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I would agree with you in that I would not call the young woman a hero by virtue of calling her actions heroic. I just would not equate their actions. The woman who had a very public profile because of the specific nature of her work was in the power position and should have conducted herself with professionalism. In fact, a person who does not have a clearly defined relative position of power, or even a subordinate in certain circumstances can employ bullying tactics. In this case, however, I would choose to classify the young lady as having retaliated rather than bullied. The reason why is because we would have zero tolerance for standing up to the kind of aggression shown by the "professional" woman if anyone who retaliates against aggression is also called a bully...it's a bit of a gray area.
I also agree with you that the job seeker could have also brought unanticipated backlash upon herself by going so public. Good point.
Why I consider it "bullying" is not that she reacted, she OVER reacted. If someone slaps you, you can slap them back. If someone slaps you, you can't stab them. The lady was rude to her, and she set out to publicly humiliate her. There's something off with this mentality. It's not like the woman sent her a death threat.
Both women demonstrate the pettiness of females in the workplaces today. I've gotten into these types of silly exchanges but between men it never gets carried out in public.
The old saying if you guys disagree with each other, take it outside and duke it out yourself. Women like to spar in front of others for sport.
I have witnessed men at work getting into heated arguments, faces turning red, where it would appear it would lead to a physical exchange. The usual difference is that women get going on the name calling as they two women did, turning it into a personal attack on one another. Men fight and rarely make it personal in the workplace, most of what I have seen has been around activity, differences in how to do something, rather than character.
One company I worked for actually had a business philosophy that arguing produced better products and results and encouraged it as part of the culture.
I think what people don't get if they think the younger lady is totally in the right, is that you don't bring a gun to a knife fight to put it crassly. The older lady was rude, but honestly it's not like she was going around or said "Don't hire her. She annoyed me on Linked". We don't know how the younger lady approached her. After ONE interaction, the younger girl was out to bring the lady down. IMO, the email wasn't that offensive. Maybe the reason the younger lady is looking for connections (a new/different job) is because she overreacts to every thing and that's why she's not in the job/salary she wants. If this is how she reacts to an email, imagine how she reacts to something worse or high pressure situations.
I think most would agree that the email was pretty offensive and unprofessional.
If I had someone working for me write such a message to a job seeker I would toss her out faster than she could ever count to three!
Image and reputation is important in that industry and someone like that is doing a great disservice by being so rude and unprofessional. While I might not condone spreading the email over the internet, she was incredibly stupid to write such a message knowing it could be shown to other parties...with emails there is no expectation it will be kept confidential. It shows a lack of restraint and common sense. Remember, she had reportedly treated several others in a like manner as well and past behavior is a good predictor of future behavior.
I found a link which is supposedly the original, introductory email Mekota sent: http://imgur.com/bBonE3M
Nothing terse, 'entitled' or unprofessional about it.
Only after this went 'viral' did Blazek make an 'apology', but lets face it, it was most likely to save image than out of anything genuine. Had it not gone viral, would she had apologized? I doubt it.
Last edited by Austin023; 03-03-2014 at 06:30 PM..
I think most would agree that the email was pretty offensive and unprofessional.
If I had someone working for me write such a message to a job seeker I would toss her out faster than she could ever count to three!
Image and reputation is important in that industry and someone like that is doing a great disservice by being so rude and unprofessional. While I might not condone spreading the email over the internet, she was incredibly stupid to write such a message knowing it could be shown to other parties...with emails there is no expectation it will be kept confidential. It shows a lack of restraint and common sense. Remember, she had reportedly treated several others in a like manner as well and past behavior is a good predictor of future behavior.
I found a link which is supposedly the original, introductory email Mekota sent: The initial email to join the job board - Imgur
Nothing terse, 'entitled' or unprofessional about it.
Only after this went 'viral' did Blazek make an 'apology', but lets face it, it was most likely to save image than out of anything genuine. Had it not gone viral, would she had apologized? I doubt it.
I don't understand what there is to apologize about. I think if you're always looking for apologizes, especially from your superiors, you don't understand how the world works. I've had plenty of rude bosses and parents, how times I've gotten apologies (these for things I had NO control of/nothing to do with)? Should I post my old boss' email and name? How about the parents?
To the bolded, I'm very sure some employers have looked at this and thought "I would never hire (the younger lady), because she can't keep her mouth shut". Confidentiality is becoming more and more common in every field. I used to be a personal assistant years ago, the system we used to get and receive emails had an automatic sig that said BY LAW you were not allowed to share the email with anyone else.
For all of those of feel the younger lady was not wrong at all, would you hire her?
What I took away from the article:
"But just because you can doesn't mean you should."
I think that the saying "If you can't say something nice..." would be appropriate for this issue. I would not call this bullying, as that word is thrown around way too much these days and to me, doesn't apply here. In the age of everything going viral, we all have to be careful how our words and actions may be interpreted. Especially those with a lot of public exposure as "professionals" on the Internet.
Last edited by Tantamount; 03-03-2014 at 07:47 PM..
I don't understand what there is to apologize about. I think if you're always looking for apologizes, especially from your superiors, you don't understand how the world works. I've had plenty of rude bosses and parents, how times I've gotten apologies (these for things I had NO control of/nothing to do with)? Should I post my old boss' email and name? How about the parents?
To the bolded, I'm very sure some employers have looked at this and thought "I would never hire (the younger lady), because she can't keep her mouth shut". Confidentiality is becoming more and more common in every field. I used to be a personal assistant years ago, the system we used to get and receive emails had an automatic sig that said BY LAW you were not allowed to share the email with anyone else.
For all of those of feel the younger lady was not wrong at all, would you hire her?
Well no I would not hire the young lady as if she will take an email sent privately and spread it about the internet she could well do the same with more sensitive information or other private communication when she feels slighted.
However, if you send out an unprofessional, insulting email to someone (or in her case many times) who innocently sent an introductory email I would not hire them either and it says a lot about character, or a lack thereof.
I mean, would you hire someone who has some 20-odd years of experience who can not control their behavior enough to at least either ignore the email, or better, respond in a professional manner? No, in my eyes someone acting like that is unhinged and could well become a liability for my company.
Gross unprofessionalism and blatant personal attacks are not excusable; yes in the real world an apology is rarely forthcoming...she ought to get used to the fact there are plenty of nasty, low people out there who you could end up working under but if there is any lesson in this it is one ought to mind their behavior in such a setting: be a witch and it might come back to haunt you---on the flip side, share private communication publicly and you'll be branded as likely to divulge sensitive and confidential information with other parties and therefore can't be trusted. So, they both burned themselves in this.
According to the article in the OP, the younger lady asked people to repost it all over the place.
No, she didn't. Not in the original post. I saw this blog pretty early on.
The young lady was planning to move to Cleveland and was looking for a job. A friend told her about this job bank being the best around and instructed her to ask the woman for access, and to follow it up by introducing herself on LinkedIn. She got back that snotty response from the woman insulting the job seeker's entire generation, among other things.
She posted the email with the name/address blocked out on imgur. It's sort of like reddit for pictures, people upload silly stuff to it all the time. The jobseeker really didn't say much other than (paraphrasing) "Look at this snotty response I just got! What the heck. Oh well I will keep looking" In the comments, other people began to talk about similar experiences with the same woman, some folks found other emails she wrote that other people had posted on the same site, only those had Blazek's name. 2+2 had been officially put together and word spread form there.
If she asked people to forward it, it must have been after the Blazek had been outed so to speak by the commenters. She didn't have to ask anyway because at that point it had been upvoted by enough users that it was already popular.
I think this is the kind of thing where people start looking for ways to blame everyone. I still dont think the girl was being catty or petty. I think she's young and like other people of her generation, is prone to talking stuff out with her peers. She had blocked the woman's name so she thought she was being discreet. It backfired.
No, she didn't. Not in the original post. I saw this blog pretty early on.
The young lady was planning to move to Cleveland and was looking for a job. A friend told her about this job bank being the best around and instructed her to ask the woman for access, and to follow it up by introducing herself on LinkedIn. She got back that snotty response from the woman insulting the job seeker's entire generation, among other things.
She posted the email with the name/address blocked out on imgur. It's sort of like reddit for pictures, people upload silly stuff to it all the time. The jobseeker really didn't say much other than (paraphrasing) "Look at this snotty response I just got! What the heck. Oh well I will keep looking" In the comments, other people began to talk about similar experiences with the same woman, some folks found other emails she wrote that other people had posted on the same site, only those had Blazek's name. 2+2 had been officially put together and word spread form there.
If she asked people to forward it, it must have been after the Blazek had been outed so to speak by the commenters. She didn't have to ask anyway because at that point it had been upvoted by enough users that it was already popular.
I think this is the kind of thing where people start looking for ways to blame everyone. I still dont think the girl was being catty or petty. I think she's young and like other people of her generation, is prone to talking stuff out with her peers. She had blocked the woman's name so she thought she was being discreet. It backfired.
Thanks for sharing that extra info. I find it interesting that there's always two sides to every story, but the media usually decides to print only one of them.
The email was pretty unprofessional and she will likely be fired over this and the bad pr it created.
With linkedin there is a concept with networking of various groups and this was fought back with the whole open network concept. Frankly I welcome connections as long as they say where they know me from or have some question/comment. I think that is fair.
I had a undergraduate professor that said if you send him anything put specifically what you want in the subject line and where he knows you from. Otherwise it's a delete. He's often overseas and sometimes uses dialup internet!
And you know what I'll say it. I created an online system to help myself and others find employment. It took me a half week to make. I update it generally ever few days and send people information on jobs I find. I don't have that many that use it but I do share what I did because I rather see people working. Cleveland has a unemployment rate of 9.3% so she should have understood a bit more of the impact.
Why I consider it "bullying" is not that she reacted, she OVER reacted. If someone slaps you, you can slap them back. If someone slaps you, you can't stab them. The lady was rude to her, and she set out to publicly humiliate her. There's something off with this mentality. It's not like the woman sent her a death threat.
I agree with June.
Clearly, the woman has no defense for how she responded to the younger woman's LinkedIn request. It was entirely uncalled for, and I imagine it would have left the younger woman feeling, as June said, like she'd been slapped in the face. And all for something she did that was entirely appropriate. What the heck else is LinkedIn for?
But how the younger woman reacted was over the top. I can understand why she would WANT to do what she did, perhaps, but that she actually went ahead and did it is unacceptable.
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