December 16, 2013
More than your (past) employer may see what you post on Twitter
Posted by Dr. Laura Guertin
This is great: this pub just fired the head chef but forgot he was running their twitter: https://t.co/p5xbA0X4Yx
— James Bloodworth (@J_Bloodworth) December 16, 2013
As a personal rule, I do not follow any of my students on Twitter (even if current students follow me), unless they are doing undergraduate research projects with me (I find Twitter a great way to connect with them, especially when we are at conferences, and we can communicate much quicker about research status and results rather than via email). And I always encourage all students to be responsible with Twitter, that they should never tweet something negative about a current employer or fellow employees. Unfortunately, students/alumni do not always follow this advice – and neither did this (former) chef at a restaurant in the UK.
I follow science writer @edyong209, who retweeted the tweet I posted above, which has then been retweeted over 850 times. Below are screenshots with the profile for @ploughpub and the tweets posted by the departing chef (read from the bottom up). Some of you may laugh when you read this, and some of you may be disappointed. But my take-home message is… you never know who may see what you tweet (and how far that tweet may travel across the Twitterverse!).
UPDATE! In less than 24 hours, the @ploughpub gained an additional 1,000 followers on Twitter – but they also deleted all of their tweets and stopped following everyone. It will be interesting to see how long it takes them to restart their Twitter account – and how long it takes them to get a new head chef.