thescratchpost.com

Getting your first job is always exciting, but for many out there, one is not prepared for the little things that appear innocent and become HUGE problems that can get you fired. We got an email from such a situation, an artist that was naive and made a simple mistake that has now hurt her in the job place. Angela DiMeglio was kind enough to write this article for us where she tells her tale of sorrow, and warns us of the little things that can become big problems.

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I was naive and trusted too many people. I went into work one day and was amazed to find out it was my last day at the studio. What had gone wrong? Well, among other things, my boss found I had a website, was looking for another job and had an entire sales package put together. The key here was a poorly worded copyright warning on my still unfinished website which read something like “sole ownership of…” and my boss threw the book at me. She escorted me to my car and held my paycheck in return for all copies of my demo reel, portfolio, CD Roms, website and anything else with work on it which I had made while at her company. I thought my work spoke for itself and most of all, I thought the entire issue could have been solved in a single conversation. Unfortunately, it’s now a scar on my career path. Here’s a list of stupid mistakes I’ve made and what I’ve learned over the past year.

I thought my boss was happy with me and my work.

Turns out, she had little if any idea what I did, how I did it or how much I did in a day. She was hardly ever there, running in and out on business all day, but I assumed somehow she knew what I was there for since SHE had hired me. I was fired easily enough. I guess I didn’t mean as much to the company as I had thought.

I thought my website was NOT considered as important as larger dot coms.

Again, as far as I can verify, current laws treat websites much like television in that they are broadcasting to the masses. Joe Schmo’s old cars website is governed by the same laws as the largest business online. Funny isn’t it?

I thought my boss had a clue about computers or at least had good council.

She accused me of stealing company software and installing it on my home computer – software which, had she known more about it, is dongle protected! A piece of hardware allows the computer to access the program and without it is useless. I realized paranoia had set in when she accused me of logging into work computers from home simply because I was the webmaster and she assumed I had access privileges. For starters, this wasn’t even possible on the network at our office. Besides, for the amount of overtime I was putting in, the last thing I would want to do was hack into the work system. How could I prove this wasn’t true to an already panicked mind? Beats me.

I figured if they taught it to me in college it had to be right.

I assumed a copyright notice was a necessary Internet safety, if not a standard for artists publishing work on the web. Turns out that under new copyright laws, your work is automatically covered by copyright with or without a copyright notice. The key to my “termination” didn’t have to be there at all!

I trusted my superiors.

I thought if there was ever a doubt as to what I was doing or how I was doing it my art director, producer, or even my peers would vouch for my daily activities. In the end, my boss fired me without consulting with any of my superiors. If she had, she would have found many of them doing far worse than what she was accusing me of doing. Unfortunately, business is not like a speeding ticket and the cop won’t always chase the guy going over a hundred on the highway. I’ve learned since this experience that you have the right to review your personal work file and even copy past reviews where coworkers, superiors, sometimes even clients make comments about your professionalism. It would have given me something to fight back with at the very least.

I believed e-mail was a private correspondence unless hacked into.

E-mail was what started this whole fiasco. I sent a message to a vendor and included my name, company name and website at the bottom of the address as opposed to my full signature file. Since I had been working on my personal website so much in my off time, I accidentally typed my site’s address instead of my work address. I’m sure we’ve all picked up the phone at home and answered with our company name and “how may I help you?” and laughed afterwards. Well, this vendor, forwarded the e-mail to my boss asking “did you know this was happening?” and pointed out that I was looking for a job. My boss assumed wrongly that I was selling myself to clients for freelance work and felt a need to investigate, but when she found my demo reel and portfolio with a poorly worded copyright tagline, she was just as upset.

As far as I’ve been told and been able to verify, under current laws, your boss has the right to read your e-mails as long as they’re on company computers. My company didn’t have e-mail when I got there. For me as acting webmaster, hired (among other things) to establish the company website, it was ridiculous not to have an account separate from the rest of the art department – especially when I was handling passwords and restricted information. I volunteered my personal account until our company e-mail was setup. Again, stupid me, I never got anything in writing.

In the end, my personal account was linked to my work account since too many lists and sites were registered under my name. In the end, when my boss cracked my e-mail wide open to get an insiders look at what I was doing, she was using my correspondence from my personal account against me claiming that the information and files belonged to her since they were on a work computer. It didn’t seem to matter that they originated from my personal server or personal e-mail account.

I thought I had a right to my portfolio simply under “fair use.”

Again, yes and no. Apparently there’s a real catch 22 in our field of new media. As artists we have the right to display our work for the benefit of our portfolio. The company you work for is allowed to put certain restrictions on how and when you can show your work because they must protect their clients and their clients’ clients. The problem is that under current laws, there is no definite legal means by which we can acquire this work without letting our employers know about it. Simply taking a file or two home is actually considered stealing from the company if the employer doesn’t know about it – doesn’t seem to matter if you worked on the project from square one. Of course, we should have the right to search for other work without our employer knowing about it, don’t you agree? There are laws set up to protect us if someone else tells our boss we’re looking for a job so why should WE have to do it and risk our job security?

My portfolio should always be a compilation of my best work.

I was accused of misrepresentation of company work product and client work product which comes down to the fact that I changed the files slightly for the purposes of my demo reel. For instance, I created a foreground element that was composited over video and likewise a background element with no foreground. Silly me, I thought it simple enough to composite the two together with some other newly created elements to show on my demo reel. Also, there were some print projects critiqued by non-artists to the point of bad design. Still, I liked my original design enough to put it in my portfolio even though it was never published in that form. I still haven’t been able to find out if these are truly illegal activities which are just made common through the backdoor of our industry.

I thought if it was against the law it wouldn’t or COULDN’T happen to me.

My boss wrongly held my paycheck and demanded presumably “stolen” files from my home computer. She didn’t allow me to clean out my office and I still don’t know what I’m missing after my friends have returned some items to me. She has attempted to blacklist me in the local industry which is almost impossible to prove even when it’s true. Again and again I was told, “she’s threatening to sue you, but she won’t. It’s not worth it to her and she’d be silly to do it.” Then again, no one thought she’d fire me over something which seemed solvable in a single conversation.

I assumed I could get help through free legal advice.

Good legal advice is hard to come by even when you’re paying for it. When you have little or no money it gets even worse. If you’re looking into laws as new and obscure as multimedia, web and video, then you’re looking at case law which needs to be researched by a trained professional. I got free advice and I was lucky enough to find a lawyer through a local volunteer connection working exclusively with artists. Unfortunately I got what I paid for. The lawyer did a lot of listening and nodding, seeming at times more like a free therapist and in the end gave me recommendation for how to stay out of my boss’s way in the future. Thanks.

I thought I had nothing to lose by filing for unemployment insurance.

As far as I knew, unemployment money came from the government some how. I was unemployed. I thought I could get money to help me through. “Start filing for unemployment now because it’ll take a long time to get your first check,” was what I heard again and again. It was the first phone call I made the morning after I was let go from my company. It was a simple process – name, address, recent work history, last date of employment… that sort of thing. When I realized that my boss would be contacted because unemployment is paid by employers I tried to stop the process or at least postpone it until I could get legal aid. You might already know what I didn’t, but when you’re fired, you can’t get unemployment insurance. My boss obviously fought the process and I lost. We had a face-to-face verbal conflict over the issue and in the end, I never saw a penny. Once I began the process it couldn’t be stopped – and because I was unprepared when the time came to argue I lost my opportunity to plead my case. Now I can’t get unemployment insurance again until I offer up something close to my first born. Check out your local laws covering unemployment opportunities before you file.

I thought they’d miss me when I was gone.

That couldn’t be any farther from the truth. Sure, they realized there was a hole in production shortly after I left and the website hasn’t been touched since, but everything and anything that went wrong after I was gone was pointed at me. It didn’t take long for friends of mine who still worked there to get tired of hearing people curse the day I walked into the office. And what’s the worst that’ll happen? They’ll hire someone to replace me who can’t do as good of a job as I could have, but as long as the work’s getting done, will anyone notice or care? Unfortunately, no one outside of the art department.

All in all, I learned a lot. I now know what not to do and I hope someone out there can a learn a little from my mistakes. If you want to learn more about the legal system and how it applies to your career, check out this website — http://www.nolo.com