Failbook

I will say that I never did read many blogs where people were talking about work much – really I mostly read blogs that have some sort of information about something I held interests in.  I suppose if I were say, in a call center, I might search out blogs like those mentioned in the article “Workblogging in a Facebook Age”. I think the closest I ever came to it was reading the webcomic Userfriendly which was mostly about working in the IT sector (and HIGHLY amusing. I recommend it if you are anything like me and are the default IT person for either your friends, your family or your work department!)

Userfriendly.org from 12.January.2012

I can understand why people would want to study blogs that give an insight to what people think / feel about their work, it does make me wonder though how people were candid and vented previously? To be fair, I was online before most of my friends, but I was still very young by any standards.  I remember going to Bulletin Boards to talk about music or what have you, and would see people bitching about work then as well – so I assume that this is a trend that has been going on since before the mid 90′s, but i’d love to know what people would turn to for candid anonymous venting about work before they had the option of the internet.  Maybe a shady bar where no one knew who they were?

Also, work blogging in the Facebook age, makes me chuckle because at least once a week on failbook (linked to from Icanhascheeseburger) you generally see some poor shmuck who posts something like this:

http://failbook.failblog.org/

Then, going back to the other articles about privacy in Facebook – I think that this is part of a larger discussion that needs to be had with the public at large about the internet. I mean, seriously folks… once you put something on the internet, it doesn’t go away. EVER. That is a sad (and sometimes hilarious) truth. I just recently ran into online a cyber friend of mine I have known for years… he happened to send me some screen shots of chat sessions we used to have back when I was in highschool, and it reminded me: I can never run for president.

On the other side of that coin though, I am happy to say that I am older, but wiser. I am familiar with the privacy policy of most websites I put my name to, and I am quite careful about what data I give them. I try not to post “Hey, i’m going out of town for the weekend, I hope someone doesn’t come take all my stuff while i’m gone!” or “LOLZ IM DRUNK AT WORK THIS MEETING IS TEH BOMBZ” when ive friended coworkers on Facebook. I suppose though that more people need educating on what these social programs collect about you though. My mother is routinely surprised that Facebook has ads that are from stores that she just adores, and how odd that they would advertise there!

I suppose I think of social networking online just like that seedy smokey bar: don’t say anything there you don’t want to come back and haunt you. Ever.