Workplace

Recent political scandals serve as a reminder of “the way that technology now pervades everyone’s lives,” said Susan Dominus in The New York Times. Never mind Eliot Spitzer. Detroit’s mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick, “managed to forget the depth of his digital footprint” when he sent romantic text messages to a staffer. Carmen Kontur-Gronquist, the mayor of Arlington, Ore., “was voted out of office last month after she left unrestricted lingerie-clad images of herself up on her Myspace page.” In this era of e-mail, texting, blogging, and social networking, “trying to hide one’s digital footprint is practically futile.”

Most people don’t need to worry about re-election, said Liz Wolgemuth in U.S. News & World Report. But improper activities can still cost you a job. Know your employer’s rules for computer use, both in and out of the office. Blogging, even on your own time and with your own computer, may put you at risk for being “dooced”—or fired because of a blog. Consider this advice from Dooce.com founder Heather Armstrong: “Never write about work on the Internet unless your boss knows and sanctions the fact that you are writing about work on the Internet.”

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