I find it so interesting that almost everyone’s blog on my blogroll has had discussions about life at work and new policies that their jobs are implementing. Of course that’s because most of the people on my blogroll are journalists and many newspapers are trying to implement (to borrow from The Spokesman Review) “transparent newsrooms.” They’re encouraged to blog.
I’ve mostly kept work-related issues to myself because, well, I don’t know how my job would react to me talking about policies we run in the office. Earlier this week I did learn the policy when they gave me back my contract to review for employee evaluations. What I learned is that I’m not supposed to publicly disclose anything about clients or our “trade secrets.”
In other words: don’t talk shop on the blog, it’s simple enough. But I get so surprised when I wander around the internet how many non-journalists talk about their jobs and how much they hate their bosses and how work sucks, and they wonder why they’re not getting a raise/more respect/a pony. Maybe it’s because your manager’s reading your blog, genius.
So here are some things to think about before you blog about work-related stuff:
- Don’t name names. Try to keep your coworkers names out of your blog as much as possible. People ego search all the time. I overheard my supervisor the other day say “I’ve looked you all up on Google at one point.” Crap. Well maybe your supervisor is looking at you, too.
- Don’t talk about clients. If you have a job where your livelihood depends on a happy client, don’t talk about about clients in your blog. I’m sure your job (like mine) probably has some sort of confidentiality agreement with certain clients, and since you may not know who does not want their name broadcast on the intertubes, just don’t talk about them at all. If you do, it goes back to not naming names again. Give them a clever alias that no one will be able to figure out, like Sicromoft.
- Watch your spelling and grammar. I have to work at this a lot as well so there’s no judgment if you have something misspelled on your blog from my end. But if you’re currently seeking a new job and have a public blog, it may be a good idea to give some of your recent posts a once-over and check for grammar, spelling and how you use the English language. If a potential employer were to find your blog, wouldn’t you want to sound as articulate as you could. Even if you’re blog isn’t supposed to be for professional use, if you can find your blog using your real name (i.e. johnsmith.wordpress.com) then maybe you should keep it professional.
- If you want to have a just-for-fun blog, give yourself an alias like “kumquat” and stick with it. But even the best aliases can be broken if you’re hitting too close to home (remember the Washingtonienne?)
I’d also like to hear what you think about how we present ourselves on blogs. What’s the impression you get reading someone’s blog? I’m curious to hear people’s answers.
