So, I've been watching this odd drama unfold, and I'm largely undecided. Were a lot of the woman's blog posts screechingly off-the-wall Chicken Little sky falling nonsense, complete with expletives? Oh, hell yes. In particular, her brain-dead prognistications about the end of birth control were so stupid and paranoid, they may have well have been ripped from the pages of "Tinfoil Hat Weekly."
Still, it hits to the heart of some of the things I've been thinking about this online personal journal craft. I've been doing it now for five years. I've had opinions I've shared that I've re-thought and re-considered, but I've still allowed my previous iterations to sit out there like old turds, because they represented my thoughts at the time, however much they may have changed or evolved.
I think about this site a lot. More than you may imagine. Every time I apply for a job, particularly locally, I wonder what employer is going to tap my name into Google, find my ThunderJournal, and think my personal politics and beliefs should preclude me from a job. They shouldn't. But those are the very real risks I take.
It's a tough paradox to tackle. On the one hand, I think this is an unfiltered, idealized venue for free speech, no matter how ill-conceived a post may be, but on the other hand I realize I have half a decade of free speech worth of possible consequences. Not a small obstacle to overcome in this rapidly evolving age of instant data recovery.
Still, I believe my opinions, no matter how fluid over time, have value, for me specifically, but also for for current and future generations. I may not get a job tomorrow because someone doesn't share my beliefs/politics, but at least I know I'm not getting a job where people are hung up on beliefs/politics rather than skills and abilities.
Because--and I know this is taboo--if there's a steady paycheck in it, I'll write whatever you want. I just may not vote for it.
Posted by Ryan at February 7, 2007 11:07 PM | TrackBackNice Ghostbusters allusion at the end there.
Posted by: DG at February 8, 2007 10:43 AMI thought I'd heard that before! I just couldn't place it.
Posted by: Ryan at February 8, 2007 11:05 AMi agree that if someone googles me and finds my blog and doesn't want to hire me based on that...i don't want to work for them anyway. it means i'd have to hide my life from them, and i'm not about to go to work every day pretending i'm someone i'm not. i don't plan on ever working on a political campaign, so i don't expect it to be a problem, but you never know.
Posted by: amy.leblanc at February 16, 2007 05:36 PMThere is a bit of difference here -- she wasn't being hired for any old job, she was being hired to represent a politician, and the posts in question were virulently anti-religious. However you want to slice it, if a politician hires you to represent him, *you* represent him. Ultimately he decided he didn't want her politics to be associated with his.
Posted by: Stephen Rider at February 18, 2007 02:05 PM
Stumble It!
