Diacritiques

Tom Reynolds, who blogs at Random Acts of Reality about being an emergency medical technician in east London, has been on BBC Scotland talk radio (see also this post). The Real Media file of the segment he was on is here, for a few more days.

The programme talks about potential problems that might arise when employees blog about their job. Other guests were an (offensive) anti-blog employer, a journalist and a lawyer.

You also get to listen to a variety of accents from the British Isles. Great stuff.

P.S.: I just saw that Margaret Marks at Transblawg has some more remarks on the accents.

Update to add that problems between employers and blogging employees are a big issue right now. Relatively speaking of course. Via Boing Boing I found this impressive list of bloggers who have been disciplined or fired by their bosses for something they said (or did) on their blogs. And the sad tale of Joe who has just been sacked after a fast disciplinary hearing by Waterstone’s, the big UK book store chain, for some remarks on The Woolamaloo Gazette, which he runs:

I pointed out that I had not set out to deliberately ruin the company’s image. In fact I don’t think I have even inadvertently; if I had wished to do that then I would have been running less satirical and far more biting comments on a rather more regular basis, rather than commenting from time to time about a bad day at work, a grumpy manager or the like.

[…] The site clearly says (twice) on the header that it is SATIRICAL and that it is my ‘mumblings and rants’. I expressed my own OPINION in my own time, something I am legally entitled do (the European Convention on Human Rights, part of Scots Law since the devolved parliament was brought in expressly guarantees this right).

[…] I pointed out that I had over my eleven years promoted Waterstone’s in many ways, sometimes on my own time. I have organised and hosted more author events with more writers for the enjoyment of more book-buyers than I can recall. I have written for the guide books which Waterstone’s had printed on various genres. I have appeared in print media and broadcast, talking on the BBC in my own time about literature, introduced as an expert bookseller from Waterstone’s in Edinburgh. That’s publicity you can’t buy. I had contributed to the Edinburgh International Book Festival when Waterstone’s still sponsored them. I told them that there were numerous authors who would tell them that I had been an excellent ambassador for the company. I even defended them when the company was attacked in the Scottish press for not supporting independent Scots publishers (oh the irony). None of this seemed to matter to Waterstone’s yesterday.

Waterstone’s used to be one of my favourite book stores, in the BIG category. I have fond memories of the café inside the store I frequented. Well, not any more.

It bears pointing out that this is happening in Europe, where employee protection against unfair dismissal is supposed to be much stronger than, say, in the US (even if this is less true for the UK than for continental Europe). Oh, and what happened to talking about possible problems before dragging people in front of disciplinary commissions?