Dooced and Other Reasons to Get Fired

Most of the states in the U.S. exercise at-will employment rules. That is, a company can fire an employee for any reason, unless the issue at hand is protected by law, like gender, race, religion, national origin, or disability. (Currently, Montana and Arizona seem to be the only states not practicing at-will.)This means that it could be legal for your employer to fire you over your political leanings. And that’s not the only area. In a piece for Yahoo! HotJobs, Larry Buhl writes about five key areas where a company may scrutinize. According to Buhl, they are:

Smoking, drinking, and overeating. Due to the cost of health insurance, more and more employers view “unhealthy” habits as a threat to their bottom line. (Guess they should stop serving pastries at the morning meetings)

Risky behavior. Likewise, a company might see your bungee jumping hobby as a liability. (Guess they should stop sending top sales people white water rafting...oh ya, that would be their idea)

Speech. Will your employer consider your blogging to be destructive griping? (Fire us. Go ahead.)

Romantic relationships. Dating someone at a competitor’s company has landed employees in hot water. And some employers might take issue with unmarried coupling or even same-sex relationships (federal law doesn’t protect employees from discrimination based on real or perceived sexual orientation). (Guess the boss better stop having his assistant buy flowers and jewelry for the girlfriend)

Political activity. Volunteering for Obama could be trouble if you have a pro-McCain boss, and vice versa. (Yes, We Can - I think Obama said it best)

How Dooced is that? (she got canned for blogging)