Saturday, August 19, 2006

Advice, dear readers?

Less than six weeks after closing down my entire site in a fit of panic over being "outed," and then devoting the better part of a week to resurrecting it elsewhere, I'm contemplating chucking the whole "plausible deniability" thing.

First, the whole notion of "plausible" is getting pretty damn attenuated.

Second, I'm getting tired of self-censoring.

Third, my readership is melting away. If we extrapolate from current trends, by mid-December I'll just be talking to myself anyway.

Fourth, I feel strangely inspired by the bizarre saga of a former professor I hung out with in grad school. I say "strangely," because it hasn't actually worked out especially well for her, but I think I generally exhibit a tad more impulse control (on most days).

Fifth, getting fired would really not be the worst thing in the world.

On the other hand, this may turn out to be one of those ill-advised life decisions.

Thoughts, either of you?

4 Comments:

Blogger Emily said...

Have you read opinionistas.com? It's a blog by a 27-year-old lawyer in NYC who wrote a lot about how awful the big law firms are to their employees, especially the junior ones. Gawker.com linked to it and suddenly she had thousands of hits per day. She, too, was trying to stay anonymous, but finally had to quit her six-figure job and out herself before she ended up getting fired. She's working on a novel now. The blog is quite a read.

I'd say don't decide one way or the other until K gets home. I know exactly what it's like to dislike a job so much that you're willing to start quietly sabotaging yourself in order to lose it. (If I didn't, I'd still be a tech writer.) But taking the actual steps to start undermining your position is a decision that will have a big effect on K, too, and I think it's better to discuss it with him before you do anything precipitous.

Besides, it feels awesome to quit a job you hate when the management hasn't seen it coming, and it sucks to get fired. I'm just saying.

8:26 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

It's far too easy to figure out your real world identity from this blog already (E. email me if you want to know the simple search that reveals all). Don't out yourself. Figure out your next step first. Or at least wait until you have enough posts to garner a book deal when this all becomes public. Which, of course, it eventually will. -Shani

2:09 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

What she said. Although, selfishly, I want you to go mainstream so that I can link you without losing you your job (since I'm living abroad too, I'm likely to have readers who are or know FSOs, and therefore no link though it's killing me here).

12:57 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Dear Mr. E:

Maybe I'm not sure what all the big deal is here. Pretty much as long as I have known you, you have been just talking to yourself any way....

Bill Roth

PS yeah yeah yeah: Don't let the door catch me on my cyberass....

5:53 PM  
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