Privacy...

I’ve noticed lately a few bloggers who’ve expressed cold feet on their decision to blog. This seems to happen in the law blogger community several times a year. Someone gets outed by a classmate. Another worries about the effects on employment.

Though you can find out my real name through some basic sleuthing I write under a pseudonym for one main reason. As I’ve mentioned before, a lot of what appears in these posts just isn’t factual. I’m a law student, but I’m also a creative writer. Sometimes the events are loosely based on my life. Sometimes the events are real, but the perception of the narrator is different from my own. Unfortunately, no matter how many times I state such repeatedly, many people still have the dim-wittedness to think that this blog is written in the author’s voice.

This blog is written for entertainment purposes. I try to write about what I think people will want to read. In real life, I’m a semi-reclusive nerd.

I read a really interesting article a few weeks ago in New York magazine. The piece was about privacy and the internet and focused almost exclusively on the generation tailing Y. This group is the first to grow up exclusively in the digital age. The author also argued that they are the first to truly understand that privacy as we know it just doesn’t exist anymore and won’t ever again. What the author found so interesting was the generation’s reaction. They all have blogs, facebook accounts, myspace accounts AND with their real names! They write about their true lives, their romances, their foibles and fallibilities…and they just don’t care. One person offered that as long as everyone was going to know their business, that person might as well present it with their own spin.

Along those lines, I think a change is coming for the professional world. The baby boomers who currently rule the roost will be retiring in the next ten years. Industry will need a workforce and they’re going to find a bunch of bloggers. There are certain things that I do believe shouldn’t be blogged – like your actual work experience. My professional life is separate from my personal. I don’t act the same way at the office as I do at home, and my personal life has no bearing on my work performance. I think eventually the ‘professional world’ will realize this. When you think about it, just about everyone has had some type of embarrassing experience in their life. Everyone has had too much to drink at some point, had a bad relationship. Why judge/punish the people who are open and honest about it? It reminds me of the attorney from a large law firm who stated at an interviewing workshop, “We’re very accepting of employees with tattoos and piercings, but we’ve never hired someone who showed either at their first interview.”

Bottled water shot through my nose as I laughed at the hypocrisy of her very sincere statement.

I realize that though these changes are on the horizon, the legal world will probably not be the first to adopt them. Let’s face it, most senior lawyers are still struggling with Word. “What do you mean, ‘Track Changes?’”

I know that there are firms out there who wouldn’t even interview me if they knew about this blog. I’m cool with that. I figure that they are doing me a favor and saving me an interview/job at a place where I ultimately wouldn’t be comfortable. My blog isn’t my resume, but it might help to narrow down the places where I would work. However, if what you’re after is the most money you can get at any place that will take you, a blog might not be your best bet.

In the meantime I will continue to blog because I almost feel like it’s something I have to stand up for in the same way that I insist on wearing pants. Whenever I hear a woman attorney tell me the importance of buying into sexism and wearing a skirt to interviews I think, “Wow. If all women thought the way you did, we would have never gained the vote or been able to enter the workforce.”

I’m not a complete revolutionary over here. I can follow direction and do quite well in a professional environment. I don’t think I will ever be able to be a lemming though and I’d rather be at the beginning of change then catching up at the end.

Oh yeah, read the article...