{"id":221,"date":"2007-09-30T20:31:29","date_gmt":"2007-09-30T19:31:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/?p=221"},"modified":"2012-05-03T22:59:53","modified_gmt":"2012-05-03T21:59:53","slug":"the-soul-of-discretion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/?p=221","title":{"rendered":"The soul of discretion?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m reading a new (to me) blog written by a person who works in a supermarket.<\/p>\n

The writer\u00a0chooses not to name either\u00a0location or\u00a0employer for fear of\u00a0retribution and\/or being on the receiving end of charges such as ‘bringing her employer in to disrepute’.<\/p>\n

Which asks the question…<\/p>\n

If this blogger is telling the truth, are they\u00a0really guilty of bringing anyone in to disrepute?<\/em><\/p>\n

Another question…<\/p>\n

If that’s the case, is her employer (and any other organisation that chooses to use this heavy-handed defence) guilty of trying to stifle<\/em> the truth?<\/p>\n

The most celebrated case of an employer using the ‘disrepute’ argument to get shot of an anonymous blogger who was ‘discovered’ by her employer was Petite Anglaise<\/a> who (up until that point) had written anonymously of her life, loves and work-times.<\/p>\n

It’s worth noting that in the subsequent employment tribunal that adjudged Petite’s case the employer lost heavily because – it was decided – telling the truth can’t be disreputable; the disrepute lay where it was committed.<\/p>\n

On the issue of an employer’s staff who are prone<\/em> to blogging, there are a number of points that have to be widely accepted as fact:
\n1.\u00a0staff will blog – whether they have something good to say or something bad
\n2.\u00a0even if staff don’t have access to the internet at work (e.g. they work in the retail industry), they will blog from home<\/p>\n

So wouldn’t it be better if employers became grown up and sensible about this aspect of the provision of information?<\/p>\n

Surely an enlightened employer would provide staff with a workplace blog?<\/p>\n

A progressive employer would surely give staff a public place where they could write under their own name, a place where staff could relate things in their world?<\/p>\n

It could also be a place where an employer could read and learn and correct management and\/or operational faults?<\/p>\n

Wouldn’t that be great?<\/p>\n

To use the internet as a means of receiving feedback from valued members of staff.<\/p>\n

Unless, of course, management don’t value their staff and don’t want to hear from them?<\/p>\n

Or don’t want to know what their employees think about them; don’t want to know how poor their management\/operational practices are?<\/p>\n

B<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m reading a new (to me) blog written by a person who works in a supermarket. The writer\u00a0chooses not to name either\u00a0location or\u00a0employer for fear<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stuff","two-columns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=221"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}