Should you be allowed to slander your company outside of work?

It’s outside of the company that they want to do this, of course, I understand during work hours this is a horrendous idea because, firstly, why are you tweeting about how much your company sucks when you should be doing your work? That’s reasonable; outside of work though, give people a break – we should at least be able to complain to our friends about a stressful day.

Slandering? Absolutely not - it’s a loyalty issue. How does it look on the employer if you are publicly slandering the company you work for? Not too good. As with all things, if you have an issue with your employer, bring it up to your employer - don’t try to publicly humiliate them and destroy their credibility. Not only will that probably end up in you getting fired, but what other company will want to hire you, knowing that you have this kind of reputation? If you can’t talk to your employer, go above them, or search for alternative employment, but slandering your company doesn’t just hurt the company - it hurts your chances of being hired somewhere else.

I agree totally

That’s not even remotely fair here? Why does me having a bad day and wanting to blow off steam mean I have to hurt my chances of getting hired? Come on, all of us function a little differently here and we all use different things to vent. Isn’t this, in a way, abridging your freedom of speech because I’m sure cursing here and there isn’t as bad as burning a flag in some cases.

You’re not asking about “venting”…you’re asking about “slander”, which, might I add, is illegal. If you want to spout off some steam to your friends at the coffeeshop, by all means, do so, but once you start publicly posting slanderous comments against your workplace, you are breaking your company’s loyalty clause and you are breaking the law. Furthermore, fair or not, when a potential employer sees that you’ve slandered your previous company all over the internet, do you really think that makes them want to say, “hey - you’re an untrustworthy employee - you’re hired!”? If someone approached me for a job and I saw that they have a habit of saying nasty things about their workplace, you’re darn right I’d reject them.

Just think how many people wud have heart problems and high blood pressure because they hold everything in, I don’t think its such a good idea, u have to vent to someone sometimes

But if they r sayin nasty things about the employer and the nasty things r true, is that really slander?

Just askin by the way cuz I’m not sure

If it’s true, it’s not slander, but his question was “Should you be allowed to SLANDER your company outside of work”. Still, the fact remains that saying bad things about your company violates the loyalty clause and hurts your own credibility.

If they r spreading false rumors then I don’t think it shud b aloud, but if the things they r sayin is true then I think its ok, cuz once a company gets so many complaints, things r bound to change, I wud hope anyways

Fair point, but let’s say for my cause (because this is how I interpreted it to be) it was venting. Can you vent with vulgarity about your company on your facebook page and get away with it in this particular case because it seems to me that you can’t, and you’ll get fired for it. It’s not like the majority of employees are going to spew stuff about their company without having something to make them tick: minuscule or not. But not only that, wouldn’t this be a potential plus for the company’s image if they can work to fix this individuals problems after they’ve complained about it; doesn’t this show, to a degree, that the company cares about their employees and won’t just tell them to “gtfo” because they can’t handle a couple of words damaging their image? If the company wants to make money, then they should know that this could be a potentially good marketing idea because of the fact that they can work to please this individual and therefore, change what they’ve said previously and influence the people that they rant to. What I’m saying is, there are far better things to do than to just show the door to a problem and a person just because you might be taking a sink.

Again - hurting your company’s reputation is not the proper way to get things done. If I have an issue with my employer, I go directly to him about it and we work on a solution…I most certainly do not go on a social networking site and start spewing off how much of a jerk my boss is being (which, fortunately, has never been the case here). You can go out and say whatever you want about your company, but when you get a pink slip, you have nobody to blame but yourself….and forget getting a reference.

Then why should this even be a problem because, evidently, the person being damaged is the individual; I’m sure most people are well aware of that and if they want to damage themselves willingly then the company should at least let them?

Miguel, posting public complaints about a company is never a “plus for the company’s image”. You only get one chance to make a first impression, and if your first encounter with XYZ company happens to be a negative remark about them, you’re going to hold on to that. If I went to Facebook and started complaining that my employer on FunAdvice never listens to anyone and is mean to people, do you honestly think that’s going to result in positive feedback? No, it won’t, because people will just say, “well, I’m not going there, then”….saying bad things about your company is never…NEVER…a good thing.

It’s not just the individual’s reputation at stake here.

But what if you have gone throught the proper channels at your work place and still nothing gets done? I have been their, I worked at a restaurant and it was very nasty, I worked thr one day and cudnt go back, it was to nasty, eventually I went to the press and the restraunt was torn down because it was so filthy, I would tell anyone who wanted to go thr and eat, to NOT go thr and I told them y, I don’t consider that slander

So, there are cases when things reach a breaking point - I agree that if a restaurant is breaking health violations, something needs to be done. Going to the Health board would have been sufficient enough - going to the press was going too far, as it would have been made public by the health board anyway. If a company needs to be taken down - whatever - do it until your heart’s content….just don’t go looking for another job after, because your public display has just cost you your credentials.

I understand that but like I mentioned earlier, if a company notices that, and the best they rationalize is to simply fire an employer, that is evidently going to lead to more negativity down the road. If the company simply worked on seeing what was wrong and changing the mindset of the employer, what they say about the company will change and that will result in positive feedback because of what I mentioned earlier. I’m sure people take into account how much companies value their employees and if that is the case, this is a terrific way to show it.

I did go to my local health dept and they did nothing, it ended up being 3 months down the line before I went to the press, so I think I did go through the proper channels, I even went to the mayor office before goin to the press, I don’t know why it took so long to get anything done.

Well, I don’t know either - perhaps things are a little more lax where you are, but that’s not even the point…we’ve trailed way off what the original question was asking.

So slander is bad either way, which I understand and agree with but what about venting?

Yes slander is bad

Again with the loyalty issue….vent all you want to your friends, but once you start venting in a public forum, you are ruining your company’s reputation and, unfortunately, setting yourself up for disciplinary action as you have violated privacy laws, trust, and customer-client confidentiality.

Sorry - possibly customer-client confidentiality (depending on your position)

Alright me comprender ^^ thanks for the explaining the present situation Colleen! :)

I work in an “at will” state meaning that employers are allowed to fire you for any reason at any time (unless the firing violates a federal statute like EEOC rules). Here it is completely legal for a company to fire you for something you do outside of work. In some other states employees enjoy more rights than in Texas though.

Saying things malicious, false, and defamatory about another person or business is called slander or libel and is illegal. In US law if something is true it can not be consider slander or libel (not true elsewhere in the world).

In our on-line world we should assume that anyone can read anything we put in “the cloud.” Think carefully about what you post because it may follow you forever.

Well put; thank you :)

Aside from the issue that slander becomes a legal thing and you can get sued, you can actually say whatever you want, they can’t stop you from saying stuff. However, they can fire you for saying it. There’s no good reason they should have to sit around while you write negative things about them. It’s absolutely unprofessional to go rant on a social site about a place of business. If there are concerns, you address it within the department if possible, and then within the company. There’s no good reason to be writing stuff on a social page where anyone can see it. Also, lets pretend that there was life before social networking. No one was having heart attacks because they couldn’t vent on a public blog. This is attempting to regulate an image on a public site. Not what you say to your friends over the phone or in person or even in a text message.

I Would.. And Did.. . Because Their Slipshod Practices Almost Caused Someone To Lose Their Life. I Don’t Care Who I Upset.. I Only Answer To God.. Most Of The Time.. Complaining Does No Good. Unless Someone Is Killed… I Been A Whistler Blower 4 Times Now. I Have Worked All Over The Country. I Won’t Stand For Abuse. Cheating.. Slipshod Work Place. Harassment.Of Any Sort .I Wrote To The Paper Over This Company. Used My Name. People Were Either Livid At Me Or They Said Good For You.. It’s About Time Someone Said Something..No One Is More Important Than God… I’m Turning Them In And I Don’t Care Who Gets Upset . My Job Is Never As Important As Someone’s Safety Or Self Esteem… But It Has To Be Flagrant Or They Are Not Listening to Several Complaints Already.Or They .Think They Are So Important And I Am Too UnImportant To Do Any Thing . .Too Many Bernie Madoffs And Enrons Out There…

I mean apart from the fact that it is really annoying to read, I have always wondered, isn’t it just harder to type like that?

I was speaking of venting in general not in a blog or anything like that, I meant to friends like if u had a bad day and things like that, just didn’t want my statement to b misunderstood.

No. I Have Typed Like This Since I Was 25. I Tried Going Back. I Can’t Now. Force Of Habit