Interesting Bit of BS

I was watching Penn and Teller's BS show on-demand from the local cable company and they had an episode where the speak on manners and etiquete. There are people out there that claim that there is more rudeness in America than there ever was in our entire existence, and that can be measured by our lack of use/knowledge in proper etiquete.

There interesting part was how they portrayed that there are a lot of people and companies out there going on control-freak binges with other people or employees. For example, they had some guy walking around downtown Chicago complaining the entire time about everything! He considered it rude for people to use their cellphones while walking. He didn't like how cars would turn without signaling their intention even though they were in a turn-only lane. He didn't even like couriers double parking to deliver packages because they blocked traffic. He felt that if eveyrone followed his rules, then rudeness would exponentially be reduced in the world. He claimed that there should be a "Rudeness Police" correcting peoples behaviour in the world. I find that rude as he's not honoring my sense of individuality! CALL THE RUDENESS POLICE, ARREST HIM, AND READ HIM MY RIGHTS!

They cut to a montage of different articles of employees being fired for having matieral on personal blogs or pictures on websites. One guy got fired because his company disapproved of the matieral in his stand-up comedy routine! When that got mentioned, I thought, "I wonder what my company would do? I have a personal blog and I do stand-up comedy...good thing I don't do jokes about managers and projects...cuz those types of jokes do kill...literally...I mean, they get so boring sometimes that they kill people sitting their in their sleep..."

Basically, I kind of understand both sides of the table. An employee can be thought to represent a company at any given time, hence, should act in the comany's best interest. However, employees are people first and are granted the right of individuality first and foremost. If it was agreed upon in an employee handbook or business conduct guidelines that no matter what someone is doing that they represent their company and can be fired for their activities in their personal life that are completely legal, then I find it acceptable at the very most (I don't like the thought but hard to argue the point if it's been agreed upon). Since companies are slow to adopt new technology into their bcg's, it's almost arbitrary how they deem employee behavior out in the real world.

Well, I better go peruse through the employee handbook and see what parts of my act may get me in trouble...