The Sincerest Form of Flattery

Today I am following the lead of ... copying, perhaps ... an author named Lani Diane Rich. She began a blog series under her Lucy March name to document her life and personal changes over the next 516 days, which is when she hits her 40th birthday.

In 1 year and 2 weeks, I will be 50. That is 54 weeks. Three hundred seventy-eight days. Wow. There is a lot I want to do with myself and my life by then. Some very real changes I want to make. And I want to blog about what I do and the changes I make, to share with my friends and family, most of whom are far away, to give myself regular writing practice that stretches both my skills and my creativity, and to give myself a record of all these things. These are the goals I originally set for this blog.

Lani/Lucy is going for complete honesty with herself and her readers. I think she is very brave for many reasons. In her blog post, she is honest and open about what she has done and been, and not done and not been, and about what she wants to achieve by the time she is 40. And 516 is a hell of a lot of blog posts. I want to be able to write that many posts in a row, but don't intend to right now. I want to be that honest and open, but I'm not sure about being so.

I've been reading and listening to people in the business of hiring and recruiting, or who write about hiring and recruiting, and they all say that potential employers are looking to the Web for more information about the people they are considering hiring or even interviewing. They are looking at social networking sites, seeing what kind of message and information people are posting about themselves on Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn (a professional networking site). I can understand it, but it ticks me off, too. It's just one more way in which the professional is subsuming the private. I don't want to have to be careful in my private life. If I want to run around in biker leathers and carry a bullwhip on my free time, and write a blog about it, I don't want to have to worry that a potential employer is going to see that and say "Nope, can't hire that one. She's too weird or perverse or nonconformist for us." Or maybe they'd consider me for management, who knows? (And no, I rarely run around in biker leathers. Well, never. Wish I had some, actually. Whip? What whip?)

So I worry about how open and honest I can be on a blog. If I'm fully so, I risk saying something that a potential employer will use to not hire me. But if I'm not open and honest, I cheat not only my readers but myself. But being a full-time author is a bit different from being among the employed (or employed-wannabe). People who want to be employed by others or who want clients have to consider what those employers and clients are going to think. And yet ....

ARG!

First change: choose to accept that life isn't simple. It's messy and complicated and you do what you can and what you choose and roll with the consequences. Or roll with the weird crap that the Universe throws at you just for the fun of it.

So in my blog, among other things, I am going to be as open and honest as I can be at any given time. Heck, anyone who is going to hire me has to recognize that I'm not like the other kids on the playground. If they hire me expecting someone "normal," we are ALL in for an unpleasant shock. It's best that I work only for people who rather like the weirdness unconventionality of me. It saves on time — not having to revive those in shock — and in healthcare costs. (Perhaps I overstate. I come across as mostly normal, I think. It's when you get to know me ....)

And maybe I will dress up in leathers and whip, and post THAT as my picture on LinkedIn. Perhaps it will lead to a job in upper management.

I'll write the bit about where I am and what I want to do in the next article.