15+ People Who Lost Their Jobs Because of Social Media Posts

Any comment you make on social media, no matter how innocent it may seem, could end up turning against you. Lots of people, including your boss, can see what you write. In today’s modern world there are many cases of people who made seemingly harmless comments, but which ended up being interpreted otherwise, causing their protagonists to lose their jobs. In general, these stories are very popular on the Internet.

O awesome.club did a search and found the most exemplary and controversial cases of dismissals that occurred due to comments. Watch carefully so that the same does not happen to you.

Justine Sacco, director of public relations for the Internet company IAC, made a joke – if you can call it a joke – in very poor taste on Twitter about her trip to Africa. While flying to Cape Town (South Africa), she became an Internet star: her post was shared more than two thousand times. The hashtag #HasJustineLandedYet (‘Has Justine landed yet?’) was even created, and people were stating what it’s like to lose a job in just 10 seconds.

When she arrived at her destination, Justine deleted the message and the account, but that didn’t save her. The next day she was fired for sharing ‘inappropriate statements’.

Ekaterina Lobanova, social media manager at Sberbank, a bank in Russia, wanted to make a small joke and posted it on a bank blog and on its Facebook page. Complaints from the Union of Pensioners of Russia did not take long to appear, mainly because its members use social networks a lot.

At first, bank employees tried to answer in kind: “Friends, thank you for appreciating good humor and the ability to laugh at yourself. You fill us with joy! We are changing”. But the company later apologized: “We respect our customers of all ages. There was a good deal of popular humor in the message. Either way, we apologize if anyone was offended.” The message was deleted from social media and the employee with a terrible sense of humor was fired.

Sergei Polunin is a famous Ukrainian dancer who performs in the most famous shows in the world. However, after a controversial publication by Polunin on his Instagram about men and ballet, the direction of the National Opera of Paris canceled his participation in the production of ‘The Lake of Swans’. The French considered his words unacceptable and an assault on minority rights. After the scandal, Sergei deleted the message and closed his Instagram account.

Talia Jane worked at Eat24, a food delivery customer service, and once wrote an open letter to the company’s general manager complaining about low wages and high prices in the city of San Francisco (USA), where she lived. The company’s director responded with a sarcastic message on his blog, showing that he agreed with San Francisco’s high prices. A few days later, Jane was asked to leave the company.

Connie Levitsky worked just one week at plus size women’s clothing store Addition Elle in the Canadian city of Edmonton. The reason for the dismissal and the scandal was a sentence shared on her Facebook.

The store manager told Connie that she was “damaging the company’s reputation” by using the word ‘fat’. She should choose euphemisms like ‘lush’ or ‘majestic’ when describing the store’s customers on social media.

After the firing, Connie wrote: “I’m fat. I’ve been fat all my life. And I’m fine with that. I don’t mind being fat. I don’t have to hide behind any euphemisms.”

After publication, Connie received strong support from users on social networks and the company’s management publicly apologized and said that she could return to work, but she did not accept it.

Katie Nash managed the accounts of state educational institutions in Maryland (USA), when there was a huge controversy on social networks. One of the students wrote a misspelled tweet to the school board. Katie decided to make a joke and at the same time correct the student’s mistake. Her superiors didn’t appreciate her irony and asked her to delete the message immediately and apologize to the student. After some time, Katie lost her job.

One day, a student approached the driver of a Johnny Cook school bus in Georgia (USA). The boy complained that he was hungry, as he was 40 cents short of paying for his school lunch and the staff wouldn’t let him eat. Johnny was perplexed. He kept thinking about the boy’s predicament when he got back to the house after work. Distressed, he logged onto Facebook and told his friends the story.

The next morning, he was summoned by the school board. Johnny was given two options: delete the Facebook post or apologize. The school principal said that Johnny had gone against school policy. But Johnny really believed in what he had written and decided not to delete anything. On the same day, he was fired from Haralson County High School, for which he worked.

Tania Dickinson worked at the New Zealand Department of Social Development. She decided to make a joke about her duties at work on her Facebook account. Her superiors didn’t like her sense of humor and decided to fire Tania for “an obvious lack of motivation to work”.

Ashley Johnson worked as a waitress at Brixx Pizza in North Carolina (USA). One day, a couple went to the restaurant for lunch, stayed for more than three hours and forced Ashley to work an hour longer than she was supposed to. She thought the five dollars they left as a tip was too little for so much trouble.

He therefore decided to express his indignation on Facebook. The next day, the pizzeria’s managers said she was being fired for going against company policy, which did not allow this type of treatment with its customers. Additionally, managers claimed that Ashley had made negative comments on social media about the pizzeria.

Samuel Crisp worked as a salesman at an Apple store in Norwich, England. He wasn’t very happy with his work and sometimes made comments about it on his Facebook page. One day, he paraphrased Apple’s slogan for the release of Beatles songs on iTunes, which read (in free translation): ‘Tomorrow will be another day you will hardly forget’. Although his profile was not public, one of his friends sent Apple a screenshot of the publication.

Samuel’s bosses accused him of violating the company’s social media policies that prohibit negative comments about Apple. After the incident, Samuel lost his job. The young man tried to go against the company in court, but ended up losing.

Chicago Zoo employee Rochelle Latris Robinson shared her attitude towards her work and visitors on her personal Facebook page. Management found the post too offensive and fired her the same day.

Kaitlyn Walls is a 27-year-old single mother from Texas (USA). She made a comment on social media and thought it would be a great post about her new kindergarten job. When a group of activists saw her message, Kaitlyn started receiving offensive messages and management told her she didn’t need to go to work.

A teenager named Cella, from Texas (USA), was fired from her job at Jet’s Pizza before she even started work. After being told that the environment was not the best, she wrote a tweet in which she expressed that she was not at all happy to start.

One of the restaurant’s employees saw the young woman’s tweet and told her boss everything. He decided to respond to Cella through his own Twitter, publicly: “No need to start this hellish job! You are fired! Good luck in life, no money and no work”. The young woman’s story became known and she received support from many people. In the end, she wasn’t sad about losing her post, after all, the future ex-boss’s behavior wasn’t right at all.

Stephanie Bon, from Colchester, Essex, England, was a human resources assistant at the Lloyds banking group. Unhappy with her low salary, she decided to talk about the pay gap with her director in a Facebook post. The company didn’t like the public comment about wages, and she was quickly fired.

Scott Bartosiewicz is 28 years old and lives in the State of Michigan (USA). He wrote an ironic message on his blog, but accidentally posted it on the official Chrysler brand account, which he managed. Scott worked at New Media Strategies advertising agency, which provided social media marketing services for the Chrysler brand. After the incident, the car manufacturer terminated the contract with the company and Scott lost his job immediately.

Frank Samuelson was a coach in the Georgia Football League but lost his job when his superiors read a post on his Facebook page. Frank’s words about Asian students were considered offensive and racist. A few days after publication, he lost his coaching position.

Do you know someone who has already gotten into trouble because of a public comment on social media? Share the story in the comments!