Facebook firing
A few weeks ago I blogged about service by Facebook (see here and here) and now the Calgary Herald has a story on an employee being fired by Facebook:
When esthetician Crystal Bell was fired via Facebook, she spawned a debate over"cyber sacking" and what employers owe their employees in times when electronic communication has become the norm.
"I think it's going to be the way of the future, but for me it's not the human way to go," said Bell, a single mother from Kelowna, B. C. who found out she was canned when she checked her Facebook e-mail one morning in late November as she was getting ready for work. "I think using any kind of texting or e-mailing to let people go is the coward's way out."
The former spa worker, who concedes she was also hired via Facebook, had only been on the job for two weeks when she was let go with an electronic pink slip after failing to show up at a staff meeting on her day off.
"I still got dressed and went into work that day because I thought she was kidding," said Bell, who received word of her firing via her private Facebook inbox, so it was not online for all her friends to see.
The termination sparked a minor stir online, with employment lawyers and human-resource experts blogging about whether cyber-sackings are merely the modern equivalent of a letter of termination. Are they just tacky, or do they raise questions about the legal ins and outs of letting employees go?
Read more here. There is no doubt in my mind that it is tacky, but I think the same conclusion I had with respect to service via Facebook applies to being fired by Facebook:
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