Ryan Gault

Ashley Johnson, a former waitress at Brixx, a pizza restaurant became irritated after she had to stay past her shift to wait on a table of two. When the table finally cleared out, they left what Johnson said was an insufficient tip. Later that night, she posted a Facebook status saying: “Thanks for eating at Brixx,” before using profanity and then calling her customers “rude and cheap.”

According to an ABC News report, Johnson, was fired for that post.

Johnson said she never expected that something “so small as a 20-word status,” which was intended for her friends to see, could get her fired. The puzzling part is that Johnson didn’t even criticize the restaurant in her status; she targeted the customers and this was a violation of the company policy.

“We definitely care about what people say about our customers,” said the boss at Brixx.

Facebook, along with many other social networking sites, has caused much controversy between millions of employees and their bosses. The first thing that one sees when he logs onto Facebook is the question: What’s on your mind? Such a simple question, yet answering it has cost some their jobs. As Americans, we have the right to free speech, granted in the First Amendment, but this freedom has its limitations because we may not be willing to accept the consequences, especially if those consequences are being fired due to a social networking comment.

It is getting harder and harder for people to keep their personal lives separate from their professional lives.

An incident similar to Johnson’s occurred between a woman named Lindsay and her boss Brian. After only five months of working for her company, Lindsay posted a status about her boss. According to the Huffington Post, her status read: “OMG I HATE MY JOB!! My boss is a total pervvy f*@#er, always making me do s**t  just to p**s me off!! F*@#er!” Little did Lindsay know, Brian had a Facebook too.  When he saw the status, he responded with a prompt reply – a pink slip.

Massachusetts high school teacher, June Talvitie-Siple, also learned the hard way that a Facebook page is probably not the best place to spout off about other people, in her case students and parents in the community. According to ABC news, Talvitie-Siple was forced to resign after parents spotted Facebook comments she wrote describing students as “germ bags”, and parents as “snobby” and “arrogant.” Talvitie-Siple admitted that what she did was “probably not the most appropriate thing to do,” but she thought her comments were only visible to her Facebook friends. She did not realize that her particular settings made every picture, status, and comment she posted visible to anyone on the Internet.

With all of the advanced technology and social networking that exists today, one has to think twice before hitting send. But, however scary, that’s just how things are right now. One click of a button and you can be fired. Freedom of speech is not nearly as free as most people think.