Illegal vs Unethical vs Stupid

Imagine this situation: you have a conflict with your boss. It's not a huge deal, but it's been simmering away for a while, and you're ticked off about it. You're convinced that you're not getting a fair deal -- after all, your boss is your boss, right? So you vent a little to your co-workers in the lunchroom, or around the water-cooler.

Or on Facebook.

Is this a firing offense?

Here's the actual situation: An ambulance service company had asked an EMT employee to prepare a response to a customer complaint about her work, but denied her representation by her union. Later that day (from home), the employee posted a derogatory comment about her supervisor on her personal Facebook page; some of her friended colleagues piled on. She was suspended and later fired for those postings, which violated company Internet policies.

According to the National Labor Relations Board, that was a violation of workers' rights: your right to complain about your boss does indeed extend to social media sites.

"The labor relations board announced last week that it had filed a complaint against an ambulance service, American Medical Response of Connecticut, that fired an emergency medical technician, accusing her, among other things, of violating a policy that bars employees from depicting the company 'in any way' on Facebook or other social media sites in which they post pictures of themselves," writes Steven Greenhouse in an article in today's New York Times.

In addition, the NLRB found "that the company’s blogging and internet posting policy contained unlawful provisions, including one that prohibited employees from making disparaging remarks when discussing the company or supervisors and another that prohibited employees from depicting the company in any way over the internet without company permission." (The complete board release is here.)

I'm not going to rehash all the public details of the case, but it does seem as though everyone involved behaved badly.

And while I agree with the NLRB position, the employee's behavior strikes me as, well, dumb.

Yes, the EMT is ticked off right now and wants to vent with her friends. I understand that, and empathize. That's what water coolers and (after hours!) the neighborhood bar are for. But what happens when she applies for another job, and the prospective employer, in conducting the background check, comes across this posting?

Now put yourself in that employer's shoes: You don't know all the circumstances of the dispute (any more than I do). Maybe the employee is right; maybe her boss is right. But wouldn't her response (the posting) strike you as a little intemperate? Could such behavior escalate? While she may have all the qualifications you are looking for, in an environment of high unemployment, what are the chances you can't find someone who hasn't been posting negative comments about her boss?

How many articles do we have to read about people posting embarrassing pictures or comments about themselves or others before it sinks in that the Internet is forever.