Don't post where you eat: Nintendo fires employee for blogging
by Scott Jon Siegel 
{ Oct 1st 2007 at 9:00AM }
Anyone still convinced of the anonymity of the internet should maybe think twice before complaining about their coworkers. Jessica Zenner recently lost her job at Nintendo of America over some slanderous remarks made on her blog. This, despite the fact that Zenner wrote under a pseudonym, and used no company or employee names when talking about her work.Zenner -- who is 23-year-old and "good looking" according to The Seattle Stranger -- was contracted as a technical recruiter for Nintendo. Her blog, aptly titled Inexcusable Behavior, featured several posts in which she discusses co-workers and superiors, though never by name and without ever mentioning that she worked for Nintendo.
One post in particular focused on a female boss, referring to her as a "frumpy" and "hormonal" woman with "facial hair," and who gives Zenner "a new excuse to drink heavily." This post, among others, appear to have since been removed from her blog. VP of marketing Perrin Kaplan has stated that Nintendo does not forbid employees to keep blogs, but does discourage the practice. This echoes the "officially unofficial" policies of other large tech companies, like Microsoft.
[Via Game Politics]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
George @ Oct 1st 2007 9:04AM
Yikes - Big N is watching.
Oh and this has to be a hoax because there are no girls on the intarweb OR working in the gaming industry :P
Britboyj27 @ Oct 1st 2007 9:16AM
Soooo... was she a booth babe? "Technical Recruiter" sounds something like that...
And damn...
Jerk Face @ Oct 1st 2007 9:06AM
Hot.
FrankTheCrank @ Oct 1st 2007 10:33AM
She's the human sex doll.
Look at the second photo on her blog. She looks like a real live sex doll. lol.
I would take her for a spin around the block...then throw her out of the car.
Jerk Face @ Oct 1st 2007 10:51AM
Holy hell! Ha ha ha...
Mr. P @ Oct 1st 2007 11:04AM
Too much make up, but you can still tap it from the back.
T3H WICKERMAN @ Oct 1st 2007 11:38AM
looked hot in the first photo second one was a bit freakish. She must be reffering to Perrins beard eh?
Jerk Face @ Oct 1st 2007 11:42AM
Perrin Kaplan is a stone cold fox.
NintendoFanbot @ Oct 1st 2007 6:38PM
Perrin Kaplan is the Alpha Mom. You don't mess with Alpha Moms.
Fernando Rocker (NDF - Water Ring) @ Oct 1st 2007 9:07AM
I just check the blog... she is hot!
Fernando Rocker (NDF - Water Ring) @ Oct 1st 2007 9:09AM
I wish I was Reggie: "If you want to keep your job, you know what job you need to do me first"
fwacce @ Oct 1st 2007 9:13AM
Piece of advice Fernando... Stop refreshing joystiq over and over in order to get your lame comments posted quickly, and go outside in the sun and find yourself a real, live human girl.
Fernando Rocker (NDF - Water Ring) @ Oct 1st 2007 9:14AM
fwacce
I'm married, kid.
Korova @ Oct 1st 2007 9:25AM
She has what we in the industry call a working mouth.
Night Elve @ Oct 1st 2007 9:31AM
Then take care of your wife instead of being a troll here 24/7.
Grant @ Oct 1st 2007 3:20PM
agreed on that,
we need more gorgeous women that are at least partially in the industry, even if from an outside contractor.
it will finally remove the stigma of people who have any sort of involvement in video games are fat, pimped, and generally overall unsociable.
I mean look at the examples we have now... anyone at the top of Sony is usually a wrinkly old japanese prune. Reggie looks like a Neanderthal. We had peter moore looking like a normal guy, then he gets stolen by EA, to only get replaced by "nerd of the year" looking jeff bell. i mean come on. COME ON!!!
ark_v2 @ Oct 1st 2007 3:37PM
Poor woman...
T3H WICKERMAN @ Oct 1st 2007 5:32PM
You are married to the badge.
Aberu @ Oct 2nd 2007 10:55AM
Fwacce he's a stay at home dad IMO.
The Boo @ Oct 1st 2007 9:08AM
The temptation to make a Wii joke is almost too much...
Grizzly @ Oct 1st 2007 9:14AM
I'm sure she can capitalise on all the publicity and get a job with Sony/MS.
Scott @ Oct 1st 2007 9:17AM
First rule of blogging - Don't blog about your employer and expect to keep your job.
FOXHOUND @ Oct 1st 2007 9:29AM
Or rather, don't blog at work. :p If she was doing it from home and not releasing/disclosing any kind of trade secrets, then they shouldn't be able to drop the hammer on her. And if that chick's that much of a blankety-blank bi'atch, she should've took the complaint to HR.
NATO_Duke @ Oct 1st 2007 10:15AM
Yes they can fire her. It's "at will" employment and you don't need a reason to fire someone. She was posting nasty comments on coworkers, which if they read, would make working with her uncomfortable. Besides, they have a work environment to protect. People think they can do whatever they want and have no work repercussions – that’s just not the case.
She deserved to be fired for talking about coworkers like that and they were in the right for dumping her.
Jon @ Oct 1st 2007 9:23AM
She was not fired for blogging. Rather she was fired for slagging off her boss in her blog. Big difference.
Scott Jon Siegel @ Oct 1st 2007 9:37AM
Bad-mouthing the boss on your blog is called "blogging about work," and it was for that blogging that she was fired. Had she written about it in her private diary (or "gournal," if you will) and not shown anyone, she'd still have the job. So, the blogging part is really the important bit.
doomcloud @ Oct 1st 2007 9:27AM
sounds like anonymity was a big concern of hers good thing she didnt put a PICTURE OF HERSELF IN HER BLOG!!!!
pwned
baby sea tuna @ Oct 1st 2007 9:32AM
Haven't people learned yet that their employers do pay attention to what they say or do on the Internet, even on their off hours?
Dumbass.
vinny @ Oct 1st 2007 9:36AM
id hit it
Knighthawk @ Oct 1st 2007 9:41AM
Oh well, i don't feel sorry for the stupid bitch! Every job has it's pains, she worked at Nintendo for crying out loud, sign me up for that! She just sounds like a whiny ungrateful bitch to me, she deserved to get canned!
J.Goodwin @ Oct 1st 2007 9:50AM
I'm pretty sure that everyone at Microsoft blogs, from Ray Ozzie right down to the guy at Mini-microsoft.
Heck, Microsoft even has a directory of blogs written by Microsoft employees:
http://www.microsoft.com/communities/blogs/PortalHome.mspx
Dave Silva @ Oct 1st 2007 4:48PM
Yes - but you can be sure they don't speak badly about their bosses. Those Microsoft employee blogs are usually technical in nature, not personal. And they keep the NDA stuff off them, too.
Boss Tempo @ Oct 1st 2007 9:59AM
She's alright - a little full of herself but most bloggers who claim to be writers tend to drone on about how critical they think they are to the rest of us. You know what Jessica? You should take your top off. Now THATS interesting.
Chameleon @ Oct 1st 2007 10:29AM
agreed
Jonah Falcon @ Oct 1st 2007 10:20AM
Jessica Zenner wins the lottery. There's laws against this - it's called "The First Amendment".
Ka-ching!
Jamesonite @ Oct 1st 2007 6:47PM
The constitution protects one from the government not private persons.
BlueOceanTao @ Oct 1st 2007 10:26AM
There has to be something unconstitutional about being fired for such an abstract reason. What about free speech? According to the article she followed all the protocols as far as not naming names. So is Nintendo next going to fire people because they once played Sega in their past? Going with the logic of this case, they would fire you because they suspected you tried a Sega product at least once in your life.
-BF
NATO_Duke @ Oct 1st 2007 10:47AM
Free speech is not a claim you make versus a private company, I can inhibit your free speech if you work for me, such as through an agreement not to talk trade secrets. Free speech is a constitutional protection, which means it constrains the federal government from acting to take your speech rights without there being a compelling interest and a reaction that is narrowly tailored to serve it.
A private corporation only has to answer to a constitutional claim if there is government involvement, such as the US telling Nintendo to shut someone up.
So no, there is no constitutional angle here. People too often confuse free speech with being some universal right you can claim against anyone. Its not.
playwhutyalike @ Oct 1st 2007 10:49AM
Blue
Someone mentioned that her employment is "at will". In my state it is the same way. What this means is they can fire your ass and not have a reason. This is how I see this played out. She probably wasn't well liked around the office to begin with. If she is spouting off on her blogs about her fellow employees and bosses, she probably had the same piss poor attitude at work. So all they (meaning managment) had to do was wait for her to come close to violating any company policy then drop the hatchet.
What a dumb bitch. You don't like your job, find a new one and quit wasting everybody's time. Suck it up. Has America become a collective gathering of whiners and babies? I'm going to go poop now.
MAL @ Oct 1st 2007 10:44AM
Anonymity?
How can this be if you have pictureS of yourself on the blog?
What got her fired was the slander toward the boss of the person in the picture but more importantly the inappropriate pictures, and there were some f’ed up ones.
These pictures were not suitable for someone who works for a respectable establishment and especially for a mother of a 3 year old kid. The husband will not be happy once he gets back from Iraq.
The above entry is not only old news, it is not even accurate.
Paviel @ Oct 1st 2007 1:06PM
Technically, what she did would be considered libel rather than slander.
Not that I'd expect many people to know the difference...
Raikage (NDF - PK THUNDER RING) @ Oct 1st 2007 1:23PM
Thank you High School Government! There is a difference but it really doesn't matter much anymore, it's pretty much the same thing.
Dave @ Oct 1st 2007 10:44AM
They shouldn't have fired her. All they've done is call attention to her comments. They could have handled it by talking to her in private and then asking her to remove the offending posts. Of course, her boss would probably hate her either way.
NATO_Duke @ Oct 1st 2007 10:48AM
Her action showed disloyalty to the group she works with and would create rifts between them. I think its totally justified to can her rather than have the problem fester and grow.
Slaziman @ Oct 1st 2007 10:58AM
She isn't even that hot
Naota @ Oct 1st 2007 11:39AM
agreed
Crono (NDF - French Taunting from Holy Grail Ring) @ Oct 1st 2007 2:55PM
She's hot in that slutty "use me" sort of way.
Not someone you'd want to take home to mom.
Ska Oreo @ Oct 1st 2007 11:04AM
Before the kids start bitching about Nintendo, keep in mind that something similar happened to a blogger that worked at Sony and was fired for it.
JL @ Oct 1st 2007 12:19PM
Seriously, why did you have to bring up Sony?
Duoae @ Oct 1st 2007 11:42AM
Hmmm.. Personally i don't think she should have been fired for this - if she was fired for it and not general lack of work.
First off, complaining about an unnamed person is not slander since said person is not named.
Secondly she posted under a pseudonym and unless she was regularly posting pictures of herself under her real name somewhere else then no one would make the connection - therefore her complaining about "a company" and "people she works with" was completely harmless venting.
The only way Nintendo could have discovered the blog is if she posted at work and they monitored this activity - which is a little stupid for her to be doing - and if her boss/co-workers where able to monitor this activity as well.... which might be a little controversial since usually HR insists a specially delegated and not-involved person would be responsible for this job. So in reality her co-workers would/should never have found out about this unless she was making death threats or something illegal.
Considering that over here, you can't even really phone an ill co-worker because it's harassment then i would expect something similar about divulging her internet activities to her boss.
Whether or not her actions showed disloyalty (What world do you live in?) to the group or company etc is irrelevant as long as she did her job and was civil to the people she worked with.
I have to also say that most people do not enjoy the job that they do. Unfortunately there isn't some sort of magical system whereby people only take the jobs that they like the most. This is the real world here - you take what you can get that pays well. If you enjoy it then that's a bonus. Some of the people's reactions here seem to be complete and utter hatred for no other reason that she's either female/"attractive" or worked for a company they wished they worked for.
I personally believe that a company has no grounds to fire you if you are doing your job - everyone has a right to complain and if no names are named and it's done anonymously then there is no harm at all. It's like people don't realise that the internet has become another form of communication and gossip. People always gossip and that won't go away. Rumours could still be spread before the introduction of the internet and having an anonymous blog complaining about the boss won't affect anything.
Maybe the boss/Nintendo should learnt to take criticism? Or maybe they're too busy not caring about their employees anyway judging from the whole PR dept move in the US.
Amazing.