Thursday, June 18, 2009

tie my hands behind my back, please?

I wanted to write something just now and then I thought that someone who is looking at me as a potential hire might Google my name and find this blog and not appreciate it. Maintaining privacy or anonymity on the Internet seems somewhat difficult in today's world, and I have the feeling that I've already made too many careless errors in the past that can't be fixed. For example, once I Googled my name and found a very funny blog post by some teenager with a friend of the same name as mine. In the blog, they wrote something about this person discussing sex, or sex toys, or something very funny. Well I posted that in my blog, with my name in the text, and wouldn't you know it...that particular post shows up in my name search. After I realized it, I removed my name from the text but it still shows up. Dang!

I was actually halfway through writing about how next week I have my first interview and in an effort to express my insecurities and fears about interviewing with a HUGE international company, I was going to write this joke about commonly asked interview questions, and how I might blow them by answering incorrectly (or vomiting, which would also not bode well for me). As I snickered at my witty responses, it dawned on me that I need to be more careful with what I write and so I deleted it. I don't know if I am disappointed in myself for bowing to my own fears or in the fact that so many people have been fired or gotten in trouble for putting a lot less on the web and it seems like a real concern to have.

Anyway, it's true, my first formal interview (EVER... in my life) is next week. Needless to say, I am totally freaked out. I have the next 7 days to obsess over it... because let's face it, you never know what to expect:

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

over time that thing you blogged with your real name in it should disappear from the google cache. i seem to recall that you can even ask them to remove it, but i keep telling this page to remove the tag of a grade school picture of me and then someone else keeps emailing them going: "i know who that is!" and no one keeps note of me having emailed them to not tag me in that picture.

someone asked me today why i switched from blogger to wordpress and i'm pretty sure it was because my blogger account was linked to my gmail account because google thinks that's nice and dandy, but then if you googled my name you found my blog which is something i DO NOT WANT (mainly because of future employers, i also have a handful of stalkers but they all know my handle so that's a bit whatever).

so that may be something to consider as well.

Unknown said...

Great cartoon!
And I wish you much luck with the interview!

I agree about the unfortunates of the internet. Sadly, I know a few friends who have been bullied on the internet, but their misfortune also taught me enough to not share any personal details about myself on the internet. This is exactly why I won't share personal photos of myself or give out private detailed information on my blog.

Dean said...

I share my name with a gay yorkshire man, who is obsessed with Lara Croft.

I've also learned from past experience that what other people write about you can be easily found!