Some people haven’t really learned from the mistakes of others. If you value your job, be very careful where you choose to complain about it, because watchful eyes can be everywhere. Nowhere is this more true than the Internet, where the views of millions are publicly shared with even greater numbers. If you work for Nintendo, as Jessica Zenner did, you better be careful about blogging your bitchery to the world … as Jessica Zenner wasn’t.
Seattle paper The Stranger reported that Zenner’s blog, titled Inexcusable Behavior (ironic, no?) made the suits at Nintendo quite unhappy, possibly because of entries detailing the employee’s co-workers that were less than flattering. She described one of her colleagues as a hormonal, facial-hair growing, frumpy woman who’d given her a new excuse to drink heavily. She punctuated this eloquent description but hypothesizing that the woman had not [expletive’d] in years. Apparently that’s not kosher — who knew?
Jessica was unaware of any blog policies, she claims, and also defends her complaining with the fact that she never mentioned Nintendo by name, and even wrote under the alias of Jessica Carr. Nevertheless, the pictures of Zenner on the blog were enough and Mario angrily fired her.
I wonder now, is it really good form to fire someone if they complain about their job and are caught? Everybody does it, everybody knows they do it. Does blogging those complaints make them more offensive? Does the fact that Nintendo itself wasn’t mentioned or that this was done outside of the workplace have any weight in the situation? Evidently not, as Nintendo fired her, but I wonder if she really, truly deserved it. Mind you, I’d never be stupid enough to insult my colleagues on a blog … mainly because they kind of write here too. The wankers.
