Eccentric Flower:200612/two thoughts

two thoughts

2006-12-18 11:38:00

1. This is the sort of article that really makes me grind my teeth and I don't know why I read them. Oh, not because of the article; the writing's fine. Because of the collective stupidity/inability to place blame of the the American public. I will quote this commenter, who encapsulates my rant neatly:

How many people have been injured by horseshoes? How many injuries from playing frisbee? I hear bikes are pretty dangerous - should parents who never taught their kids not to ride on the train tracks be allowed to collect tens of millions from Union Pacific? Anybody want to compare the number of deaths and injuries from Jarts with the D&I rate for bikes? For tree climbing? The ultimate demise of Jarts wasn't because the product was inherently dangerous - pretty much everything is - but because lazy, selfish parents steadfastly refuse to supervise and instruct their kids. "Mom! Billy wacked the croquette ball really hard and it hit me in the knee!" "I'm calling my lawyer! They should never be allowed to sell such a dangerous product!" Or "hmm ... this toy comes with live rattlesnakes and a chainsaw. Well, since National Toy And Fun Emporium, Inc has 50 billion in annual sales if anything happens I'll get rich, so I think I'll buy this for my 18 month old. That'll keep him quiet while I watch my soap opera."

2. This quote also annoys me, and it's for reasons that have nothing to do with Rob, who wrote it, so don't think that this is about him because it ain't.

Nevertheless, it was also generally agreed that for a writer to be taken seriously in the current marketplace, some sort of online presence was pretty essential, at least for new authors. Editors look at what a writers has online to see how consistent their work is and how committed they seem to be to their craft.

Fortunately, if you Google my right name, you get a lot of links about a couple of anthologies and a fair bit of old stuff from The Institvte. You get very little that could give me away. This is the real reason I try to keep my name out of these pages - and I appreciate your help, very much. It's a very thin shield; it's easy enough to connect the dots. But it's there enough that I am able to say, "Nope, don't have a website," in a number of situations - not just writing - with the implication, "Hey, why don't you decide whether to [hire me|buy this] strictly on the merits of the applicable material, and not be influenced by my other activities which have nothing to do with it?"

I get so tired of people dragging in information to help them make an easy decision which has absolutely nothing to do with the matter being decided. This is one of the things which makes me so sour about the whole job application process. The only thing which should be taken into consideration when I apply for a job is whether I am capable of doing the work well.

This is exactly the sort of thing I knew I was taking a risk of when I started to post journal entries publicly again after a long period of private. If I have to, I WILL lock everything again. I hope it won't come to that though.

There are three groups of people in this world, from my perspective:
1. People I know and trust. They are enthusiastically welcomed.
2. People I don't know well enough to trust, but know well enough to consider harmless. They are cautiously welcomed.
3. People who can do me damage - potential employers, publishers, or people responsible for assessing me in any professional capacity. These people need to all be locked out with deliberate speed.

The trick is to invite as many as possible in group 2 (group 1 is already here, mostly) while excluding as many as possible of group 3.

Reader Comments

3. People who can do me damage - potential employers, publishers, or people responsible for assessing me in any professional capacity. These people need to all be locked out with deliberate speed.

Yeow, that's a really poisonous way to look at it.

I think you just need to divide it as "people with whom you wish to share your private life/thoughts" and "people with whom you do not wish..."

-- trinker - 2006-12-20 14:40:19

Hi -- I'm Kite on TUS and I used to read your other journal(s) ages ago when they existed. Just thought I'd comment in case you're wondering who I am and why I added you to my list. I am fairly confident that I fit in the "harmless" category, and I certainly understand about wanting to keep potential employers away. I am a little inconsistent about this -- anyone who reads my journal regularly could figure out where I worked, not least because the building actually features in a couple of my icons -- but I friend-lock any post in which I admit to having a job, so there's a certain level of privacy. I don't think anyone using my real identity as a starting point would ever stumble across the journal, but I try to keep public posts generally inoffensive to my mother or my boss. Then I worry that I'll never get to know anyone new on this place, because my public posts are so damn boring.

Anyway, hi.

-- platypus - 2007-01-14 23:10:24