The Deadman Night Rider

A forum for evening students of the SMU Dedman School of Law and other outlaws..

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

Bloggers Beware!

That was the tagline of an email we got the other day from the career services office. They went on to advise us to think about removing from our personal websites any information that might hurt our chances with a potential employer, and included this link to a cautionary article about racy myspace and facebook pages.

I know they mean well, and it's good advice to remember that anything you say or post can have consequences, but there's still something about this that just rubs me the wrong way (obviously I'm not talking about sites with something outrageous like pornography or paeans to Hitler here). If I were really worried about it, I'd wipe out the Deadman--it's not like I'm anonymous here, and there are alot of posts with some salty language and political views that some people might not like. Should I really be afraid to fly that Israeli flag below, or strike that post about trial lawyers I was going to write? Is that what it's come to? Even if it has come to that, I don't give a damn.

Maybe it's a function of being older--I just don't have enough life left to deal with people who want to snoop around on the internet looking for something to play "gotcha!". Sure, companies have every right to do that, but then again they have a right to do all kinds of evil and demeaning things. But if somebody out there digging around the net can't take personal websites in the context they're offered in, that says a hell of alot more about them than it does about the blogger.

So if you, dear reader, are a potential employer (or more likely, a lowly HR flunky assigned this odious task) surfing the net looking for reasons to torpedo someone's application to your firm, here's my advice:

1. You should be ashamed of yourself: stop wasting valuable time and resources in an endeavor that only makes you look like a gigantic ass.

2. Fire that consultant you hired to figure out why you have one of the highest employee turnover rates in the business. You just found the answer.

3. Go buy the employees you DO have some new shirts, 'cause I can tell you right now they spend most of their day digging knives out of their backs. Your particular 'corporate culture' just naturally breeds that behavior.

4. If you don't want to hire me now, thank you. You've made both our lives easier.

For anyone else reading, as always, feel free to post away. If you've got something to say, say it. That's why I allow anonymous posting and never delete posts unless someone requests it.

Stay cool, boppers!

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