Facebook: Today’s cautionary tale…

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Posted by Mathew @ 5:09 pm on November 13 2007 | |

Today’s cautionary tale about using Facebook comes from one Kevin Colvin, who appears to be a bank intern at the American division of Anglo Irish Bank — or at least that’s the story Valleywag has up, along with a charming photo of Mr. Colvin in a Halloween costume, which I have reproduced here for your enjoyment. I believe he’s some kind of elf or fairy of some sort — Tinkerbell perhaps.

In any case, it seems that Mr. Colvin booked off sick in an email to his boss, who sent a message back with an understanding comment about personal obligations — and included a compliment on Kevin’s wand, along with a copy of the photo that he had posted to his Facebook after a Halloween party. Not only that, but he apparently forwarded a copy of the email to a number of co-workers, which is how it wound up at Valleywag.

This isn’t the first time that someone’s personal behaviour has gotten them in trouble at work, and it’s unlikely to be the last. We can argue about whether it was right for Kevin’s boss to lift the photo and then publicly humiliate him in front of his coworkers by forwarding the email, but perhaps he wanted to send some kind of message to the rest of the staff. It may not be right, but it happens. Facebookers beware.

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Mathew posted this article under Facebook, Social networks on Tuesday, November 13th, 2007 at 5:09 pm. . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed, and you can also view Technorati Linkbacks or check for other responses using YackTrack.