Another way that a blog can get you in trouble
That image (plus one other) resulted in a suspension without pay or benefits for Queen of Sky, a/k/a Ellen Simonetti:
The poor, powerless, downtrodden and distressed Queen of Sky finally met with Mighty Management yesterday. They interrogated her about her blog and then told her that her suspension WITHOUT PAY AND WITHOUT BENEFITS was continued until further notice. MM said Q of S was suspended because of some "inappropriate" (???) pictures on her blog. After about two weeks time MM will tell Q of S her fate (i.e. show her the door).
"Hmm, they could have given me a warning and a chance to remove the pictures before suspending me," Q of S mused to herself afterward. "And what's this business about being suspended WITHOUT pay for weeks on end?"
The text of the blog did not identify Queen of Sky as a Delta flight attendant, though sharp-eyed readers could look at the uniform and tell. (Provided, of course, that you were looking at the uniform.)
Cathy from Cathy's World (who retained the picture above after Queen of Sky was forced to remove it from her blog) subsequently mentioned the following:
Last week Queen of Sky emailed me: "I have found plenty of pics of MALE Delta employees on the Web in uniform, who actually identify their airline. Therefore, today I filed a discrimination complaint with the EEOC. They thought the whole suspension was ridiculous, too. The man that took my complaint and his supervisor did not find anything inappropriate about these pics. So I think I have a good case."
So are there private pictures of uniformed Delta employees on the web? A simple Google image search turned up the following:
The BBC is now covering the story:
A US airline attendant is fighting for her job after she was suspended over postings on her blog, or online diary.
Queen of the Sky, otherwise known as Ellen Simonetti, evolved into an anonymous semi-fictional account of life in the sky.
But after she posted pictures of herself in uniform, Delta Airlines suspended her indefinitely without pay.
Ms Simonetti was told her suspension was a result of "inappropriate" images. Delta Airlines declined to comment....
"I was really shocked, I had no warning," Ms Simonetti told BBC News Online.
"I never thought I would get in trouble because of the blog. I thought if they had a problem, someone would have said something before taking action."
The issue has highlighted concerns amongst the growing blogging community about conflicts of interest, employment law and free speech on personal websites.
Ms Simonetti was suspended on 25 September pending an investigation and has since lodged a complaint with the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)....
Ms Simonetti started her personal blog in January to help her get over her mother's death.
She had ensured she made no mention of which airline she worked for, and created fictional names for cities and companies.
The airline's name was changed to Anonymous Airline and the city in which she was based was called Quirksville....
"I never meant it as something to harm my company and don't understand how they think it did harm them," Ms Simonetti said.
She has also claimed that pictures of male Delta Airline employees in uniform are freely available on the web....
"They did not tell me which pictures they had a problem with. I am just assuming it was the one of me posing on seats where my skirt rode up," she said.
The images were removed as soon as she learned she had been suspended. As far as Ms Simonetti knows, there is no company anti-blogging policy.
There is guidance which suggests the company uniform cannot be used without approval from management, but use in personal pictures on websites is unclear....
"If they had asked me just take down the blog, I would have done it, but that was not been given to me as an option," she said....
The interesting part here is that Simonetti was immediately suspended and not allowed to take corrective action. Joyce "Troutgirl" Park was also fired without being allowed to take corrective action.
It's astounding to me that someone can be fired without notice for blogging, when just this week at my own company someone -
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...not gonna do it... :)
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