How to keep a blog and your job – the anti-Dooce guide
By Erna Mahyuni
News of two Wall Street suits being fired for blogging makes me think something is wrong. And that something is no one heeding Dooce-ster Heather Armstrong’s words on blogging about your work: Be ye not so stupid.
The latest blogger to be ‘dooced’ (term coined after Armstrong’s summary dismissal for blogging about her job) is a dude who goes by the moniker ‘1-2’. This just after Citigroup trader Michael McCarthy gets the boot for his blog Take a Report. So how do you avoid joining their ranks? Here is some advice which is mostly common sense, but that trait seems to be in short supply in the blogosphere.
1. Don’t. Just don’t. Why should you blog about how much you hate your job? What’s wrong with the standard way of bitching to your colleagues, subordinates, family and extended family? If you feel unsafe about confiding to a human who might pass along your discontent, confide in your dog. The bonus – he won’t talk back.
2. Keep it secret, keep it safe. I’m talking about your identity. There are a few so-called anonymous bloggers I know who happily share their ‘secret’ blog with friends and family. That 1-2 guy? He linked to it in his Facebook. If you have to tell anyone the blog exists, then make it as few people as possible. The advice about the dog also applies here.
3. Don’t blog at work. Since I seem to know a lot of idiots, let me tell you about this one idiot who would blog about how much his supervisor looked like Gollum. Said supervisor just happened to be reading his post because he’d installed Remote VNC on said idiot’s computer. Busted.
4. Don’t leave tracks. It’s not enough to keep your blog under an assumed identity on Blogspot. Sign up for your account with an email account from Hushmail that keeps your email safely encrypted. And blog from behind a proxy by installing Tor and the nifty Tor extension for Firefox. This is to keep anyone from tracking your PC’s IP and triangulating your approximate location. For a more detailed explanation, here’s a link to an EFF tutorial.
No matter how much your job gives you pain, think of the possible repercussions of posting your angst online. Think about your future employers reading your past vitriol. Think about said posts making it difficult for you to procure new employers.
Or do yourself a favour and just get yourself a journal. Maybe even a dog.
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on Saturday, August 30th, 2008 at 2:36 pm
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