Customer Service Part Five: What You Do Outside of Work

In some circumstances, extreme circumstances, it makes sense for employers and customers to take into account what you do outside of work. If you are responsible for young children, it's indisputably relevant if your hobby is collecting child pornography. If you work for the police department and publicly advocate breaking the law, that's likely relevant. But most jobs do not have the societal importance that the business owners think that they do. Why do we think that sports figures, musicians, actors and politicians are role models and examples to the rest of us? They are being paid to throw a ball, or play an instrument or what have you, not to be my template for morality. It could possibly be argued that people in these visible professions live their lives in public and influence their fans or supporters. In the case of politicians they have actual power over people's lives. But what about those of us who aren't in the public eye? Does it matter whether the Electronics Manager at Wal-Mart is a racist? Or a Socialist? Or smokes pot on the weekends? Or posts stupid things on Facebook? What matters is whether the electronics that is available for sale is of the price and quality that I require and whether I receive decent customer service. The rest is none of my business.

At my former place of employment I was subject to random drug testing, just in case I consumed some illegal drugs, whether or not there was any reason to suspect I was doing so; my Facebook posts were perused, looking for items that were offensive - I was actually written up for a couple of posts that the top dogs thought reflected poorly on the company, even though they had nothing to do with the company. Who cares what I do outside of work?

When I accept employment, my expectation is that I am being paid to do a specific job, not to arrange my whole life to refect the supposed values of the comapny that I work for.