I believe employees should always take great care when it comes to posting on the Internet negative comments about the companies for which they work. By and large, I’d advise them just not to do it — unless they’re doing it on a closed, private network like Facebook, for example.
But now, it seems, even this is not allowed — is considered a sacking offence.
I suppose we need to look at the nature of Facebook. I’m not completely sure how Miss Swann was using the platform but in the case of the vast majority of its users, the information they post is not public (in the sense that it cannot be read by just anyone passing by.) It is available to friends and, depending on the settings they choose, possibly friends of friends. By most people it is considered a relatively private space in which they can share their thoughts with people — perhaps wrongly — generally assumed to be trustworthy. The comparison is often made to a conversation down the pub, but this isn’t really accurate since the likelihood of being “overheard” by a stranger is fairly unlikely. Even if Miss Swann had named the company (Ivell Marketing & Logistics in Clacton, Essex — just in case you missed my earlier mention of it), it would not have come up on any Internet search results. So from the point of view of company profile, there really wasn’t an issue that I can see. Certainly not one which would justify such an extreme reaction.
The fact that Miss Swann was not given a chance to explain or, even, if it’s necessary, apologise, strikes me as… how shall I put it?… bad policy. Steve Ivell describes her display as one of “disrespect and dissatisfaction”, adding that it “undermined the relationship and made it untenable”, which strikes me as rather over the top. A quiet word was no doubt called for, but dismissal?
I can’t help wondering just how many of Mr Ivell’s other employees have said — or even written on the Internet — similar things in the past? How many of them are frantically editing their Facebook pages as we speak? What about Mr Ivell himself? Has he never bitched and moaned about jobs he may have held in the past? Has he perhaps forgotten what it’s like to be sixteen, an age when everything is, by default, boring and when we haven’t yet learned the life skills necessary to judge who can be trusted?
Oh, and incidentally, the Ivell Marketing & Logistics I mention in this article is the Ivell Marketing & Logistics in Clacton, Essex, not any other Ivell Marketing & Logistics. Just to be clear.
Gary William Murning Online 
I remember posting this on Twitter earlier and most of the people that replied to it shared my opinion that it’s out of line she was let go.
She simply said it was boring, things would be different if she had said she hated the company or her boss. She also never mentioned the company.
I do like what the mum’s said though!
It does seem that she also said that she was looking for other employment, too — but from what I’ve heard so far it sounds very much like typical 16 year old posturing among “friends”. Had I been her boss, I’d have simply asked into the office, mentioned it and asked her if she wanted to leave the company. It would have been immediately clear just how serious she had been. If she expressed a wish to stay, I’d have given her a gentle warning and left it at that.
I think her mum’s comment was brilliant! In a nutshell, or what?!
Exactly.
I’ve agreed with all the other job losses/school suspensions that have been done because of behaviour, but this is just mundane.
Yes, “mundane” sounds about right. 🙂
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There was something similar that happened to some supermarket employees recently who were degrading their shop customers via a group on facebook and the company sacked them all – I believe it was Tesco’s and a lot of the other supermarkets picked up on it and we were all issued with a statement that if we should speak about any of our customers in a similar way then we could face disciplinary action.
At the end of the day a company has to take the best interests of the company and it’s customers first.
This story was on my local news and, the details that are left out are:
– She had only been with the company for three weeks.
– This incident on facebook was the straw that broke the camels back.
– The owner of the company said that he wanted someone he could invest his time and money in and he had felt for a while that she wasn’t right for the position and the facebook incident confirmed it.
So she wasn’t sacked simply because of the facebook incident, but because of her inability to suit the role they had employed her in.
I think you’re right in saying that a company has to consider its own interests as a priority. Normally, my views regarding the company’s rights are very much weighted towards the company. In this case, however, I still feel it was poorly handled — the Facebook incident not so much seeming like the last straw but, rather, the reason they’d been looking for.
I have no doubt that under similar circumstances I would probably have wanted to dismiss Kimberley Swann. But my concern regards the fact that her comments on a private friends’ network at the very least played a significant part in the reasons for her dismissal.
If there had been other incidents then they are what she should have been dismissed for.
Also, there’s the matter of her age. To employ someone in such a position who has so little experience is inevitably going to lead to, at least, “teething troubles”. Maybe she was (I don’t know) a surly, complaining individual. It’s very possible she wasn’t all that good to have around. But it certainly seems to me that, given that she was there for only three weeks, little was done to attempt to fix any problems that had arisen. To be frank, I’d go out of my way to avoid employing a 16-year-old, but in the event that I did I would certainly have approached a situation like this rather differently.
And yet he chose a 16 year old girl.
Kimberly Swann’s behavior is exactly what one might expect of someone her age. Mr. Ivell’s behavior, on the other hand, is not what I would expect of a smart business owner.
I have to agree with Gary: I think it was the excuse Mr. Ivell was looking for, rather than the final straw.
By the way, I like the comment threading.
You too can have a comment threading, Lottie! Can’t remember how to do it, now, but I think it’s under settings — look for nested comments.