Fired for blogging

Random Mentality linked to Mr. Lance Salyers who was fired from his job as a prosecutor for this post where he says this about someone in his office:

...Justice sometimes falls into the laps of "timid souls," who not only shrink from the hard and uncertain work of Duty, but have the audacity to wrap themselves up in an air of self-congratulatory smugness at their exercise of "responsible caution."

When I read this, I figured that Mr. Salyers wanted to prosecute someone for a crime and his bosses said "no" because they didn't think they could get a conviction. And Mr. Salyers basically called them cowards in the title of the post.

In his most recent post, he says that:

When I was fired, I was plainly told that it was because a group of my fellow co-workers ... had read what I wrote and were bitterly upset over the fact that I don't respect them. For these hurt feelings, I was told that my continued employment with the office (apparently on any level) "is not going to work."

So it wasn't his boss, I guess. Still, that was my impression from reading it. I've been thinking about this on and off for the past 24 hours or so trying to figure out what exactly I think. I believe in the freedom of speech. But I also believe that when you work for a company, you have to maintain a certain loyalty or suffer the consequences. Dweeze says in reference to a different case of someone getting fired for comments on a blog that you have to use common sense when posting. I think that's really the heart of the matter. If you want to call your co-workers cowards (and who hasn't at some point?), tell your wife or your girlfriend. Don't post it online where anyone can read it. All the righteous indignation doesn't change the fact that Mr. Salyers made a foolish mistake and suffered for it. You don't insult your co-workers in public and expect everything to be hunky dory at work the next day. To think otherwise is embarrassingly naive.