First, thanks again to everyone for their comments, emails, posts and phone calls. I really, really appreciate it. Some have suggested I should take a few days off, but no can do. I’ve actually got loads to do. I think I’ll need to really process all this this weekend.
I’m intending this post to be the “all encompassing one”. Let’s see if I can actually nail everything I want to in here.
Community Support
In terms of support, it’s been great. Really. Some have made me laugh. Some have made me tear up. Others have been completely supportive and one was even the obligatory “stop whining you freaking blogger”. But I put that one in the “made me laugh” category 
The best of the made me laugh comments, for me, was from Shel Israel over on his blog:
Jeremy Wright, author-to-be and genuinely good guy got sacked a few hours ago for blogging. Details aren’t yet clear, but I’m betting what happened was illegal immoral and the work of fatheads. (emphasis mine)
The fatheads bit had me laughing for almost 10 minutes. I told my wife and she laughed quite hard as well. I guess it’s all about perspective in the end, eh?
The Story
I was working away at my desk. We’d just had a virus infection we were cleaning up from (on our servers of all places) (hmm… is this “divulging company secrets”?) and I was sending emails around to the various clients letting them know their machines were cleaned, that they needed a reboot and that I needed to apply patches (at their convenience).
My boss’s boss walked in, all non-chalant like and asked if we could talk.
I should say this isn’t the first time this has happened. It happened the day before as well.
He wanted to “talk”. He said people had been “talking a lot about how you’re not pulling your weight”. He said he wanted to know if I was, that he understood I had a lot going on. I said “sometimes stuff comes up during the day from my book and new company that I need to deal with. No matter what happens though, I make sure I do my 8 hours of HSC work every day, and normally I do more”. He took that well, said that he was from the private sector and that’s how he worked as well. But that at HSC it was more about perception.
This should have been my hint that something political, and serious, was going on. It wasn’t.
We parted ways.
Fast forward to yesterday. He calls me into his office again. Very cool and calm. I know something’s wrong.
He basically says “priceless”. And I draw a blank. He says “this website about priceless”. I’m still drawing a blank. The word doesn’t mean a hell of a lot to me. I mean, it’s a nice word and all, but it’s not really one I use very often.
He says “someone was looking around at something and you said something about 3 hours on a server was priceless”. And then I remember that he’s talking about Ensight. About my blog. About a post I wrote nearly a year earlier.
He says they didn’t appreciate that I’d divulged company secrets. Especially when we’d had a talk about business ethics the day before.
I said (and I rougly quote): “That post was nothing. The server was down. It had to be dealt with. It was in our secondary DC. There wasn’t anything I could do but surf the web.”
He says “It doesn’t matter, it wasn’t appropriate for you to talk about work”. He doesn’t let me butt in. Which doesn’t matter because I didn’t really want to. I wasn’t shocked. I wasn’t pissed. I wasn’t taken aback. I was just “in the moment”. Taking everything in.
He goes on to say that they’ll be offering me my full pay until I was going to leave. As a “severance package”. I ask when I’m to leave and he says today. I say when. He says right away. Go clean out your desk.
So I do. He follows me. I think he’s just being friendly and helpful. Then I realise he’s watching every little thing I touch like a hawk. “I’m being escorted out” is the thought that hits me. And suddenly I feel like a criminal. I manage to nab some of my personal files, delete my personal documents and fry my protected folders. I forgot my Outlook stuff, but ah well. I didn’t do it out of spite, I just don’t like people poking around my stuff. Hopefully that one doesn’t come back to bite me in the ass.
All in all it only took me about 5 minutes to pack up. I really didn’t have a lot of my life at HSC. Some very cool people, but not a lot of “stuff”. A CD. A bear from my wife. A family photo. 2 food containers from that day.
I was escorted out. Not allowed to talk to anyone. Not even allowed to go to the kitchen to drop off a dish alone. Wasn’t allowed to say goodbye. In fact, when some people “heard” they thought it was a cruel joke. Why would I (”one of the most productive employees HSC has ever had” – according to my 3 and 6 month reviews) be fired?
For blogging. Something I said on my blog got someone out of joint, and they didn’t feel like seeing me around for the next 5 weeks.
See, the irony is that I’d handed in my resignation a week earlier. I only did that after I asked them to fire me. Why ask them to fire me? Because they paid my moving expenses, and the only way to not owe them the 5K back was to either finish my year or get fired. They said they didn’t want to fire me. I was too valuable.
But, they fired me.
My Posts About Work
What did they fire me for? This post:
Getting to surf the web for 3 hours while being paid: Priceless.
Getting to blog for 3 hours while being paid: Priceless.
Sitting around doing nothing for 3 hours while being paid: Priceless.
Installing Windows 2000 Server on a P2 300: Bloody Freaking Priceless.
Again, the reason wasn’t that I was insulting (though I guess it could be interpreted that way. It certainly wasn’t in the best taste when viewed from my employer’s perspective). It was that I was “divulging company secrets”.
Realistically, I’ve probably done more of that in this post than in a whole year of posts about work. The only other ones I could find that might fall into that category were two security responses to our auditor (here and here).
I had approval for the first one. I inferred it for the second. So, that could be a potential issue if I’m looking at any legal action.
Legal Action
Speaking of legal action, I’ll be speaking to someone in a few minutes. He’s volunteered to see if there are any options. I’m not sure if I want to pursue any, but I do want to know what paths I could take and what the likelihood is of anything.
Someone once said “it’s not about pushing back at companies, it’s about them realising they need to communicate their policies”. After all, I was fired for an activity which:
1. I was hired knowing I did
2. I had permission to do as long as I didn’t divulge patient data or security information which could harm the enterprise
3. There was no policy about (in spite of asking)
4. They never warned me I should stop doing
5. Had a post that offended them that they never asked me to take down (I would have, it wasn’t an important post (none of them were))
But, what’s done is done. I’m moving on.
The Book
Someone asked if this will affect the book. Yes, it will. Drastically. Because I want companies to know how blogging can “feel”. I want them to protect themselves, communicate with their employees and not cost anyone a massive PR nightmare (which this is turning into for HSC).
Not that HSC cares. They’re a public company. Who already has just about the worst PR imaginable.
Ah well.
So, now what?
Good question. I’ve got a massively busy day. A dozen articles, a dozen posts, a dozen phone calls. And 3 meetings.
I won’t have much chance to think about all of this today, which is fine.
I had to offers from companies who wanted to talk to me about jobs. I really, really appreciate it. However, as I told one: I’m trying to pursue my dream. Doing anything for you would mean my dream would distract me. I’d love to work for you at some point, but let me work through this and see if my dream can succeed first.
Donations?
Some people have asked if I need donations to cover the money I’d have lost, or to pay for the surgery I need that I won’t be able to do for a while. The short answer is “I’ll never turn down money”. The long answer is “I’m turning down money, because people in Asia need it a hell of a lot more than we do”.
If your heart is going out to me in this situation or you want to do something you can:
1. Donate to Asia.
2. If you know of anyone who would be a great client for InsideBlogging, let me know and I’d love to work with them
3. If you know of anyone with general blogging / writing / speaking / consulting work that can fill the tiny hole in my finances, let me know
Beyond that, Asia needs whatever “donations” anyone would want to give far more than I do.
So, I think I’ve covered everything. Thanks for reading. Thanks for linking. And hopefully I (and we) can grow from this. There are lessons to be learned here, and they go beyond the “this will happen more and more”. I’m sure I’ll have thoughts on this in the coming weeks.
January 6th, 2005 at 10:17 am
Right after I say how great it is that you are doing things with a bit more “substance” you go and get yourself fired for something totally baseless. Good one Jeremy. I lost all the extra respect I just gained
Don’t worry mate. You seem to have a very healthy perspective on the entire episode and with hard work executing your current ideas/projects successfully you’ll be in a better situation financially before you know it.
Unless you desperately need the $$$ I wouldn’t bother going after HSC legally. Just from the viewpoint that the time and stress involved would not let you move on fully to your next projects until the legal proceedings against them are completed.
Just let the karma gods deal with them.
January 6th, 2005 at 10:31 am
Jeremy Wright adds More
Jeremy has added more on his firing (here). I am going to burn my bridges with more than a few potential Canadian employers by saying that this does not surprise me at all from the Canadian management mentality. In some
January 6th, 2005 at 11:24 am
All I really can say is.. wow. I don’t even know what to say but sorry. What an awful feeling, Jeremy. I can’t even begin to fathom..
January 6th, 2005 at 11:26 am
Very nice to see you advocating donations toward the tsunami relief as opposed to your own.
January 6th, 2005 at 11:33 am
I agree with Anthony, don’t bother with legal action. That’s just continuing the game by their rules.
You have joined an elite group of people — people fired for expressing themselves. Excellent fodder for your book.
Out with the old and in with the new. The king is dead, long live the king.
Damn the buggers at HSC; let them burn in their life-sucking hell of mediocrity.
January 6th, 2005 at 12:35 pm
This new story will definitely make your upcoming blogging book a lot juicier and should enhance sales
January 6th, 2005 at 1:18 pm
I sure as heck support you, as do gabillions of others across the web. Good luck in whatever you choose to do.
January 6th, 2005 at 3:34 pm
Jeremy: I feel for you my friend. My own dot-con experience ended in a similarly frustrating, but ultimately liberating fashion about four years ago. Not about blogging, mind you, but about the cluelessness of employers and the duplicity of “firing for cause” an employee who was, only days before an “irreplacable asset to the organization”.
Trust me, you’re fine and you’ll be great. Chase your dreams. I believe you will succeed – the little I’ve gotten to know you (mostly through your writings) gives me confidence that utlimately, this will be a watershed event in your life in the most positive sense of the term.
January 6th, 2005 at 4:09 pm
So, it was a very ‘Canadian’ thing for them to do, firing you?
January 6th, 2005 at 5:30 pm
I don’t agree with people saying not to pursue legal action. Someone has to set a precedent or this type of thing will continue to happen. You got hosed and if you don’t do anything then they will just do it again in the future. That is of course if you have grounds to take legal action against them.
January 6th, 2005 at 9:26 pm
I’m sorry that you are having to go through this. It’s a shame that this is still happening to bloggers. But change can often be a good thing, so expect a positive outcome.
I don’t know whether to advise you to pursue legal action but given your current business venture, book, and ideals about blogging it would seem odd if you weren’t the one to set precedent about this kind of behaviour. I frankly do not see any grounds for your dismissal and if you have a case it would almost be worth it to be the one that other court cases could refer to when other people are unjustly fired. Others may not end up having as many opportunities as you have when they’re fired, so it might be nice for them to have legal recourse. Plus, it’d make a great chapter for the book.
January 6th, 2005 at 10:46 pm
I am very curious, but how do you know Jeremy is telling us the whole truth. What if he is simply distorting facts to make money for his consulting company? Is he really got fired for just one post, or did he do more to get fired?
You may support Jeremy, but I am highly doubtful that he is presenting all the facts here. The fact that he wants you to send clients to his consulting company doesn’t look right when someone just got fired.
I have seen many bloggers who accuse their employers firing them for blogging and trying to get sympathy of other bloggers, who are very receptive to such requests. I am sure Jeremy knows that when other bloggers link to his blog, his google ranking will rise significantly.
Jeremy, good luck in your new life, but please do not abuse the bloggers for your own benefit. If you have a case against this company, all power to you, but you seem to use bloggers for your own financial goal.
January 7th, 2005 at 12:02 am
HI J,
It’s kind of late and I haven’t gone through your whole post, but I’ve been there. It really sucks and I’m sorry for you.
As for legal action? I tried and honestly, it probably won’t work. What you did (much like what I did) is insubordination and well, it’s a reason for firing.
Anyway, I don’t want to rain on your parade. Sorry to hear about your job loss.
January 7th, 2005 at 6:29 am
Fired for blogging
I can’t see what Jeremy C. Wright had done that got him fired. Don’t see it at all. It was a simple joke. But the corporations we work for have co
January 7th, 2005 at 6:29 am
Just wanted to offer you my support. If all you did was post that little aside… well I hope you win in any legal action you take.
January 7th, 2005 at 8:57 am
A Blog on Blogs
Be careful about what you Blog about: Jeremy Wright, the blogger who put his services up on eBay has announced on his blog that he was fired from the company he worked at. The reason? Blogging.
January 7th, 2005 at 10:40 am
Fired for Blogging…
January 7th, 2005 at 3:48 pm
Waitaminnit. Didn’t you write that you ASKED them to fire you for financial reasons? Then when they realize you’re serious about leaving, they comply with your wishes? Now you’re talking about legal action against them, when they’re just doind exactly what you asked them to do? Amazing how much sympathy you seem to be getting here. Did anyone besides me actually read the whole article? It’s really bizarre. Is this some kind of experiment for your book?
January 7th, 2005 at 3:51 pm
Yep, I asked them to fire me. I didn’t ask them to fire me “with cause” though, which is completely different.
I asked them to fire me. They refused. They said I was too invaluable. Then they fired me for blogging. When they’d already approved the blogging.
Confusing? Damn straight.
I never asked for sympathy. I wish people would stop trying to paint me as some go getter just trying to ring money out of bloggers and journalists everywhere.
I got fired for blogging. So I blogged about it. People reacted. It happens.
January 7th, 2005 at 4:15 pm
You wrote:
“Speaking of legal action, I’ll be speaking to someone in a few minutes. He’s volunteered to see if there are any options. I’m not sure if I want to pursue any, but I do want to know what paths I could take and what the likelihood is of anything.”
So you are at least considering legal action against the company that complied with your request to fire you, after they realized you were serious about leaving. Doesn’t sound to me like you’re trying to ‘wring’ money out of bloggers and journalists. But I guess you got out of your financial obligation to them for moving expenses. Are you now collecting unemployment?
January 7th, 2005 at 4:20 pm
I “am” not considering legal action. I “was” considering legal action. Before I even met with the attorney I’d decided not to do anything which amounted to suing them. It wasn’t worth it from any point of view.
I “was” considering legal action against a company who fired me “with cause” after I asked them to release me, after I tried to work out part time deals, after I tried to work out flextime and telecommuting arrangements. After I tried everything to make it work from a “I have other things that need my time” perspective.
They didn’t simply “accept my resignation”. They fired me. They stated I’d publicly shared private and confidential information.
That’s more than simply saying “he wants to quit? Oh, that’s fine with us, let’s let him go”.
No, I’m not collecting unemployment. My plan on Feb 4 was to start my own company. I’m doing that sooner now. I can’t collect unemployment and start a company.
But, even if I wanted to, I was fired “with cause” so I couldn’t.
So it’s a damn good thing I had a plan and income already.
January 7th, 2005 at 11:37 pm
Jack are you a moron? you must be a troll from the HSC? Your not posting from the office I hope.. bad Jack bad.
January 8th, 2005 at 2:41 am
If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a dozen times …
… Do. Not. Blog. About. Work. What did they fire me for? This post: Getting to surf the web for 3 hours while being paid: Priceless. Getting to blog for 3 hours while being paid: Priceless. Sitting around doing nothing…
January 8th, 2005 at 8:20 am
Clearly you were not focused on your IT job, that virus may well have come from your surfing around the internet promoting yourself.
January 8th, 2005 at 9:18 am
Yes. The virus came from me surfing the Internet 8 months ago. On a different computer (a support desktop DESIGNED for people to surf the web while they waited). On another network. 7 months BEFORE this virus was ever created.
Yes, that’s what happened. Wow, why didn’t I think of this before?! Every security related incident ever at HSC can be tracked back to those 3 hours!
Gawd, it’s a good thing they fired me. Imagine what damage I could have done!
January 8th, 2005 at 9:54 am
As the IT guy it was your responsibility to secure the company’s network, what happened?
You were not fired for blogging, but for recklessness, time will tell if your replacement does a better job securing the network.
If you are a competent IT guy it should not be a problem for you to pick another job, but you rather use this incident as a means to promote yourself.
January 8th, 2005 at 10:17 am
Yes, as the server administrator it was my job to secure servers. Partly my job anyways, since there were 2 of us. Failure to do my job? Maybe, but the fact that servers were infected had nothing to do with my firing. Because virus infections happen. Especially when your virus management server goes down.
I’m not looking for a job OR to promote myself. I’m telling my readers what’s happening in my life.
January 8th, 2005 at 10:21 am
You are becoming the Poster Child for self-promotion.
January 8th, 2005 at 10:25 am
Here was me thinking that was Chris Pirillo.
January 8th, 2005 at 10:44 am
Jeremy: Of course you’re right – that *is* Chris Pirillo ;^)
To some of the petulant or downright mean-spirited posters to this thread I just have to ask the question:
“What’s wrong with self-promotion?”
This is Jeremy’s blog. This is Jeremy’s life. He’s been the victim of archetypical corporate stupidity and ham-handedness. It happens all too often. The only difference is, he happens to have a platform to talk about it.
Sometimes I forget how badly some people can behave on the net.
Hang in there Jeremy.
January 8th, 2005 at 11:23 am
Jeremy wasn’t fired for being critical of his employer, as it is now being portrayed, but rather for not securing a critical network.
January 8th, 2005 at 11:26 am
“As is now being portrayed”. It’s all the information that’s been given. Except the HSC interview with InformationWeek which said they’d simply “accepted my resignation”, not fired me.
What do you know that nobody else in the world knows, Paul? Because, until I’d called HR, Payroll and Employee Relations didn’t know I’d been fired. And there hasn’t even been an internal email or meeting with my coworkers saying why I’ve been fired.
Really, what do you know? That a virus infection is the result of being told to reinstall a server in a remote data center 8 months earlier and that THAT is why I was fired?
January 8th, 2005 at 11:29 am
Not sure where I stand on this one (and who really cares where I stand, anyway?) It’s highly, *highly* unprofessional to blog about your work in this way, when everyone who reads your blog knows where you work. On the few occasions I was critical of my former employer on my blog, I made damn sure nobody knew who that was unless they knew me personally.
This of course does not apply to officially sanctioned blogs such as some companies are producing these days – and more power to Jeremy for figuring out a way to make money off that. But I bet – and I’m sure Jeremy knows – that there are still minimal standards of conduct on such blogs. In my own opinion, the post was out of line on *any* blog.
Of course it’s being used for publicity. Maybe that’s distasteful to some, but I’d have to say it’s one thing Jeremy’s good at.
I’m not going to comment as to the rights and wrongs of the firing, except to say that it seems a little dodgy on both sides and there are much better things to do than air your dirty laundry in public. Lesson’s learned, move along people.
January 8th, 2005 at 12:01 pm
Why are you spamming my inbox with email? Other bloggers didn’t read on your blog that you had been fired, you emailed them! I followed a link here “another blogger fired for blogging”, that’s not true, now is it?
You cannot say you were fired for blogging if you spend too much of your working day blogging and promoting your blog. Your x-employer may have grounds to sue you!
Please stop spamming me!
January 8th, 2005 at 9:29 pm
Ensight’s Jeremy Wright fired for blogging?
As he tells it, Ensight’s Jeremy Wright was fired yesterday for blogging. Wright, known to most as a prolific blogger, lost his job over a posting he made a year ago, something about getting paid for blogging and surfing the…
January 9th, 2005 at 1:00 pm
Subscribe? I was conscripted.
January 9th, 2005 at 2:58 pm
Someone sitting there with a gun to your head forcing you to keep coming back for more, or something?
January 9th, 2005 at 7:56 pm
Why do I find this so annoying
January 10th, 2005 at 2:37 am
Told you Paul was a moron.. LOL Use the Internet much there paul?
January 10th, 2005 at 8:08 pm
Jeremy Wright: Fired for blogging? Or rewarded?
Remember Jeremy Wright, who got fired for blogging It’s now starting to appear that maybe he didn’t get fired for blogging after all, and, even if he did, it might have been for a fairly innoccuous post. Or maybe everything is at it appeared last wee…
January 10th, 2005 at 8:08 pm
Jeremy Wright: Fired for blogging? Or rewarded?
Remember Jeremy Wright, who got fired for blogging? It’s now starting to appear that maybe he didn’t get fired for blogging after all, and, even if he did, it might have been for a fairly innoccuous post. Or maybe everything is at it appeared last we…
January 11th, 2005 at 8:23 am
Well Jeremy, all the while that I was reading through what you had to say I could sense exactly what you mentioned. Politics. It seems they are getting back at you for personal reasons. And that ain’t professionalism.
All the best for all your future endevours.
January 15th, 2005 at 5:00 pm
Why do I find this so annoying
January 24th, 2005 at 1:03 pm
I had a similar thing happen to me in December 2003. I worked for a small web firm and had some generic posts about work and the small business I was starting on the side (I was working 1/2 time at the firm and 1/2 time starting my web design business).
I was doing great and really working hard for them and then one day out of the blue I got called into the office and they said the company (which was 4 people counting me) was heading in another direction and they were letting me go. I asked “why” and they didn’t respond but looked at me as if I had betrayed them. I asked “when” and they said “right now”. I offered to leave a progress report about where I was and what needed to be done for the projects I was working on, they declined. I said “okay well let me go shutdown my computer…” they said it had already been shutdown while I was in the office. Within 15 minutes of being called into the office I was in my car driving home. Oh and let me mention that this was Dec. 15 – 10 days before Christmas, and also within a couple of months of proposing to my wife and buying a new car. Merry Christmas.
But, strangely it was a great thing. I went full-time with my business and by all signs I’m doing better on my own than the company is without me – in just my first year! Sometimes it takes something like that to give you the boost. I got the feeling that you probably were more excited about your new biz than this job, so maybe its a blessing. Good luck!
April 18th, 2005 at 2:11 pm
Tracking How Long It Takes the New York Times to Pick Up Stories From the Blogosphere
I’ve decided to start an unscientific project tracking how long it takes a story to get from the blogosphere to The New York Times. In the case of bloggers getting fired for what they write on their personal blogs, it’s…
July 12th, 2005 at 1:21 pm
musiic
The Whole Story (̷…
August 5th, 2005 at 3:32 pm
Fired for Blogging…