Thanks Honeybee. Will do.

Hello MrBlack, SarEl, Thank you so much for responding so quickly. I've just read your thread MrB and you have my deepest sympathies for what sounds like a very traumatic few months. It's good to see that you've come out of the other side intact with a *relatively* positive outcome. (These cases do suggest that there are far too many officious, humourless folk out there, who could do with chilling out just a teeny bit!) The idea of a letter apologising is great, and just as soon as I have some sort of idea of what I'm actually being accused of I'll try and pull something together, although I don't have 9 years service I've been there for almost 3 and have a good record, including being commended by senior management and promoted during that time so hopefully that may help (but I will ensure I run it past my union rep first). Plus I've removed the offending article and already posted an apology online with an explanation of the mitigating circumstances so hopefully that will provide some sort of damage limitation too. Just to clarify, my employers were aware from the outset that I'd had a miscarriage (I was off work for a fortnight and provided a sick-note to cover me when I got back), I just failed to highlight that the blog entry was written during this time when my line manager spoke to me on Friday. As far as posting on the blog was concerned, to be brutally honest I'm not entirely sure why I posted it (and can't actually remember doing so). It was totally out of character for me and was only the second time I'd actually put anything on the web - and haven't used it since. I know it sounds a bit lame, but I think my hormones were a bit all over the place at the time and I was behaving a bit irrationally. I suspect my employers will want to get this sorted ASAP; our organisation went into 3 months consultation for redundancies last Monday so I’m they'll want to get this out of the way pretty quickly - I'm not sure if that's a good or a bad thing though. Thansk again for your advice and support!

I'm an project manager in the NHS and could do with some advice. My line manager called me on Friday afternoon to advise that someone had 'brought it to the attention of the executive team' that there was an 'unpleasant' blog posting with my name at the bottom page. My manager asked me if the blog was mine and I said yes, but hadn't used it for ages (there were only 3 postings, the most recent being the offending one from October of last year). She advised that I was being suspended until the 10th December pending an investigation, saying that they normally do this face to face but as I was off sick Thursday & Friday last week and was supposed to be on annual leave this week she needed to do it over the phone instead. The entry is quite derogatory about people (in general) in the part of the city I work in, but at no point mentions either the organisation I work for or any of my colleagues. It was posted over a year ago a week whilst on sick leave a week after I'd had surgery for a miscarriage (something I failed to mention to my boss). The blog was set up to enable me to develop characterisation for a creative writing class and as soon as my boss flagged it I took the whole thing down and have subsequently posted an explanation with an apology. I'm waiting for a union rep to get in touch but am very worried that I could be sacked for gross misconduct (I'm waiting for a letter from my employer explaining what's going on so currently have no idea exactly what the investigation is for). After reading some of the other responses to similar posts here I went to consult my contract, but on checking my records can't find one (only the confirmation of employment letter and a contract amendment letter following a promotion). My main questions are: Assuming this action is being taken because of the unpleasant nature of the posting can I be sacked for gross misconduct if the piece makes no mention of the organisation or any members of staff? If I've never seen/signed my original contract (highly plausible given our HR department), only a letter amending specific areas following promotion, could I still be sacked for breach of contract if there's anything in there about defaming the people of the borough I work in? Thanks - and apologies this is so lengthy.