Old Tweets and Jobs

Posted on by theycallmetater

I watched the new episode of Jeopardy last night. This week is the one week Mike Richards hosted before he was fired. He was not fired due to old tweets, but for alleged actions while working for The Price is Right and for things he said on a podcast. With the Jeopardy hosting gig once again vacant, there have been more articles about the hosting search. Several of these were about Ken Jennings losing the job because of “problematic” tweets. He has apologized for the tweet but it still seems like it might be what eliminated him from contention.

Yesterday, I saw what at first seemed like a funny story involving the son of a couple I know from college. He went to school at our alma mater. He was raised by people who went to that school. He grew up in the area around the school. This school has an in-state rival. You are supposed to hate your rival when it comes to sports. This guy tweeted some negative atuff about this rival when he was in college. He had some sort of job/internship with the athletic department. He then graduated and moved on to another school for grad school where he also did work with the athletic department. After that, he was hired by the athletic department of the above rival.

The fans of this school discovered his old tweets and were very angry that he worked for their school. At first, it was funny. Sports fans get mad about dumb things a lot. Also, their athletic director also went to their rival school. Then, it got ugly. People demanded they fire him. They were all over Twitter demanding he lose his job for tweeting these things while in college. They demanded the school only hire peple who went to the school. The university had to release a statement in support of him. He deleted his Twitter account. I imagine it will be hard for him to not start looking for a new job. It can’t be comfortable working there now.

I’m tired of people digging up old tweets and using them against people. Especially when they tweeted them in high school or college. It is way too common for people to dig through social media trying to find something that will discredit people and prevent them from getting or keeping jobs. I’m sure if someone dug through my social media or this blog they could find something I said that they could use against me. Someone can find offense in almost anything. Should that keep me from being employed?

What do you think? Should old tweets be grounds for removal from or contention for a job?

12 thoughts on “Old Tweets and Jobs”

  1. We have all said or tweeted or posted things that weren’t nice. And probably a lot when we were young. In my mind, if something was “said” years ago, it should be “forgiven.” How long ago is subjective, but definitely things said in youth should be overlooked. Only if there is a pattern and/or if such meanness continues should it be grounds to dismiss or not hire. Great post!

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

  2. If we let people out of jail after they’ve committed actual crimes and let them have a second chance, then we should drop internet searches of the same, especially if they’re pre 21. Ridiculous

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

      3. Completely agree. My daughter is interning for a judge. She was told not to post anything on social media that in any way shape or form be considered as having an opinion

        Liked by 2 people

  4. The real issue here, as I see it, is that the Internet is still very young. In reality, it’s just barely out of its teens, yet it has an undue influence on society. It needs time to mature. And we need to learn how to prevent it from having too much influence upon us until it’s done so.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

Leave a comment