Sorry, says the F-word tweeter . . .if only I'd had carrier pigeons
Oops, be careful what you say on Twitter. It's round the world in an instant, as the Chrysler media man found out
The Twitter posting last week by Scott Bartosiewicz read: “I find it ironic that Detroit is known as the #motorcity and yet no one here knows how to fucking drive."
Scott told the Detroit Free Press the tweet was sent while he was stuck on the freeway and was meant to appear on his personal account for his friends only.
He was fired - and Chrysler later decided not to renew its contract with Bartosiewicz's employer, New Media Strategies, putting about 20 people out of work. "I completely understand me being fired. I view it as a setback and something I'll move forward from," said Scott. But his colleagues were different. That was particularly upsetting.
Scott Bartosiewicz was a local kid whose career as a young marketer was on the way up. A University of Michigan graduate, he got his dream job last August as account manager for NMS, doing marketing for Chrysler."As a Detroiter, it was cool to know the work I was doing was part of this larger comeback for Detroit and the Big Three," he said. "I poured all my heart and soul into that. It's unfortunate it's all being overshadowed by 140 characters."
On March 9, he was in traffic on an interstate highway, barely moving. He decided to tweet about his frustration. His tweet included the F-word, because he thought he was sending it to friends through his personal Twitter account, not the carmaker's official one, @ChryslerAutos.
Big (expletive) difference! Within hours, the roof fell in. Bartosiewicz blamed the mistake on a mix-up using a programme called TweetDeck, which helps users juggle multiple Twitter accounts."I've tweeted and posted on Facebook thousands of time before," Bartosiewicz said. But this time, he learned that mistakes in cyberspace last forever.
"It is out there, unfortunately, in a lot of respects," he said. Thanks to social media, the screw-up catapulted Bartosiewicz into the headlines. He was eventually outed by Jalopnik.com.
A local PR man sympathised. "It used to be the company that was aware of the mistake or your boss was. Now, it's been magnified so the world knows."
NMS declined to comment but Chrysler spokesman Ed Garsten said, "The company has invested greatly, not only financially, but philosophically ... in supporting Detroit and the U.S. auto industry. We simply couldn't tolerate any messaging -- whether or not there was an obscenity -- that was denigrating to Detroit. We have to constantly be on guard, constantly monitoring and constantly ready to react or join the conversation when it's necessary."
Bartosiewicz said,"The lesson I've taken away was the power of social media and how much of an impact it has on everything we're doing."
He still had time for a joke. "If it was back in the days of carrier pigeons,I'd hope my pigeons wouldn't have that great a GPS and not make it there," he said.