42- Due to spelling variations, I'm assuming you're not from the US. See, a lot people here like to be lazy and waste time at work (generally). They then ruin it for the people who do work hard--and who are able to balance their tasks and social networks--and therefore get Facebook banned from most all office jobs. Why someone can't wait for their break to chat it up, I'll never understand.

It's blocked on our work computers, I teach.

Yeah, I guess that makes sense; everywhere I've worked has been fairly trusting and young-person friendly, even the job I worked at before this which was a very large company. I think the difference is that the industry I work in is extremely result oriented; you have a deadline, if you fail to meet that deadline then bad things happen to you. They don't mind too much how you spend your days as long as you keep meeting deadlines, i.e. spend your work day tossing around on Farmville if you want, you'll be spending your weekends doing the work you should've finished in the week. It's actually pretty nice to work in an environment where you're trusted, when we finished work early and were waiting on others to finish to get on with more, the company let us run servers for counter-strike etc on the LAN.

but again "they do work hard" is not consistent with "they use facebook at work" because you still shouldn't be goofing off at work unless it's your break. so regardless of "them ruining it for the rest", you are still breaking company policy

I used to work at a Law Firm as a secretary, and I wasn't allowed to use Facebook (or even my personal e-mail.) There was always something that could be done while I was there, be it making phone calls, sorting documents, making copies, etc. Now that I'm working a student employment job at my Institute, they don't mind what the heck I'm doing on my laptop as I work the space I'm required to, but the atmosphere is very student friendly and I typically end up doing my homework. In most corporate offices, there really isn't any downtime outside of your breaks. There will always be something you should be working on during company time. Feeding your cows on Farmville is not one of them.

I think it depends on whether Facebook is used mainly for work or personal purposes. I think there is nothing wrong with using it for work purposes - such as communicating to relevant groups within your work eg in your case undergraduates within your uni environment - because you are performing work duties. But in the case of the OP it seems like she used facebook a lot for personal use as it was enough for her boss to notice and for her to get subsequently fired over it.

@43 Or he can just work and not go on Facebook.

It's the company computer, that would probably get him fired from his new job (when he gets one) if he did that. Either that, or the boss would have the password anyway and be able to open it up to see that he was on Facebook.

Actually, college students are all on winter break right now, and there are many people who don't work 9-5 jobs. Bad assumption is a bad assumption.

@62 Actually I'm waiting for my classes to start, and as 72 said there are some students that are still on break. Also not everyone works a typical 9-5 shift.

62: 1) You're wrong. 2) Does that include yourself?

Yeah... Because we all have banker hours.. -.-

#62 I'm from Europe, and it's 9:33 pm right now... Not everyone here is from North America.

I am a stay at home house wife. There goes your theory.

Wow, Calyx. I've seen very few comments as utterly ridiculous as yours, and considering how long I've been here, that says a lot.

"On 01/10/2012 at 6:47pm by Calyx" Not everyone in the world is from where you are.