It was highly unnecessary and the person already disclosed that they didnt need sponsorship now or ever on their application. So I would let it go for now, but then the next time youre going to use her as a reference, give her a heads up that she may be getting a call and also let her know that youre keeping your former salary confidential. Oh and also theyve been getting up to go refill their water a lot 15 times over the last two days! Or not. Yes, I think anything on LinkedIn and professional sites counts as publicly visible.. Sometimes other stuff comes up, like their recent DUI or a highlighted post about their divorce. I assume people do it to me but if I ever did it to a coworker it would make me feel dirty. Not everyone uses a GPS or phone for navigation in known areas, though that is becoming more common than not. I would never say it out loud, and wouldnt hold it against the remote worker, but Id be a little annoyed if I got a couple slices of pizza to eat in a conference room or at my desk while a remote worker got a $20 GrubHub card. Sure, its technically not my house yet, but Im under contract; so while its probably not legally trespassing, its essentially walking into someone elses house uninvited and is creepy AF. The OP commented in another thread and said shes only looking up professional background stuff on LinkedIn so I wouldnt consider that snooping, but again, those are questions most people would have no problem with asking the person face to face. The folks who think that Googling someones professional info are really confusing me. ), But Id stop assuming they think youre inexperienced just because theyre sending you to training. So even though my gut instinct to the title is boy is that weird its what I do if the thing Im curious about is in the arts. Ive looked up colleagues on LinkedIn, but thats what that platform is for. But it still took a couple weeks for Googles algorithms to not display the porn-ish titled posts that no longer existed. Could be worse the contractor I worked for when I left the public sector looked up my salary on the local newspapers public data site after I warned them not to use my previous salary to evaluate my offer. Im not in favor of people googling candidates because you get to see their gender, race/ethnicity, and other things that can potentially color your unbiased view of a candidate (hiring ethics?). Even if you have five pizza parties and only send out one card, at least youre admitting the home gang exists. For example, yes, its undeniably stupid to post updates on your teenage angst on Livejournal under your real name. Plenty of people are interested in exploring the question on where the lines are on this stuff without being motivated by a desire to do it themselves, simply because its an interesting question. I have a coworker who makes a point of saying how she has googled all of us in our unit to find out our ages, and makes comments on things she has found on peoples social media, so she must be googling us regularly. :D. When I worked as a virtual assistant back in 2013, for Administrative Professionals Day we were all told to go out and buy ourselves lunch, submit the receipt (scan+email), and the company would e-transfer us $10. One instance where Ive looked people up on LinkedIn is for higher ups in the company to see previous roles, to see what a path for myself could look like. This happened to my husband as well, back when we all had landlines. Im allowed to know it, Im allowed to look it up, Im allowed to use it for legitimate contact purposes. Googled it just to find out what it was a reference to, and ended up with his posts and profile on Reddit and a ton of other sites. Everyone was in on it, and it was a hilarious, harmless few minutes of fun until a old newspaper article featuring my boss name turned up. I might not reference it to the candidate or hiring partner, but it helps me guide the interview process. Engineer Girl because some people are nosey, as you said. OP2: Layoffs suck, Im sorry you had to go through that. Its another thing to take a look at things they purposefully make public about themselves on a popular social media site. Its ridiculous. Thats not prejudging, thats just accurately judging. That they asked me in person, then asked another coworker after I demurred, and made them LOOK IT UP IN THE PATRON DATABASE, then TAUNTED ME WITH THE INFORMATION, led to some unpleasant consequences. Thats part of the reason Id give her a pass on it, and just make sure to head it off for next time. Its not work-relevant that you stumbled onto someones explicit pix on a dating page (or courtesy of some revenge porn jerk) and you may be reasonably sure that a client will not recognize them in that gear, unless theyve changed in the same bathroom and seen the tatoo that confirmed it for you. Of all the swag Ive ever gotten, I only actually like/use two items- an unexpectedly nice pen and a sturdy plastic cup. Im not saying Ive never googled anyone before, and I dont think its an invasion of privacy if you do. Bad Behavior Your coworkers might just be nosy, prying into your personal life and gossiping about you when you're not around. The easier it is to get away with something and the fewer repercussions (if any) that will result, the more likely people are to indulge in activities they know arent right. Also, (a BAD example) I used to work somewhere where the staff directory was on the internet, not intranet! We started around the same time. It does sound like you wouldnt have ended up with a fair offer anyway, given that this company offered you 25% less than you were making at a lower-level job where you were already underpaid! PDF OFFICE OF THE GENERAL COUNSEL Advice Memorandum - SHRM why does the king of diamonds have an axe;. The internet makes it frighteningly easy to acquire vast amounts of info on nearly anybody, and unless youre foolish enough to talk about it, nobody will know you did it. forwarding PHI/PII, viewing profiles, discussing a patient's PHI. In my field (academic librarianship), I have never heard of vendor swag becoming company property. With his dog. Asking someone directly also makes it A Thing and sometimes its better for everyone of curiosity is satisfied in a low key way. Even without bribing, it turned out that doctors would be more likely to prescribe something if they had the brand name in front of them all the time on pencils and other trivial things. Heck yes it is. But digging into my personal life, especially via a background check? (Its an oldie but goodie internet treasure. Or anything that comes up in a google search under their name? Nothing wrong with the satisfaction in doing better than a competitor in amateur sports but youre not supposed to be obvious about it. I think this is a great way to look at it. It meets the legitimate work concern test. This. I tried deflecting, but it hasnt worked. Id also advocate for having final stage candidates meeting the team theyd be working with regardless of the situation, and anyone could bring up a concern at that point as well. Neither statement is true. Looking at publicly broadcast information is in no way the same as using binoculars to look inside someones private home. Googling someone and looking at 2 or 3 results doesnt mean that youre memorizing every facet of their lives, nor does it mean that you refuse to actually *speak to* them. I came here to say this. But you need to keep it quiet. Are people who work in the arts not professionals? If you dont want people to have access to that information, then dont make it so easy for people to find. On the line between creepy and non-creepy internet searches: personally, I think a basic search is fine. Thats more an issue surrounding what you do with the information once you find it rather than whether you should look in the first place. Yeah its definitely not rude, unless youre actually questioning their ability to do their job. But it makes sense to do it later in the process! The nicer ones were, if I was in the mood, occasionally given a short speech about folks with shotguns in Idaho who did not take kindly to uninvited strangers parking in front of their house and staring or taking photos. Yes, I hadnt thought of this but it definitely makes them a more flexible option! So not only am I at the mercy of those other departments when it comes time to review my work, but I get zero credit for or acknowledgment of all of the important things I actually do. This is still not a great analogy because someone wearing a cow costume under their clothes is certainly more out of place than the mundane info that is available on the internet about people/coworkers. I have a google alert for my name. Keeping your reading focused on professional material is a good boundary, but not all Twitter feeds, LinkedIn profiles, blogs, etc. I think its a leap to assume that this was punitive. Some people think that everyone snoops and its no big deal, other people are just horrified at the very idea. Then again, Im not even on Facebook. But if people are concerned about that kind of privacy violations we should push for similar right to be forgotten like in the EU to be passed here in the US. Sit on a board? And even proving youre the owner of the house and removing the pics (like you can on Zillow) doesnt mean there wont be pics of your house on other sites like Redfin or crossposted from other real estate sites. But dont default to Starbucks! They should expect it. But thats not what were talking about here. However I would never confront the person that information I found. On the team I am prior experience comes up all the time because we all came from different companies prior. Not everything you read will be accurate. Thats the same reason there are so many political signs up at election time. For reference, I work for a large equipment manufacturer. You said the OP is looking for plausible deniability because they want to snoop on coworkers. I dont care too much about what my colleagues are up to outside the office. (Although technically legal in themselves. Im so sorry you experienced a newsworthy family tragedy. cps drug testing law kentucky ratios of directed line segments formula Somebody will do it isnt even close to being the same thing as this is morally OK and not creepy. Check the company s ethics policy before keeping anything. I will stand on this hill with you. If a company is doing appropriate checks theyll get your salary information from your previous job at some point (if they really want it, itll be earlier in the process rather than later). In contrast, a coworker doesn't work with you directly. We should push, like people in Europe have, to change that. No valid professional reason. Just because its out there doesnt mean its not weird to dig into it. greyclovds 7 mo. I was a buyer for a major retailer and couldnt accept anything from vendors, not even a bottle of water during a meeting. The internet didnt make it public, its just another outlet to access it. It just is. There are common misunderstandings about what certain projects actually were whenever someone reads in it print that rarely happen through spoken conversations, because people see it through the lense of their history/experience (common problem for people who leave X industry but stay in tech). I dont think this is a strange complaint at all, because Ive reported to managers who have no idea what I do or what Im even supposed to be doing. I guess calling it an invasion of privacy is a lot since it is public, but I just am not down for it. Then I would expect someone to send me the company logo umbrella gift and maybe a box of chocolates. Thats actually a rather startling observation, now that I think about it! I think the expectation of privacy was different on the early Internet. Unfortunately, I also see this as the ultimate outcome they are hoping for. And I know Ive been Googled by coworkers, because Im (mildly) internet famous through a hobby; everywhere Ive worked, people knew about this when I arrived, and it wasnt me that told them. But there are lines of privacy to be respected between employees; however, this is not talked about as often nor are these lines well drawn. Years later, I google myself and discover that some enterprising person had typed up that information and added it to their online membership list, which was something I did not know even existed. Its legal. From stock market news to jobs and real estate, it can all be found here. Before I made my phone number private, I used to get calls all the time for people with the same first & last name as me. Yes. You are in public and everyone can see what you do. I agree. A google search isnt creepy. Saying someone has a mental illness for running a quick google search is a major leap, and also feeds into the stigmatization of mental illness. Parle vous that experience into a better fit. Putting aside the issue of intentions with the googling question, I want to caution people to be careful about what they do with the information they find. Me neither. Some I like better than others. Wed all appreciate a little privacy and the only privacy we can get is the privacy we give each other. I certainly agree paying for a background check or PI on someone is a lot especially if the only reason is curiosity, it goes beyond a google search of someone. Agreed. I agree. I also very rarely make public posts. Besides, its a great way to bond with my coworkers and build networks. I think if that were to happen at the interviewing stage and the candidate was one of the top picks, it would make sense to have a woman interview them and evaluate if she felt safe with them or was getting weird vibes. Ah, now I can see why thats relevant in a professional capacity actually. is it unprofessional to have hickeys at work? People are allowed to look at it and do whatever they want with the information. Some of its fairly innocuous (hey, did you hear so and so plays ball and has kids? Same here. If the internet only existed for those two things it would be worth it. Along with job title? should I even consider interviewing somewhere else if Im happy with my job. Hopefully, if biases ended up coming into play theyd be noticed and discredited. Valued people work better. I cant imagine that someone wouldnt like *any* of them. IDGAF really what they are online, what matters is how they interact with me every day at work. Because we all covet the prestigious swag that is a emory board with a staffing agency logo on it. Its the same exact information, offered to exactly the same peopleeveryone. Having said that, paying someone to do a deep dive? Of course roles have budgets, salary ranges, etc. Thats more damage control than idle curiosity, though. To me, that's part of what LinkedIn is for. Practically everything on social media is posted with express permission from the user., Facebook literally makes profiles of people who have never been on Facebook. Im sure you can find a better company for you. You are also missing something extremely important context. Id say that driving by is way more likely to be noticed, and thus be creepy. colleagues should never snoop or look up information cvsijoy aurora speaker how to pair. Its blurry and we cant know where it is 100% of the time, but its there. This has now trickled down into her minion (my new manager) getting progressively aggressive and toxic with me in private meetings. 1 person turned out to be using a pic of one of Hugh Heffners wives! I assume the blog was truthful (I tend to believe victims as well as bad vibes), but what if it hadnt been and he was solely fired on the basis of it? LinkedIn is fair game as far as colleagues go. Fortunately hiring manager followed up to make sure it was accurate turns out HR misspelled candidates name [insert eyeroll emoji here]. So someone decided I was divorced and hiding it. Also some information like LinkedIn is there so people will look it up. But I do think its really appreciated by them. If you discover that all your dirty laundry is hanging on the line for everyone to see, then follow the steps to take it down where its possible. Im guessing I work for the same company. People are going to google each other. Colleagues should never "snoop" or look up information of another colleague when there is no business purpose. #1 I very much fall into the camp of anything more than a linkedin search is being too nosy. My sense from the last few was that they were fairly remedial and targeting inexperienced managers, and so I wondered if there was a particular skill gap you hoped Id focus on.. I remember how shocked we all were that Facebook was suggesting you put not only your real name and the college you went to, but even your face on the internet. I work from home (not by choice, theres just no room for us) and while I love some perks of it (save on gas, can wake up later, take a nap in bed during lunch, etc.) Still would never occur to me. Im responding to your criticism of the question asker. Some jobs are better about including remote folks than others. UberEats and Postmates dont cover this area. When I wrote the articles, it was with the understanding that it would go to the 10,000 print run. it still sucks to hear almost every week theres free food in the office and I cant have any :( So an occasional small gift card for free food is always a nice touch! (Select all that apply) A colleague shares the name of the medication another colleague is taking. (which doesnt sound like the case). ), and hope no one is going $50 deep for a check. I barely post anything online this isnt about me personally. 9 ) Respected by colleagues and employees in all levels of the organization. I thought you meant personally! But a lot of records that can turn up online arent the result of social media posting, or indeed posting anything at all. Looking at your coworkers public work is an essential part of knowing what they actually do. It sounds like some really good work but if the director wont hear it from OP, then ask the clients to tell the director. Youd think. I think most if not all county tax assessors post sales records, name of person buying, and assessed value online now, if not online most places consider it an accessible public record. Alison mentions a GrubHub giftcard they deliver from dozens of different restaurants. I have an extremely common name. I have had two bosses snoop around social media looking if I have a presence. Or are those giveaways company property, since the presentation was given to me on company time, in a company location? Both systems pick up the authentication information they need from the DNS (domain name service), the service they already use to look up IP addresses. Top it off, it is only quasi-accurate since it implies I live alone, but Mr Gumption lives with me. 6 months into my hire, unfortunately, that employee left the role. But it would never occur to me to feel like Im missing out on pizza. I used to work with Evil Bee, who often lamented she didnt understand twitter. Because going to the house of someone you barely know when theyve never invited you there is creepy. But clearly in this case, it wasnt working. Sure, someone could look in and see what youre doing. Would you make a distinction, though, between the neighbor across the way casually noticing something that catches their eye vs your neighbor across the way camped out by their window with a coffee cup watching you on purpose? Or have ever been arrested as Florida man. Or might be involved in any seamy court cases they are right to side eye you. Professional Practices. I guess I just have a fundamentally different perspective on the privacy issue. Nah, these are presentations being given on your lunch time, so its fine for you to take that stuff home if you want to. Yes nosy but without any particular ill thought. I wouldnt want to talk to 20 people I dont know about this sort of thing and it would also be pretty time consuming. I work remotely too, and Im with you. Dont beat yourself up about this. Its not foolproof (for all I know, you have very loose boundaries around this stuff), but mentally putting yourself in their shoes is generally a good proxy for figuring out the boundary between ok and too far. Thats not a typical situation. ! [we did this when someone casually mentioned their time in jail, we didnt do background checks but got curious what it was, it was not something that was outrageous but we wished we hadnt], when someone is acting sketchy or goes missing for awhile without explanation. I can understand doing this for a potential date, but not a new coworker. Probably a bit too far. AAMs script would also be helpful during a time like this. That way the at home-ers can also have the same pizza. I am plenty curious, Ill find out about the coworker by talking to them and interacting with them. by | Jun 2, 2022 | george kittle brother ohio state | Jun 2, 2022 | george kittle brother ohio state If you Google the names of my published papers, you will. This became a bugbear of the regional staff as obviously they couldnt partake, but would get the email regardless. So yeah, very industry-dependent. A quick google search to see what pops up? Unfortunately, there are some shady companies who think its ok to lowball you because youre out of work. If someone asks again, could you tell them I havent authorized you to share it?, 3. But yeah, its not inherently problematic that the director doesnt know the detail of the job. The OP for the letter that spawned this question had that info published about them but it didnt detail why it ended up not being a big deal. Im black myself, I cant say Ive ever felt the need to look at co-workers personal pages under the guise of safety. Not talking about a quick Google search, but a deep dive. draw such a clear boundary. What was that like?, Or I ran across your blog, and I loved your story about the frog., And of course, it would be sort of rude to say I ran across your storya bout the frog, and I thought you were a jerk.. Im in a job with some pretty hefty commute times, so a lot of us dont live in the city where the job is. Public info or not, people should feel comfortable knowing that theyre not being looked at like an animal at the zoo, even if its open info. Im not sure what the market is these days, but I used to do that with giftcards I didnt need about 10 or 15 years ago. I mean if they were giving off serious serial killer vibes and I had to work alone with them, that would be one thing, but otherwise, no. The HR professional then dug deeper into what was going on and the history of my role, apologized profusely for the unproductive way my team was transitioned to this new Director, seemed appropriately appalled by my treatment, then left and never spoke to me again until the meeting where I was transitioned to a new layer of management. Its the current year, everyone knows that if you publish it online, the internet never forgets. And IIRC, Google will only suppress the original messages, not the replies. are all public. There was one time where my personal twitter (that I honestly forgot I had, I never used it) got hacked and for about a week was doing nothing but streaming porn links. Judging by the comments here, Im right that many people will in fact find it creepy if you go too far digging into public information. Even better, you can encourage reactive helping by communicating to colleagues that you're willing to help if needed, increasing the likelihood that they will ask for help directly. I do not know how to explain this to them without sounding like I am full of myself. I said it last time if people really want privacy about something dont post it online. Which of the following are examples of accessing information without a business purpose? I dont assume that everything is published with explicit consent. I dont think doing a check on a date, coach or look up sex offender registries is insane at all. While you can certainly find people who feel even a basic google search is an invasion of privacy, the internet is right at our fingertips and I dont think its a massive overstep to do a quick search because youre curious about someones professional background. (In fact, Id get up and close the curtains, which is somewhat where this analogy starts to fall apart, because there are a lot of places online where you cant close the curtains once theyve been opened. Most places have an explicit dollar amount. If thats the only level of info youre getting from google, then, google away, at that (limited) depth, I guess. In small towns this isnt a big deal as places usually deliver everywhere, but in my city, delivery places generally have very strict lines on the map of how far theyll deliver. It was a fun treat and the remote people felt included. It was basically attempted blackmail, which is never fine, even if the incident was front page news. If theyre in tech and they mention they work on open-source projects, its totally fine to look them up on GitHub and see what theyve done. If you dont want to be found live off the grid is what it comes down to. Technically, they dont actually even exist, according to facebook. @FallingDipthong, I want to connect on the internet when I initiate a connection or a friend initiates it with me. The nurse looked up records for patients assigned to herself, or to another nurse - but did not have a treatment reason to view the records. I dont think that coworkers are googling me because I am not that interesting and they have more important things to do, but if I found out that a coworker had googled me or run a background check just out of sheer curiosity I would not be surprised. For #5 I have a remote worker on my team whos in another state. It is PUBLICITY. manager for reference moving forward. Be mindful of your colleagues Helping promote mental health within your company takes intentionality. To continue the analogy with social media, googling someone and looking at their profiles is also not a violation. This is like saying if you left your car unlocked, its your fault it was stolen. (Or the far worse victim shaming that happens. I believe that I have to proceed on the assumption that he will. I dont get number 1. Using Google is not wrong. The patients were notified. I personally fully believe that there is no such thing as online privacy from a risk management standpoint. Usually its enough to get at least a medium and a pop. Then they sent me a job offer, and it was shockingly low, close to 25% below what I was making at my previous job, even though this position was advertised at the higher level that I was targeting. One time my manager basically implied that he thought I was lying about the business need for a process to go one way just to prove another colleague wrong. My manager confronted me after my workmate gave his notice. This is a touchy issue for me. I come from a nosy profession, but we also value discretion. Its a boring and odd thing to do, but statistically someones probably done it. Mine have all disappeared so I cant see whats new and whats not, so Im wading through comments Ive already read.