I agree with Library Dust that the Chronicle of Higher Education (or so it likes to call itself) screwed up in publishing a pseudonymous editorial about job candidates whose blogs interfere with their employment options. Hiding the author was just plain sleazy.
Also, “Ivan Tribble” appears fairly clueless about the blogging world–a bad sign in a future boss. Yes, people do talk more about their gripes and grumps. Maybe more than they should, at times. But blogs tend to reflect people in the moment, and people in the moment are hardly coolly Emersonian creatures; we all tend to be self-absorbed and mildly petty. That’s part of the charm of blogs–should you choose to see it that way. It’s a case of grokking the sitch, you know?
On the other hand, rules aside, in real life, prospective employers do what they can to find out who they are hiring, and who can blame them? We spend a lot of time at work every week, and jobs are precious commodities. I would not want to work with people who lied to get jobs, trashed their co-workers or bosses in public settings (such as blogs), or were simply intolerable. It is also naive to think that people are not going to use every search engine in their power to see if they picked the right candidate.
Regarding present and future jobs and this blog, I practice what I call the Veil (another word for the glossary, ay?). There are really at least two veils: one around my job, and one around my personal life. On FRL I disclose as much as I’d let anyone I work with know about me face to face–actually, much less, since the online world has a permanence not found in water-cooler discussions.
With all that discretion, if a future employer read FRL and chose not to hire me based on what I say here, he or she would be doing me an enormous favor. I really don’t want to work with the Ivan Tribbles of the world.
Posted on this day, other years:
- 50 is the new 50 - 2007
- Hiatus of a summer's eve - 2006
