but i’d be very surprised if there isn’t one in place.

    i’ve never had an disciplinary action in my working life, and my recent yearly performance review highlights my excellent knowledge and work ethics.

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    shifter
    Free Member

    If it’s your first ever brush with disciplinary action I’d be surprised if you’d get the sack. That said, a CV once-over wouldn’t do it any harm!

    Matt24k
    Free Member

    Judging by the lack of capitals and punctuation in your post, you really should polish up your CV 🙂

    batfink
    Free Member

    Well – if you haven’t signed anything about social media, they probably can’t just sack you, particularly if you haven’t mentioned either company by name.

    However, you might get a warning I suppose. I would take that on the chin 🙂

    I assume you have deleted said post? If you were really worried, you could de-friend (albeit temporarily) colleagues to demonstrate demarkation between your work and “private” communication. Obviously it’s a bit late for that, but it depends how worried you are about this escalating.

    joepose
    Free Member

    If you are to be disciplined they should have got you to sign a AUP (acceptable usage policy) or similar.
    Good lesson learnt though ehh?

    PhilipMorris
    Free Member

    been having a look at company policies. there are some bits about not using bad language on social media, not being derogatory towards others, and not causing offense to or damaging relationships with a client or customer that i think is closest to what i’ve done. as i said i’ve not mentioned any company names, no individuals- although it’s clear if you work here who i was talking about. like i mentioned in my first post, the individual in question is well known for their lack of effort and dismal food. it’s made worse by the fact that they can actually cook well, and do so for maybe 1 or 2 meals after their latest bollocking but then slip back into the usual rubbish until the next time.

    cheekyboy
    Free Member

    i’ve never had an disciplinary action in my working life, and my recent yearly performance review highlights my excellent knowledge and work ethics.

    This should pull you through this trying time, best of luck.

    wrightyson
    Free Member

    Packed lunch?

    piemonster
    Full Member

    That’ll teach you for expressing an honest opinion. Didn’t you know you’re not allowed them.

    piemonster
    Full Member

    Packed lunch?

    Seems like a reasonable solution.

    I got kind of ‘done’ recently, it’s easier to maintain good relations after the event as I barely use the ‘product’ in question so have no real interaction with the relevant parties.

    joshvegas
    Free Member

    Shit food caused you distress that madeyou act irrationally, a number of complaints have not been acted upon. Go in on the offensive.

    Facebook is SOCIAL media how would anyone at WORK know what you wriye on there?

    pitchpro2011
    Free Member

    Be nothing but apologetic, you weren’t thinking clearly, frustrated and it was a stupid thing to do. It’s a disciplinary offense but you won’t get fired unless you show no remorse and can’t guarentee it won’t happen again. Top tip don’t be friends on social media with people who will grass you up.

    piedidiformaggio
    Free Member

    From the training I’ve had, then you appear to be on very dodgy ground. You don’t need to name the company, if any association you have will be apparent.

    Deleting after the event isn’t going to help if they want to make an example of you.

    They don’t need a specific social media policy, there will no doubt be a clause in your contract about bringing the company into disrepute. Social media policies are becoming more common, but it just backs up what’s already there.

    Hopefully they will just rap your knuckles, but be prepared. In a union? Call them now. For any disciplinary proceedings, always take someone in with you.

    When I was briefed on this sort of thing there were plenty of cases of dismissal used as examples.

    Basically it boiled down to ‘don’t bad mouth your employer on any social media’.

    By the way, this is also social media, so you need to think very carefully about what you say on here. Repeating what you said on Facebook on here is pretty much the same as putting it on Facebook in the first place

    Good luck!

    PhilipMorris
    Free Member

    i haven’t bad mouthed my employer, it’s an individual from another company who is contracted to the same worksite as me by the worksite owner who are themselves another different company.

    as far as being nothing but apologetic how does that tally with my official complaint about the individual? i guess it’s a case of sticking by the sentiment, just not the means of delivery?

    piedidiformaggio
    Free Member

    It won’t change you complaint about the other person

    There may, however, be a complaint about you now as well

    What’s done is done. You can’t change that now, but I suggest you prepare to get some professional advise if the company want to go formal

    rickmeister
    Full Member

    Is your forum name also connected with the employer… ?

    peterfile
    Free Member

    Facebook is SOCIAL media how would anyone at WORK know what you wriye on there?

    I think you’ve misunderstood what social means in this context 🙂

    stumpyjon
    Full Member

    Personally I think what you’ve said would be difficult to reasonably construe as bringing your company into disrepute. Youve not publicly attacked the company, employees, management, customers, products or services. I would think dismissal would be extreme and very challangeable.

    However if you have someone gunning for you or an HR person trying to make a career statement out of your case reasonableness may go out the window. Hows your relationship with your boss? If it’s good get them onside, if they value you this incident shouldn’t warrant anything more than a quiet don’t be a muppet in future.

    It’s a new high profile area for a lot of managers and some will over react. That said it’s always worth thinking carefully about what you post anywhere in the internet, you can’t retract and it can easily be taken out of context.

    mattzzzzzz
    Free Member

    Not the best news but I have at least 3 friends/acquaintances that have been dismissed for facebook entries
    It really is a minefield, I would go with the “didn’t know about social media policy” if they pull one on you and say you will be more guarded in future about what you write

    grum
    Free Member

    Depends on all sorts of factors but I would tend to assume that if they didn’t want to sack you before this then they won’t want to now.

    toppers3933
    Free Member

    You say ‘people have taken umbrage’. Who are people?
    Also you might want to consider a different user name on here? Just a thought.
    Also, you can be apologetic about how you expressed your views without necessarily being apologetic for the content. And I’d be taking a packed lunch from now on if I where you. At least you know that it’s only your wife and kids who’ve spat in it. 😀

    My general rule of thumb is to assume that all your customers and your boss can see what you write on Facebook (Even though they probably can’t). If you don’t want them to see it, don’t write it in the first place.

    crankboy
    Free Member

    Did they give you social media training ? My wife’s quasi employers ensure it is laid on thick very early on . I would go with apoligetic laced with sorry you did not train me better. From the perspective of knowing nothing I would say no way will they chose to lose a good employee over this . my quess is they have hauled the cook up over this and he has countered with look what the nasty man said on FB ,they now feel the need to do something to be seen to be fair but won’t want to damage their core business over trivia.

    allthepies
    Free Member

    Personally, I don’t put anything on Facebook about work life*. Just not worth the potential hassle, I know two people who have lost their job due to interwebz postings.

    * I did recently about a redundancy situation but no employer mentioned and post was benign.

    jota180
    Free Member

    Personally, I don’t put anything on Facebook [strike]about work life[/strike]

    plyphon
    Free Member

    Personally, I don’t put anything on Facebook

    Don’t put anything on Facebook you wouldn’t say face to face with your employer, mother, father, wife, friends, or in fact – anyone at all.

    If you wouldn’t say it out loud surrounded by all those people above, don’t say it online – because it’s the exact same thing! (and arguably more permanent)

    andyrm
    Free Member

    ^^ This.

    I work on the basis never to post anything that you wouldn’t say in front of a boss/client/or in punching distance.

    We seem as a society to have fallen into a dangerous and slightly odd “need” to rant/vent online. And just as in real life, where throwing toys out the pram publicly would be frowned on, we’re rightly seeing people saying enough is enough.

    DaveyBoyWonder
    Free Member

    First rule of facebook. Don’t have colleagues as friends.

    You lose.

    tomd
    Free Member

    I’m sure you’ll be fine. It sounds like the worst you’ve done is air some (slightly) dirty company washing in a semi-public forum. Sounds very much at the “minor” end of the scale. Just apologise and sound contrite. If you boss supports you anyway, and the food is indeed crap, then I’m sure you’ll be OK.

    dooosuk
    Free Member

    How many meals is this 1 person cooking; is it just one chef for an entire site? I’m confused how you know the particular chef that cooked your meal in the canteen of a big site.

    thomthumb
    Free Member

    please friend me. i’d love you here more about lunches on facebook.

    FFS

    john_drummer
    Free Member

    Top tip don’t be friends on social media with people who will grass you up you work with.

    and

    If you wouldn’t say it out loud surrounded by all those people above, don’t say it online

    I’d go further than that and say if you wouldn’t write it in the papers, don’t write it online.

    BigJohn
    Full Member

    If you are the head chef there you’ve got a problem.

    nemesis
    Free Member

    Check your company’s disciplinary procedure. It should lay out the process and most likely it will set out what circumstances that dismissal without any prior warnings is an option. Usually that would be for either criminal acts or gross negligence only.

    Given your clean record and that I reckon they’d be hard pressed to claim gross negligence, you’re most likely to get a written warning at worst.

    If they don’t have a written procedure they’ll be on very shaky ground.

    hora
    Free Member

    OP considering you posted on FB you are now linking/commenting on here albeit without the company name discussing the situation on a public forum.

    freeagent
    Free Member

    As others have said – don’t mix social media and work. ever.
    I don’t have any work people as FB friends, and keep my posts about work to a minimum (usually just the odd check-in if i’m somewhere interesting, and never anything negative)

    We’ve had social media awareness training at work, and Facebook is not worth loosing my job over.

    grum
    Free Member

    I have lots of work friends/contacts on Facebook and use it quite extensively for networking etc. As long as you’re not posting anything rude/unpleasant/offensive I don’t really see the problem.

    Do people hate their jobs so much they feel the need to vent on a regular basis, or is it that they regularly post embarrassing ‘god i got really wasted and punched a horse at the weekend’ updates?

    annebr
    Free Member

    I actually like the people I work with and do consider them friends.

    Though I haven’t “friended” every person at my place of work because they aren’t friends.

    showerman
    Free Member

    larger companies are trawling the social media looking and use may different ways, your name being one and if using a works pc then its possible they know your passwords and all sites you are visiting and any other user names this may never be an issue till someone makes a complaint then 1 press of a button and all your history is clear to see.
    i have a works phone/pda and they are very open with if you do not want us to know do not use this phone and it is scary the software avilable for them to use, they can remotely see my key stokes so if i say i did not do that the can play them back. scary on one had but also got me out of a few holes when accused of something i never did
    moral of the story is never write anything on the internet you do not want someone to see as once sent it will be seen by everyone

Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 68 total)

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