Better Think Twice

Pretty sure he regretted that one.

Have you ever posted something on a social media website only minutes later to regret ever saying anything? Well you may want to start thinking twice before ever posting them. Now more than ever people are getting into trouble for things they post on a social media website such as Twitter or Facebook. More and more companies are starting to develop social media policies in the work place, such as not posting anything demeaning to the company or not leaking any confidential information vital to the company. I just recently had my own personal experience where I learned first hand that my employer does in-fact have a social media policy. I would have never thought in my wildest dreams that what I posted on Twitter or Facebook would have an effect on me at work. Recently the store that I work at got a new manager, and she ended up being over my department. To say that we don’t exactly see eye to eye would be a complete understatement, but we manage to keep it civil and work in a business sense. However, when I was at the peak of my disdain towards her and wanting to quit my job of the past four years, I was tweeting back and forth with one of my coworkers. During this Twitter exchange it came up multiple times about how we did not care for her, but I assumed that it didn’t matter what was posted because I did not say a name. A couple weeks went by, things got better with my manager and I had honestly forgotten about ever tweeting about her when I got to work and my co-manager told me to make sure I talked to her before I left for the day. Instantly I just kept going over in my head about what I could have possibly done to get in trouble and I couldn’t think of anything so I thought well maybe she just needs to tell me something. I was completely in shock over what came next. I went into the office and she had me close the door and told me that she was told by someone that me and one my coworkers had been bashing our manager on Twitter. I told her that it was never bashing but we did voice our dislike for her but thought it would be fine because there were no names. I was not formally in trouble and my manager assured me that it was just a conversation between us and none of us.  It almost was more of a talking to like a parent would give their child on the responsibilities and consequences that can come from social media. Up until this point in time I had never once known that there was a social media policy at my company, and I plan to use this as a learning tool. I am almost certain that many of the people that I supervise know there is a social media policy in effect so I plan on bringing that up to them at the next team meeting. I admit that knowing what I know now I should have never posted those tweets. But in those moments between actually writing the tweet and sending it I was in such an angry and emotional state that I didn’t even care to think about the consequences. Hopefully others will learn from this and actually start to think of the consequences that can come from social media posts gone wrong.