Avid blogger Cecelia Lai was shocked when she was fired from her sales job in an electronics company a year ago for criticizing her boss online.

Referring to her sales-manager boss as ‘Hitler,’ she ranted about his ‘Nazi-style’ management on the Internet forum Hardwarezone.

Although she wrote it under her online moniker and did not name the company or her boss, a colleague saw her posting and alerted her boss to it.

The next day, she was hauled up for questioning. When she defended her actions by saying that what she did in her private life was none of the company’s business, she was sacked. The 25-year-old, who has since ‘moved on’ to another sales job, thinks she did no wrong. "Surely, I am entitled to my opinion. It is not as if I identified the company," says a defiant Lai.

Her boss feels that although Lai did not name him on the online rant, she gave enough information to identify the company. "It’s fine if you are talking about your private life, but not about the company or colleagues."

The conflict reflects the gap between Baby Boomers and Gen Y, people born between 1977 and 1999, who tend to be media savvy and fond of sharing information on-line. Some companies, including IBM and Intel, have guidelines governing online behaviour. IBM, for example, has set up sales centres online in virtual worlds such as Second Life for its staff to dabble in, but has also set rules to prevent any inappropriate behaviour.