It seems more and more people are getting fired for content they produce while running a blog. Now, the latest high-profile blog-related firing is the Diary of a Flight Attendant. After posing for pictures on her uniform and posting them to her blog, Ellen Simonetti was fired by Delta:
“In the past, people expected flight attendants to be young and attractive,” Simonetti, a 29-year old blonde, said from her home in Austin, Texas. “Maybe I represent the flight attendants of the past.”
But it is Simonetti’s very 21st-century activities that she says prompted Delta management to ground her, suspending her from flying in September and then firing her a month later.
The photos posted were apparently provocative (though not obscene), so Delta may actually be somewhat warranted in doing this. But this is a warning to those of us who run blogs: keep work out of it, or risk the unfortunate and often misguided wrath of the people who sign your paycheck.
By the way, Delta sucks! I’m all for pay for performance type arrangements, but having your peers evaulate your job performance, instead of a supervisor? That’s just asking to bring workplace politics and coworkers with axes to grind to a whole new level.