Microsoft Temp Employee Fired for Blog Posting

[Joshua]

This one's for you Ribitch and Spig!
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Sorry, guys; it wasn't Robert Scoble. A Microsoft temporary
employee found himself on the receiving end of a pink slip this week
when he published a photo of the Microsoft campus's shipping and
receiving loading dock on his blog, a personal Web journal. Microsoft
fired him because it claimed the photo was a security risk, claiming
that people viewing the photo would be able to figure out the loading
dock's location. The former employee later admitted that what he did
was wrong, though he offered up an interesting conspiracy theory for
those who are into that kind of thing: The photo he took shows a
pallet of brand-new Apple Computer Power Mac G5 computers being
unloaded. Was that the real reason he was fired?

[ribitch]

i saw this earlier this week. M$ does have a mac department, so they were either going there or to the longhorn departments R&D.

[cheapie]

uh. shipping dock locations aren't difficult to locate. they are supposed to be easy to find.

[bachviet]

Originally posted by cheapie
uh. shipping dock locations aren't difficult to locate. they are supposed to be easy to find.

All the shipping companies know where the shipping docks are.

[Nija]

If I remember correctly, he said where he worked, what building, and on top of all that he took a picture. I don't know about most of you, but some of the better companies I've worked for that were major players, don't allow you to take pictures of anything, because it's a huge security risk (yeah a picture of a loading is nothing, what about a picture of what's going on in R&D etc.)

I have no sympathy. he deserved it. He obviously didn't read his NDA, he deserves what he got. end of story.

[coleslaw]

Normally for tech companies, you're not even allowed to bring a camera into the building or anywhere on the company's grounds without prior approval.

Although, they make exceptions for camera phones. They just say that you can't use the camera feature of the phone.

[Jeffbx]

I don't think for a second it was a security issue... that was their excuse for canning him. Here's his blog:

http://www.michaelhanscom.com/eclect...gging_and.html

Anyone remember the Coke driver caught drinking a Pepsi? I'm sure this is along the same lines - corporate embarassment.

[Booyamos]

ha ha security risk

I can tell you where it is, take 520, get off at 41st street, go towards 7-11 and turn left before the light. Nintendo and Microsoft are in there (well part of MSFT) their company store is there, and then across the street is the shipping department. Any fool can just walk in there until they realize you don't have a badge.

Security risk my a$$, it is a building with trucks, how hard is it to find.

I used to live across the street from there and my mom works for them