'Personal' Life - When It No Longer Is

[As Day Fades]

It's heard every so often in the news, sometimes in the form of a big story, sometimes in the form of a small one, where someone's personal life and their professional life are treated as one entity. My question is, what's your take on it?

There's a current case in the American news where a politician got caught photographing his junk and sending it to someone, and part of the fallout has been people questioning whether or not he is fit for office. I haven't really been following that story to be honest. I think I heard someone mention the recipient wasn't of age? If that's the case then that would be breaking a law, and he should be subjected to whatever the penalty is for that. If it was done while he was supposed to be working, then yeah, fire his ass. If whatever legal penalty will prevent him from showing up and fulfilling his current duties, then yeah, fire his ass. If the position he holds requires someone to have a clean background, then yeah, remove him from office until a verdict can be reached. I'm not really familiar with the penalty for it, nor the legal requirements of his job. Let's say he didn't break any laws though, and just made a foolish move. If that's the case, should it cost the guy his job? Should poor judgement in his personal life condemn his professional one?

There are cases all the time of people's personal and professional lives overlapping. I've heard people say things like Tiger Woods is a disgrace to golf due to his adultery, or they could no longer appreciate Michael Jackson as an artist after what he (supposedly) did to those children. I don't personally get why the two aspects need to be connected. Why can't Tiger be looked at as an amazing golfer and a fucking douchebag? Why can't Michael be considered a complete weirdo, yet still one of the most impressive musicians ever?

That is a question of extremes though. What about shades of gray?

And what happens when it's no longer the tabloids giving these opinions, but when professional establishments start blurring the line?

I've read news articles where employees have been held down, reprimanded or fired from their job due to something they posted on Facebook. In some cases it was derogatory of the company they worked for, and in some cases it was of a nature where I guess the higher ups just didn't appreciate what was written in general, even about something having nothing to do with work. I remember hearing of an instance where some guy was canned for rooting for a sports team that was opposing the team his boss was rooting for. I remember one time I read an article where a woman was only a week or two away from graduating college when the administration found out she did exotic dancing to pay her way through, and they expelled her.

What is your opinion of things like this, where someone is singled out and punished in one aspect of their life for something they do in another? Does it violate the freedoms of speech and expression? Do companies have a right to protect their image? Is there a middle ground, or is this a case where it needs to be clearly one or the other?

 

[☢☢Zombies Galore☢☢]

The guy you're talking about is Anthony Weiner. No shit. That's actually his last name. He's the Democratic representative for New York's ninth district which includes parts of Brooklyn and Queens. Given the margins by which he wins his reelections he's a pretty popular guy. It's generally sixty percent or more of the vote against two or more other representatives. The girl who received the lascivious photo is a twenty-one year old college student who, though a self proclaimed fan, declares she's never met the guy.

If he did in fact tweet his junk concealed in boxer briefs the guy had a moment of really poor judgment. However, not to be too profane, hot ass can make most anybody stupid. Especially after they've been drinking. Should that kind of judgment have an effect on his career? I think not. If this woman had been, say, his aide or someone employed by him or parallel to him--a coworker--then it should effect his career. Why? Sexual harassment. But that would only be if he in fact sent the photo in question. Since this incident is outside of his career path it should be outside of the public light. It does not show poor judgment on the job, were to have in fact tweeted the picture in question. However what this does show is politics as usual. Just think of it like that. The personal lives of politicians are routinely made open for public fodder because it suits the needs of their opposition in its multifarious forms. The USA is a society based upon a literally Puritanical value system.

Though that value system is shifting slowly and sometimes with shocking speed, it shifts at different rates for different rates of the populace. Take my grandmother for instance. Was she rabidly homophobic and racist ten years ago? Yes. Is she still rabidly homophobic? No. She no longer cares. Is she still appallingly bigoted? Yes. Will that ever change? I doubt it.

Personally, I believe that people should only have their personal lives exposed where it has directly intersected their public life. As much as it pains me to say this, the whole Monica Lewinski/Bill Clinton thing is a great example of this. Would it matter to me if he was hooking up with some random lady? No. Would it bother me if he was hooking up with the intern? Greatly. It shows very poor judgment about the appropriate way to work with your staff. That is your public life. How you interact with your coworkers, superiors and subordinates is inherently public. Another example is Michael Steele and the bondage club. Did it matter that he was into the BDSM scene? Not one single whit. Did it matter that he used money put together by the GOP to finance his sex dungeon fantasies? Very much so. That is a public matter because that GOP fundraising cash is a public thing.

Here's an example of a witch hunt that never should have happened: Ted Haggard. Should it have been a big deal that this popular televangelist--in his own time, in his own space--got handjobs from a meth dealing male escort by the name of Mike Jones? Not to the public. To the wife and kids? You betcha. Meth's bad. But he ended up resigning all of his leadership positions--keep in mind, congregation of twenty-two thousand--and underwent "counseling" by four other evangelical ministers to "cure" him. They pronounced him "completely heterosexual." Only in January--this all happened in 2006--did he come out as bisexual. That whole thing was completely unnecessary. So what if Mike Jones approached the press? It had nothing to do with his work life. His own time, his own needs and wants. Still, crystal meth is bad news bears.

As far as companies are concerned about social networking sites, I kinda get it. If you say you work for so-and-so on your profile and it's public then chances are for the sake of being professional you should not mention them. Period, good or bad. When I joined the company I work for now I had to sign a social media agreement which basically boiled down to, "Please refrain from publicly mentioning us. If you have to, please don't reflect badly on us." That still meant there could be pictures of me, I don't know, shooting heroin as long as I wasn't saying, "Heroin after a long day of working for so-and-so, just what a growing boy needs!" It is a dicey, very gray area for me. But there we have that intersection of personal and public. You should be allowed to say whatever you want about your employers as long as you do not mention them by name. i think that's completely fair.

 

[As Day Fades]

I always appreciate your input on things. I read this when you first posted it, and I immediately had a thought in mind I wanted to reply with, but I withheld it for the sake of not wanting to too immediately derail whatever conversation the main idea of this thread would bring forth. Now, a month later, I see that the topic's been a bit of a dud, so I'm back to present you with my query.

In response to your final paragraph, I have to wonder if companies have the right to 'ask' you to refrain from openly badmouthing them. I understand you signed off on it 'of your own will,' but I write it that way because you don't have a realistic choice in the matter. If you don't sign it you don't get hired, I would assume. At the very least I would think the chances of you being hired if you don't sign it 'significantly lessen.' They'll get someone else who needs the job worse than you do. He's probably not in a situation where he can afford to let something like that prevent him from getting the job either. Most job hunters aren't. And when more companies start to do that, when it really catches on, then to get a job anywhere you'll have to sign a form saying you won't badmouth them openly.

Is that something they have a right to take away? They can and they will for now, because no one out there has had both the money and the drive to fight it. I've read of a case here or there where someone was fired over a social networking post aimed toward their employer or coworkers and are trying to fight it in court, but I'm not sure if anything has come of those stories yet. These things sometimes take years. My basis for my thought though is this: there are certain rights that you can't give away, even if you sign a document that says so. I'll use an extreme example to get my point across: I take a blank piece of paper and write that Zombies Galore agrees to be my obedient servant for the rest of his life. You, sober, of your own will, sign it. I sign it. We have a witness that signs it. Bam, it's a legal agreement. Only, it's not valid, because slavery is illegal. I can't take your freedom from you, the same as you can't give it away.

Now this may not be so extreme, but it's still a question of the freedoms of speech and of expression. When I am not on the clock, when I am on my own time, why should a company have any right to reprimand me for what I choose to do? I would say that this is something I hope unions would fight for, but sadly there's so few unions left nowadays. If we're to allow them that right, to police us outside of work, then where is the line drawn? Is it anything written? If I write a private, disparaging email to a friend, and that email gets passed along, should they be allowed to fire me? What if I just vocally say something and someone doesn't like what they hear? What if someone photoshops me Facebooking that I think my boss is a tranny, and that she smells of a fancy foreign cheese, claiming that I 'took it down' sometime after?

What happens when it goes beyond just disrespecting them, when the job decides it doesn't want to be associated with the things I'm associated with? Maybe my place of work has made a campaign donation to one politician and doesn't like my post that I made a donation to that person's opposition.

Your thoughts?

 

[0The0Midget0]

To me its really a case by case thing if personal and professional matters should affect a person and their job.

Here in Virginia during a senate race a candidate by the name of Crystal Ball was in a bit of trouble for having inappropriate, though they really weren't, pictures of her on the internet from her college party days. When my government teacher asked us if it made her a bad candidate or not it was a pretty even debate, some said yes, some said no. My thing is she was in college at the time, in her early twenties just out there having fun. She shouldn't be judged if she's good or not for office just because she was twenty one and having a good time. That's just ridiculous. It wasn't something that showed a lack of good judgement or moral, just a young adult doing what college kids do: party.

Now, shortly after that little incident I remember watching the news one night and it talked about how an office aid or something like that to some political office holder in New York got caugh