I've generally tried to maintain privacy--I've never posted our last name or too much information about where we live. In regards to our jobs, I've never posted the name of my school or Paul's company. Some of the settings are private--it's not on the main blogroll or accessible with the next post button. It could be found from a search engine although I didn't intend for it to be and I changed that today. I don't post lots of pictures of Paul's family because while they might know about this place, I've never directly told them about it. Not trying to hide it; just never shared it with them. Because of this, I try to keep them out of it.
I think I have a steady stream of a dozen regular readers, most of whom I'm related to. I keep an eye on the site meter and while there are some IP addresses from locations where I don't know people, I've come to think of them as "regulars" and I think they're fairly safe or they've linked from a friend's blog. I've only had one anonymous person even try to start a fight with me in comments on something I've written in a post and that lasted all of two exchanges. When I joined Facebook, for some reason, I added the address of this blog to my main profile. I'm still trying to figure that one out. I guess I thought it was among friends and what could be the harm. I think a few friends checked it out but I didn't have a huge spike in my readership. I just went on with life and didn't think much of it.
Last week, a post I had written about my former school apparently touched a nerve. I've removed the post at the request of my former principal. I didn't mean for it to appear as negative and disgruntled about the school as apparently it did to some of my former coworkers. I was very frustrated by my job last year--I won't deny that. But I never meant to imply that my coworkers were bad. In fact, if one were to read posts in which I talked about applying for another librarian position, you would see that it was with some hesitancy that I was doing it. I did enjoy the majority of my coworkers. I do think most are doing a good job. Are there those that weren't? Heck yeah. Do I think that those same negative teachers exist at my new school? Definitely and I said as much in the now-removed post. While I didn't mean to sound as disgruntled as apparently I did, there were just things that *I* thought should be dealt with differently--most of which didn't directly affect my job but yeah, it affected my morale. I was feeling put-upon as a result. For *me* personally, it's hard to want to do a good job and be held to a high standard when it feels like there is an unequal treatment. I guess I'll sound a little bratty when I say it just wasn't fair. So, I did something about it and it's been a positive change for me. But no one should think that I'm going around badmouthing my former school--give me a little credit for that. If anything, it's quite the opposite and I'm fairly certain most of my new coworkers know I came from there and how proud I am to see so many former students who have "done good" in high school. Yeah, there are turkeys and I admitted to my new principal when seeing the name of one such turkey that that was probably the only child that I'd personally wanted to stuff in a trash can.
Back to Sitemeter and rethinking this place. Since what happened last week happened, and I'll admit that I messed up with a poorly written post, I'm a little gun-shy. I've also started to notice more Albuquerque accesses as well as several accesses from APS IP addresses. I'll admit to playing around reading blogs when I should be at work but not since this school year started. Am I feeling like I'm being watched, perhaps to see if I'll mess up again? Oh yeah. Am I worried that what I'm writing is being reported to others and not in a friendly "hey did you read that?" kind of way? Definitely. Paranoid, perhaps, but that's just how I am.
Paul and I were talking about it last night--about what to do about this place. I don't want to give it up completely because I do like being able to share stuff with my friends and family, especially during this time of our life and when The Most Amazing Child Ever is born. But I'm thinking about making it a private access place or just changing the location I keep it. I know other sites allow only some posts to be private access. I don't know if I'll actually do it before I get over myself and the paranoia I'm currently feeling. Heck, I should change this place to All Jub, All the Time. He is a rather interesting little creature. Maybe I'd feel better if everyone just gave a little shout-out in comments. I don't know if that would allay all my worries. I do know there are lots of possibilities about the future of The Blue-Eyed Bookworm.
For a little levity, I just had to add this video:
7 comments:
I had a similar happening on my last blog, which no longer exists. I had a bad day at work and blogged about it. Not naming any names, but the person I was talking about happened to read my blog (who knew) and complained about it to the boss. It wasn't until another co-worker said something that I even knew she had read the blog. So, after a few not so nice comments were left on the blog and on my desk, I stopped that blog. Now, I am very careful not to mention much about my work, and nothing about anyone I work with, in my blog. Of course its mostly about my weight loss efforts anyway. I say all that to say this, I learned a long time ago that it isn't wise to ever put something in writing (no matter how secure you might think it is) that you wouldn't want to be in the local newspaper. I hope you will continue with some sort of blog, because I love having this contact with you and Paul that I otherwise wouldn't have.
I think one of the things that really chapped me was that what I wrote was nothing that hadn't been discussed by myself and my former coworkers. Where I got bitten was that I actually wrote it down. I looked back at my former posts--I really didn't write much about work until last year as my frustration level grew. But, the lesson has definitely been learned--I won't write anything that might be construed as remotely negative about my job. At least, I won't publish any of it.
Hey, I'll still read it if it's all Jub all the time. :D Oh, and I'm probably one of your random hits - if I hit the sight from my work, it comes up as St Paul Minnesota. Just in case you were curious.
I have in friend in St. Paul and I just assumed it was her stopping by occasionally. It could still be.
We've talked --- you know my feelings. :)
Sorry about all this, Carrie. I do hope you keep up the blog - I love reading it. And I didn't know some people try to get rich and famous on it. I joined for the same reason as you - to keep family and friends in the loop about our life (mostly involving Hagen because he's more interesting than myself or Shawn). Maybe we should work on the rich and famous aspect...clearly we haven't been utilizing Blogger to its full potential. :-)
I have always struggled to keep up with my blog. I am a rather private person who stinks at keeping in touch with distant friends and family. I created my blog in an effort to keep those people in the loop. I have the same amount of privacy settings as you.
But my posts have dropped dramatically (as if you hadn't noticed) because late last summer I got burned. I wrote something that I did not feel was offensive at all and even still, I never referenced anyone by name. But one someone took offense and was downright mean. The worst of it was that I saw her almost daily and she never once and talked to me. It was clear that she was angry with me, but instead of coming to me she left hateful comments. Very mature, no?
I pondered the same things that you are now and I never came up with a good solution. I have been a pretty terrible blogger ever since, which has had the good effect of most of "those" people thinking that I have forgotten my blog and they subsequently forgetting it as well. However I don't think that it has been the good solution I was looking for.
I actually thought that you did a great job in expressing your feelings about your previous school and I wanted to print out that post and show it to my director. It was constructive criticism that we ALL could use. Stop and truly listen to people. Show them that they are important, even for just three minutes. I don't see why you were criticized for saying those things. I don't see why I was so heavily criticized for asking my other readers to pray for some stressed out moms. I guess we just hit a nerve...a little too close to the truth.
I know how personal it felt for me. My blog is my place to say what I want, which I don't often do. It's my opinion and those are my feelings, meant to be shared with my friends and my family. She made it feel ugly.
The way I see it you have three choices:
1 - Keep Blue-eyed and censor yourself
2 - Go private and have absolute control at all times over who sees your blog
3 - Change names and use a little more caution over who you share it with.
2 and 3 give you the ability to write and share just as you have always done (which I love), but 2 makes me sign in every time and it won't post to reader, so I vote for 3.
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