where are they now: update #17 – my manager is complaining about me online

by Alison Green on December 26, 2010

Remember the reader whose manager was complaining about her on Facebook? Here’s her update.

I continued working at that location for a couple more weeks, keeping my mouth shut and doing all that was asked of me and more. My supervisors never once called me back about the situation, my boss never said anything to me about the situation, but she continued to talk about me to customers and online, I’m assuming she didn’t realize I knew everything that was going on.

I got a second job and was working between the two when finally I realized nothing was going to be done about the situation so I quit. My supervisors then called me and asked me not to quit, they needed me, and they would talk to my boss about the situation. We set up a meeting time for all of us to meet and talk things out. I went to that meeting, listened to what they had to offer, then they brought my boss into the room and showed her the stuff I had printed off the internet that she had said about me on Facebook, and asked her to explain herself. She said she shouldn’t have to explain herself, it’s her freedom of speech. They then told her this could qualify as work place harassment and told her she could be terminated. She then retaliated saying that if I didn’t quit she was going to because she was sick of that place anyways. They asked me not to return for work the following week. My boss had been the manager of that branch for 9+ years, so I can understand how they would want to keep her rather than I who had only been there for 3 years.

I still don’t agree with everything that happened there. But I work full time at my new job, they are willing to work around my school schedule, and I love my bosses! 

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{ 11 comments }

{ 11 comments… read them below }

  1. kremlac*

    I would have been on the phone to a lawyer specializing in employment law about 30 seconds after that meeting.

      1. Anonymous*

        OK, let’s look at this.

        A manager posts (allegedly) derogatory things about an employee in a public forum — that’s called slander;

        employee goes to HR/Personnel for relief and is read a prostituted, convoluted incorrect interpretation of the First Amendment and is rebuffed;

        employee who is allegedly slandered is fired, manager is retained and supported in spite of alleged behavior.

        Unless there’s something here that you’re not telling us, this has the smell of “slander case = slam dunk = any attorney will take this on contingency”. Go get ’em! If what you say is true, that company will owe you – BIG.

  3. Anonymous*

    Isn't it lovely how bad behavior is rewarded? The manager will only target someone later without worry since she realizes the supervisors are all talk.

  4. Sergey Gorbatov*

    I believe that social networks are just as open space as your boss's office or the spot at the water cooler: whatever is said on Facebook should be governed (and judged) by the same criteria that would apply to any other business or social fora, hence your company values (plus any applicable ER/IR regulations) should be the governing factors in the decision.

  5. Anonymous*

    Perhaps they should be treated the same as being on a water cooler.

    Facebook is highly googlable (it comes up first for many people) — and things on websites never fully go away, even if you robot-txt your site (site crawlers don't HAVE to listen to your cache instructions). Saying it at the water cooler is not like that unless your workplace records every single verbal conversation you have.

  6. fposte*

    Unless there's a federal protection here that hasn't been mentioned, it's unlikely, despite what the manager's higher-ups said in the meeting, that this would be construed as illegal workplace harassment. I don't think the OP is likely to have a case that a decent lawyer would be willing to take (you can always find a lawyer willing to be paid hourly to work on anything, of course). Not that she can't call one and ask, of course; just saying that from what she's saying, there really isn't much of anything there to actually file on.

    Kudos to you, OP, for behaving with class in a difficult and unpleasant situation, and I'm glad that 1) it's over and 2) you're happy with your new arrangement.

    1. Anonymous*

      “Unless there’s a federal protection here that hasn’t been mentioned, it’s unlikely, despite what the manager’s higher-ups said in the meeting, that this would be construed as illegal workplace harassment”

      I’m not a lawyer, but the action as I read it is “SLANDER”. It is not protected under the 1st Amendment, and if a company allows one of its managers to go on like that — the company can ALSO be held liable from a civil standpoint.

      If this is all true =

      “Sue the b******s.”

  7. Anonymous*

    They asked me not to return for work the following week. My boss had been the manager of that branch for 9+ years, so I can understand how they would want to keep her rather than I who had only been there for 3 years.
    I defintely don’t understand why they would want to keep her. They have it writing that she was behaving that way. Maybe they thought she’d try to sue if they took away her “free speech.” Sounds like they don’t have a written social media policy.

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