I guess most of you have probably come across blogs which have one of these disclaimers:

This is my personal opinion, and not my employers.

Here are my thoughts on these.

Perspective

I think there is always a certain point of view when you read these things.

  1. If you have to put this on your personal blog because your opinion and your employer’s opinion differ so much, it might be time to find another job. For a second, let’s focus on other areas in life. We are clearly not referring to the technical details of an implementation, programming languages or your open source license of choice. These are all non-issues where these kind of disclaimers are not necessary. So if you catch my drift — I don’t even remotely understand how anyone can possibly spend eight hours a day working for someone who you disagree with on the really important issues.

  2. If you happen to be the employer yourself or hold a management position in that company and still try to distance yourself from your own shop, then who are you kidding really? I find it hard to believe that for example people oppose war when they are at home, but during the work day they manage to run a company who’s a weapon supplier.

Fin

There is absolutely nothing wrong with expressing your opinion. You can even donate all your money if you think that is really necessary. I really don’t care if you’re in favour or against something.

But please get real: your own statements will always reflect on the place you work at. In one way or another.