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Beware Your Online Presence
Mz6 wrote to mention an article in the NY Daily News stating that an increasing number of employers are Googling their prospective employees during the interview/hiring process. From the article: "'A friend of mine posted a picture of me on My Space with my eyes half closed and a caption that suggests I've smoked something illegal,' says Kluttz. While the caption was a joke, Kluttz now wonders whether the past two employers she interviewed with thought it was so funny. Both expressed interest in hiring Kluttz, but at the 11th hour went with someone else."
...if you want... no pressure. Or read daddypants@slashdot.org :)
Don't use MySpace. Trust me, we'll all be better off when that fad has passed.
Obligatory
...oh. There isn't one.
He sounds a little paranoid, everybody gets passed over for jobs once in a while. Submit your resume elsewhere, life goes on.
I think this is made out to be more of a big deal than it really is. It's quite simple to prevent this from happening to you. Post "good stuff" under your real name, perhaps linked to a professional-sounding alias, and post other crap under another alias that you never link to your real name.
Would /you/ hire someone named "Kluttz"?
I'm glad Mz6 "wrote to mention" an article. Next time it would be helpful if he provided a link to go with the mention.
This guy's the limit!
Perhaps (the) Kluttz didn't relize it was a job handling delicate situations?
Now, I don't know much here, but just because information is publicly out there doesn't mean a potential employer could legally look at it right? I mean, just because someone writes something on *the internet* doesn't mean it's true. Don't employers have to check their sources? Or is that left up to them, it is in their interests to double check facts -- either good or bad.
WASTE - The Secure P2P
It has been know for years this is common practice. Assume anything sent electronically can be read by someone else and will NEVER be taken off the web. email isn't privledged by lawyers and clients, so why would you assume that posting on myspace would be?
Only post things online with anonymity you are worried that could come back to haunt you.
Test it yourself before you start applying! Just look on google with your e-mail address and your name in various combinations, to see what you can find about yourself, and be sure your employer will find the same. So change what you can change, and for the things you can't change (maillists, for example), just make sure you either don't make a habit writing stupid stuff, or use a special e-mail address that cannot be coupled to you.
molmod.com - computing tips from a molecular modeling
I'm the de-facto online background checker for our prospective new hires, and Google is my #1 tool. Sometimes I find nothing; sometimes some pretty damning stuff- usually posted by the individuals themselves.
Where's the fucking ARTICLE???????
...anything that you wouldn't want the whole world to know was attributed to you.
;)
Anyone who googles my name will find out that I'm a hardcore geek. A while back I took pains to remove my last name from all my online presences but it was largely too late. This is hopefully not that bad for jobs, its impact on my dating life is something I wish I could measure however
Is you can check your access logs to see if/when someone from a potential employer has visited your website.
Think about it. Wouldn't you like to know "as much as possible" about a person you are about to hire? Checking a real name on Google is, from that point of view, almost as natural as calling former employers to find out how you performed there (and why you quit). The "trick" is basically to use a alias when posting "stoned-looking" pictures.. It's easy to do a search for the name on the application, it's much harder to find out what the person applying actually has done online if he/she only use aliases and fake names (and other e-mail address than the one used on the application). Oh btw, unless it's obvious, a "home page" where you brag about law violations, drug use and tell the world that you have a political view that's likely to be viewed as "not very politically correct" also don't help you much..
9/11: Never forget it was a false-flag operation
really, I wouldn't hire anyone, who I knew used drugs.
I am currently working with someone who is a total pothead, and it is terrible. The guys is completely useless. I am not saying that anyone who smokes weed is completely useless, but I would rather get someone clean anytime than deal with this problem.
You can't handle the truth.
The article is at http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/401069p-339 405c.html.
;)
(Persons googling for me can now see what a helpful individual I am!
I used to post all the pictures of myself smoking crack and heroin with captions listing my full legal name and social security number. But then I read on article that said that might not be so hot if your looking for a job. So I wised up and posted the pictures under the alias: uber-rocksmokeerdood69woot! No problems so far! hope this helps....
"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro" -Hunter S. Thompson
Ah, the advantages of flexible identity. I have four of them, each one of which either denies the other three or tries to avoid associations. This is an effective way to remain seperate lives - at least until someone comes up with a very advanced data-mining program that can look at all the billions of identities in use and cross-reference them to determine which ones share a person.
Here
There's nothing especially wrong or insidious about googling a prospective employee. I'd do it.
The larger problem is that not everyone realizes that the internet is *public*, not private, and that what you post online has the potential to stay around for a very long time.
If you don't want it googled, don't put it up. If your friend puts it up, tell them to take it down.
On the other hand, any employer who would refuse to hire someone based off of humorous content in a blog or on a personal webpage (or even due to radical political/religious views) is probably ignoring a large pool of good employees. A smart employer will realize that even clever, hardworking people look stoned sometimes.
What's in a Sig?
(by the way, yes I know the html sucks, we're working on a new site that has fully valid code...)
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
When I search my real name on Google, I'm continually amazed at how horribly out of date and esoteric the information is.
.fstab file on a LinuxPPC installation 6 years ago, I was vehemently anti-Windows at least as far back as 1999 and I used to watch Babylon 5 rather religiously during its original run. Since then I've stopped using my real name outside of personal communications because I saw that just this sort of thing would become a problem in the years to come.
Any employers will find that I had an interest in fixing an
I'm a firm believer in passive anonymity. I won't go to great lengths to hide who I really am, and have no problem with people I'm conversing with knowing my real name, but I make sure that any comments of mine end up archived under a pseudonym. Considering HR people are looking for applicants with 15 years of experience in Windows XP, I don't really trust them to do the mental math necessary to establish that the questionable rant of mine from 1995 they've taken issue with, was posted by me while I was still in middle school.
That dude from Mike's Apartment is officially unemployable ad inifitum.
Now is there any chance you could actually post a link to the article?
You didn't properly specify, however.
Would you hire someone who possibly used drugs >1 year ago, recreationally? Would it take 5 years?
The only reason I would ask is that I know of people (potheads) that smoke regularly, and I also know of people that have not touched the stuff in years.
Drug use in the workplace is a no no in my book, however. That'd be just as bad as sleeping while on the job....
OK, it's worse...
Karnal
"Both expressed interest in hiring Kluttz, but at the 11th hour went with someone else."
I wonder if it had something to do with her name choice...
Everyone has their imperfections or crutches. In my experience its far more disruptive to work with someone with a personality defect than someone that smokes pot on the weekends. Honestly, I get far more trouble from that workaholic or socialite who keeps pestering me.
Obviously, there are certain drugs that can take a person over, making them completely useless.. but weed, cigarettes, or alcohol? Those hardly cause enough trouble to warrant some kind of aggressive filtering.
How do I remove my own posts?
Google gives you the option. My own usenet posts aren't a big deal. I was a geeky teenager posting geeky technical questions to geeky newsgroups.
On the other hand...
I recently hired two guys based primarily on their online presence.
I was looking for a couple of people to do support. Both of them applied. I googled them. They both had blogs. Their blogs demonstrated that a) they could write well (their jobs involve providing support via email) b) that they had a bit of personality and c) that they were smart people, passionate about Linux (which is our focus).
I hired both these guys without ever meeting them face-to-face. Being able to google them, see what projects they've been involved in, get a feel for how they deal with other people (e.g. in mailing list posts, etc) helped me start getting a handle on them. These guys got their jobs over dozens of other candidates who had great resumes, but were 'invisible' on the web.
--
We're hiring Linux geeks
If that's her last name, then, well, I've lowered to the depths of Jimmy Kimmel-type jokes. I apologize.
at how ridiculous that is... I mean, I know that it's common practice to look people up, but how unethical is that? Are we really that paranoid? I guess now it's not just police checks for sensitive jobs...
Companies are so fearful about employees using illicit drugs it makes them do wierd things. In some workplaces there is subtle discrimination against groups who fits certain "profiles". It isn't really racial or gender based, but typically economically based. The janitors or maintenance crew get "random" tests all the time, while managers and other white-collar workers don't. If there is any connection between a person and drug use, whether it is fictional or not or on-line or not, companies will drop that application like a hot potato.
--
God is a C programmer.
Maybe it had nothing to do with the pictures at all...maybe her prospective employers just didn't want to hire a Kluttz?
I'm a drug user and been a drug dealer
I've been involved in organised violence
I've commited fraud
I've driven drunk
I've lied to get jobs
I've commited perjury
I occasionally steal stuff
I've evaded tax
I've driven my car without insurance
I've done a DoS on a commercial rival's server via an exploit
I guess that'll do
Got any work for me ?
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
I wasn't bothered about the dope smoking, but I'll be damned if I hire somebody who lists Moulin Rouge as their eighth most favourite film ever!
</interviewer>
That's why Michael Zenke posts everything under the nickname Zonk. Otherwise, people might know that Michael really is an imbecilic "editor" who can't even make sure there's a link to an article.
If its published to the public, its totally legal to look at, by anyone, for any reason.
You can be denied a job beacuse your hair style is ugly. Or you smell bad. No need to verify facts. Even if its proven it was 'just your friends screwing around', you can still be denied as who wants a worker with friends like that?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Google everyone. By screename and real name.
That way if whoever you're hitting on is going to on the most wanted list, you can remember to carry a gun and get some before they go to jail.
Might even be a reward for them!
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
Would you hire a guy named "Kluttz"?
I work with a lot of people that watch television that are completely useless. I know that all people who watch television aren't completely useless, but I personally wouldn't hire anyone who watches television, just in case.
Whiskey
Tango
Foxtrot
v4sw6PU$hw6ln6pr4F$ck 4/6$ma3+6u7LNS$w2m4l7U$i2e4+7en6a2X h
Right.. because MySpace is where potential employers look for information. "Let's see, Jason.. Jason.. Jason.. Jason.. Jason.. Jason.. Jason.. Jason.. Jason.. Jason.. Jason.. AHA!"
Or did you put a link to your profile in your resume?
Here's an idea: If you're wondering why an employer decided not to hire you, you could try asking them instead of Slashdot. I know it's hard to believe, but there might actually be more qualified people applying for the same jobs. It sucks getting passed over, and occasionally there could be illegitimate reasons, but for the most part you win some and you lose some. In the long run, the most productive course of action is probably to just keep looking, and tell your friend to take down the picture if you're paran^h^h^h^h^hconcerned.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
her real name isn't Ellen Feiss.
Game: Player 'Donald J Trump' now has AI skill level 'experimental'.
Not entirely paranoid. I thought it was a well-known fact that employers Googled people when considering hiring them. I keep this in mind whenever I post anything that links me to my real name, though.
The google results
...
;) Anyone dumb enought to use their real name on myspace doesn't deserve to get the job.
www.myspace.com/comeoncolleen
hi, i'm colleen kluttz and i just smoked the. best. weed. everrrrrrr... erin brown. 2/17/2006
1:32 PM i knew you when.... Leslie. 2/14/2006 2:27 PM
www.myspace.com/comeoncolleen - 123k - Cached - Similar pages
Now what's so bad about that?
Drugs are taboo,
So many people use drugs recreationally and it does not effect their work habbits or lives.
If i was emplyoing someone I would evaluate their ability to do their job, if they had a drug habbit that prevented them doing their job to the best of their ability then they would not get it. Its not my business to know if they are taking drugs recreationally or not, is my business if they are coming into work under the influence of drugs.
There is a big difference in recreational drug use and a drug habbit, I have worked promoting safe partying at rave parties, there are a huge amount of people who excell at their work, but participate in recreational drug consumption.
I don't see it as any different and going out on the weekend to get blind drunk. What you do in your sparwe time is your own business, as long as you don't bring it into the work place.
I share a name with a fairly famous person, and anytime I try to do anything, I always have trouble. It seems everyone already has a perception of this person that's so negative, it's essentially impossible for me to overcome. People don't even bother to Google me. I'm seriously thinking about changing my name.
A. Hitler (I don't want you to get the wrong impression, too)
I have always been in two minds about this, but have erred on the side of caution: I NEVER put my name to anything online that I think could possibly reflect badly on me at any point in the future.
I'm not remotely famous by any stretch of the imagination, but I am fairly relatively known internationally within a certain subset of astronomy. I'm also still early in my career. I don't want to do something boneheaded now that's gonna stay in a Google search for all eternity and bite me on the ass when I least need it! Sometimes this means suppressing (but not denying) my opinions for fear they might piss off a future potential employer. Other times it just means going under obscure usernames that are pretty much untraceable to me. I don't even reuse usernames for different websites (except banking, bill pay, etc).
It's stupid -- I know! Nobody should be afraid of having their voice heard and, unless you're a total bigoted freak (which I'm not...), you should be proud of your opinons and stick by your beliefs. But when anybody searches on my name online, I dont want them to see results that tie me to any divisive opinion, be it pro-life or pro-choice, pro- or anti- gay marriage, republican, democrat or nazi or whatever. I want them to see the achievements that paint me in the best possible light.
Some might say that the blanket of anonymity is really just cowardice with no personal convictions. I say it's a necessary evil and good common sense.
Hence why myspace is gayness
Believe it or not, names are not primary keys...
Sounds like a good idea, but is it knowing you can bury the wrong body?
(example, look up Charles Bronson in google... You'll find 2 stars... ones an actor, the other a killer)
it was the fact that the person has a myspace account.
My boss Google'd me when I first applied for my job before my interview. And from what I could tell, he Googled me quite thoroughly. He even brought up stuff I had forgotten about. I'm well aware that having stuff on the internet is like putting it up on a big sign on your front lawn. People these days don't seem to fully consider if a particular picture or post is something they may want to keep to themselves. For example, this now happening on the facebook.
...do most employers know how to do a web search?
Especially if it's not something you directly posted, if for no other reason than to ask "is this you?" "is this real?" - it could be fake, or someone else with the same name.
We've secretly replaced Slashdot with new Folgers Crystals - let's see if it notices.
Maybe they should just get a more generic name. I'm sure everyone loves finding that one Joe Doe in a million.
WASTE - The Secure P2P
Homepage, Myspace, or history of sexual offense.
A myspace entry implied I killed a former boss, and despite my complete assurance that there would be no more boss killing in my future, they refused to hire me. I guess once you kill a boss, all future bosses will have some reservations about you. Well, you live, you learn. They should ban myspace.
You know that "permanent record" that folks have been claiming followed you around? It was everything about you on the web.
-Don't use your real name if your web-self isn't reputable.
-Don't let anyone post any non-password protected pictures of you in a negative light
-Don't publish your p0rn collection on the web for your friends under the domain using your last name - www.john.smith.org
-Don't let your ex retain the "home videos"; two words - "Paris Hilton"
Yeah, great idea... let's make everyone's tax forms available publicly... can't see any potential for privacy abuse there, nooooooooo... I can't believe a government could be so stupid!
"I like systems, their application excepted", George Sand (French)
It's quite simple to prevent this from happening to you. Post "good stuff" under your real name, perhaps linked to a professional-sounding alias, and post other crap under another alias that you never link to your real name.
As others have already pointed out, it's difficult to make sure that every person in the world who has a photo of you won't post something that isn't very flattering. But even ignoring that for the moment, what consistutes "good stuff" in your mind is likely to change. Suppose you are a first-year student in grad school and you post something under your real name stating that your dream is to become a professor. Very noble, very "good stuff". Fast-forward several grueling years when you are burned out. Your goals have changed and academia doesn't sound so great. You start interviewing for companies and tell them during the interview that you have a strong interest in tackling today's technical problems.
After you leave, the people you interviewed with start googling around to see what they can dig up on you and come across this thing you wrote many years earlier. Now there's doubt in their mind. Are you looking at an industrial position because you didn't get a postdoc? Are you just looking to make some big bucks in the private sector for five years before returning to what you love -- academia? Maybe I trust you and realize that your priorities have changed. How do I know they won't change back? You wrote so eloquently about the fact that your life-long dream was to become a professor a few years ago. How much do I want to bet that you won't dream this way again?
And what about posting your politicial, philosophical, or personal beliefs on the web? You write a well-thought-out essay about a woman's right to choose and your pro-life potential-employer finds it. You may think that's "good stuff" but your employer sure doesn't. You're making this way too simple. The article brings up a very good point. You are unwise to dismiss it as "someone else's problem" so easily, my friend.
GMD
watch this
It could be that your insecurity has had a more significant effect on your social/dating life than your 'web presence'.
I don't have an extremely common name, but it's common enough. When I google myself, none of the results on the first page are me. One of them has the same middle initial, and one of them even has a similar bio (birthplace and childhood). Someone might find me if they search my name combined with other associations, but not easily. If I google my name and my university I find another (more recent) student with my name.
Unless you have a very unique name or you're dumb enough to put your full name in your public myspace profile, you probably don't have a lot to worry about.
For a small fee, you can make your voter registration information private.
I didn't know this until recently and was having a lot of GREAT interviews, followed by no callbacks. Changed my party registration and got hired on the very next interview. Coincidence? I think not.
Contact your local County Clerk and have your voter registration information made private TODAY.
I tell my clients to run a Google Groups search for my last name and technology of their choice.
... I wish you good health and much prosperity,. Leonid S. Knyshov ...
... Mr. Knyshov appreciates your time spent reading this. ...
:-).
1000+ articles posted in my area of expertise.
Google itself links me to some seriously fun stuff. First link just happens to point to my Amazon profile. I consider that as VERY lucky as that's a page I can modify as I see fit.
Here is you will see when you search for "Knyshov" on Google:
Amazon.com: Profile For Leonid Knyshov: ReviewsLeonid Knyshov "World-class computer expert" (Fremont, CA USA) (REAL NAME)
www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-reviews/ A3P7EVPCSMPGI6?_encoding=UTF8 - 66k - Cached - Similar pages
Amazon.com: Profile for Leonid KnyshovLeonid S. Knyshov is a computer genius who is typically employed as a Sr. Network Systems Security
www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/A3P7EVPCSMPGI6 - 43k - Cached - Similar pages
[ More results from www.amazon.com ]
A few links below that, however, I am linked to insecure.org which shows my HP-UX exploit from 1997. That can be good or bad. Good - shows that I knew how to find original exploits 9 years ago. Bad - I don't actively advertise that. Overall, I consider that as a good link.
Then there is a link that connects me to the SF Raves community. That again can be good or bad. Good - I can modify that page as I see fit and it shows that I am not a bookworm. Bad - it links me with nightlife of San Francisco, which may provoke questions about possible recreational drug usage, which I do not do.
Overall, that's basically the key. If the information you post is good, it definitely enhances credibility. I tell my clients to look for me on the Internet. For some reason, my 1994-2000 newsgroups history is not visible, which is not necessarily a bad thing
Leonid S. Knyshov
Find me on Quora
That's redundant! And it says the same thing twice.
Paul Grosfield - the quicker picker upper.
What does one do if he, using his real name, posted a drug related comment to the usenet in his less wise days? Cross his fingers and hope that the employer doesn't find it?
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
I have blog where I rant on various topics and talk about things that go on in my life when I've nothing better to do. My blog did contain some political thoughts which could be considered as extreme or 'Anti-American' or even Communist. I've also talked about times when I've gone out on the town and gotten really drunk and even times when I have done drugs. Just the normal ramblings of an average enough student I suppose.
Anyway, I started applying to lots of jobs and I got no replies. One day I noticed that my name and the university I attend, when googled, return my blog as the first hit. I took out all my 'dodgy' posts and I applied to some jobs and I actually got replies! Of course it could be purely coincidental but then again...
http://www.claimid.com/ Thought up by a couple of ibiblio guys, creating a link resume/profile seems the way to go.
George W. Bush, is that you? Hard to tell... could be almost anyone in his cabinet or extensive list of consultants and advisors, really...
"I like systems, their application excepted", George Sand (French)
It raises the odds, because someone could discover your pseudonym somehow maybe, especially if it is highly unique, like it could get linked back to you via an email address or something. I also change email accounts and aliases every few years so I lose the link to the past. If someone wants to guess which Anonymous Coward posts I'm responsible for in the past, be my guest :-) and slashdot of course isn't the only place to use anonymous coward.
I suppose I'm lucky, when I search with my real name, I don't show up at all. But the people who do, are all very typical or even above average, coders and scientists and professionals, and people doing normal things like getting married. Apparantly I have a somewhat common real name.
I did quite a few searches using my private info I know, and if an employer went through all the trouble and saw what I saw, I wouldn't be embarrassed about it.
"Honest, Mr. Rumple, that is not my ass. See?"
Table-ized A.I.
No worries. If a potential employer takes offence at something Google throws up about me, they aren't the right employer for me. Probably humorless, management-theory-obsessed types who'll abscond with the pension contributions anyway. Their loss will be someone else's gain. There's more to life than worrying about some sad-sack snooper in human resources.
Las qué passoun
tournoun pas maï
Seems like with a little bit of work, you could set up a blog and
net presence that would make any employer jump to hire you.
If course it's all fiction, but with the proper links and all
you could make it pretty believable.
Enterprising individuals could do this for you for a fee.
So for the employers who think they are being so crafty,
there's a way for the unscrupulous job seeker to keep one step ahead.
Starman97@Gmail.com (bring it on spammers)
Someone lied about me online!
That's the only thing that could have happened, it's not that I suck, someone else screwed it up for me!
I am currently working with an asshole, and it is terrible. The guy is completely useless. I'm not saying anyone who is an asshole is completely useless, but I would rather work with someone cool than deal with this problem on a daily basis.
While the caption was a joke, Kluttz now wonders whether the past two employers she interviewed with thought it was so funny.
Even though there's not a damned bit of indication that the employers in question even looked at the net for info. So let's make up some shit about why we didn't get the job so we can feel better about it. The picture was posted on a grassy knoll, right?
Lots of people apply for jobs and have the employer be really interested in them, but then don't get the job. It happens. Deal with it. Life sucks and then you die. But don't treat this as "news" unless you're sure this is what happened.
Is this a really slow news day at Slashdot or something?
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
My girlfriend played Wow and got a little too cozy with another player. With a little bit of Real World knowledge about him I was able to find out quite a bit about him and his immediate family.
Even dug up a picture that might be of him, she wasn't pleased when I said that as she had never been sent a picture. Seems they weren't that cozy after all.
I'll leave it up to the reader to determine what one can do with such information.
In this case i dumped her, and sent him a message in Wow telling him he should feel free to meet up with her. I've got no interest in her now anyway.
It was rather revealing to toss out information which she knew, but had no idea how I could have found out about. She probably thinks I trolled through all her email, but she seemed really curious as I suspect most of the information passed between them was via Ventrilo (voice chat).
An often forgotten rule...
Never put anything in writing that you wouldn't want somebody else's lawyer holding up in court.
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
I've been doing this for years.
google reported a massive dDos, as slashdotters around the world simutaneously searched their own names and handles in panic.
It's things like this that are piling up that are making people less fun, less interesting, more paranoid and a shitty society. We spend more time worrying that what we say may offend someone, say or do something that might "not look good to potential employers". That we bottle everything up, and then start shooting people to let it out. Poking fun at someone, or having a wild night out and taking a picture used to not cost people their jobs. Granted it's the internet and it would be better to keep things in your house amoungst your closest friends. We're in a state of fear in this country over things coming from all sides. There's places in this country that want cameras in people's apartments. Now you have to watch yourself all the time or some moron in a suit will find out about it and fire you or not hire you. They're getting too much control over everyone's lives.
One of the few advantages of having a common name.
:)
You'd have to wade through a lot of pages on Google to get to any of the few pages that refer to me.
If you don't have such a common name, apparently it might be worth your while to either set up a ton of webpages with extremely positive information about yourself, or a bunch of pages that make it look like there are hundreds of other people with your name.
Everything I need to know about copyrights I learned from Slashdot.
Just because I'm paranoid, doesn't mean there isn't someone out to screw me...
I wonder if prospective employers realise its possible for someone to have the same name as you? It's not like its a primary key...
Blessed are the 1337, for they shall pwn the earth.
You only have to send one message per EMAIL ADDRESS, not per message. So unless you were using unique email addresses for every post in 1986, it's not that difficult.
He said "go to myspace, google. yahoo, MSN, hotjobs, anything that a potential employer may use, and make sure that anything that shows up is accurate"
If someone online is posting false info on you, then call the service and demand its removal, hire a lawyer if necessary.
I would say fuck em then.
I don't have a choice about whether or not the guys I employ use drugs, I'd say well over 50% of my workers are at least social drug takers. Often some of my best technicians are pot heads. If I wanted to use only clean people I wouldn't have many workers left.
So you don't always get a choice.
Read this thread uncensored:
r eshold=-1&mode=nested&commentsort=0&op=Change
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=180717&th
Its getting harder and harder to read this site with the defualt view the way it is, designed for bandwidth abuse and ad spamming...
Googling my name is always interesting. There going to be scratching their heads when one of the websites that pops up is related to Gypsy Moths. Yes I counted Gypsy Moths in high school.
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
Yup, there it is (scroll down).
http://www.myspace.com/comeoncolleen
If her employers checked her myspace, they most certainly would have not hired her.
Comments from her myspace:
obviously (FTA): "hi, i'm colleen kluttz and i just smoked the. best. weed. everrrrrrr..."
"Best host ever! I like the part when you shake your boobies."
"pot brownies, colleen! POT BROWNIES!!!"
"if you lived here, i would have to quit my job and become a full time hang over nurse."
"i'd like to report that i just opened my purse at work and found a can of PBR inside. livin' large!!!" - PBR being Paps Blue Ribbon beer by the way
"chris's eyes = patriotic. stoned white and blue. come visit."
And the profile picture she picked herself that has her giving the finger to a camera doesn't help either.
If the incident in question (someone posted a pic of her looking high) was isolated, an employer might overlook it. But these comments suggest a heavy drinker/pot smoker. I personally don't care if someone drinks/smokes weed while not on the job, but these things in conjunction with the attitude that is expressed on her myspace is something more.
Just to screw with the powers that be, being the rebelious jerk I can be, the most of following things below are not true, but just because they are in this post, they will more than likely be on my permantant record.
I'm crazy. Yes, I'm crazy.
I download music and porn on the internet.
I love big butts and I can not lie...you other brothers can't deny...
I get a rise out of abusing animals and small children
I love goth chicks with big boobs.
I love geek chicks with big boobs even more.
I think church sucks and 99% of all the Bible is alot of bullocks. (I use "bullocks" incase you are british and looking to hire me.)
I like football and porno and books about war...I got an average house with an nice hardwood floor...
Throughout highschool I was mistaken for Theodore Kazenski.
I like to make prank phonecalls on payphones
I like to leave little messages on the computers at Best Buy.
90% of all the programming I watch is animated
The other 10% is porn.
I love to be improper when people say that I should.
I like to fool with math that noone understands. Even more when they think I'm going to use it to do something crazy. (Fewlz!)
I like to use science when ever I play pranks. I love the smell of baking soda and vinegar in morning.
I only get 10 minutes of real work done all day. Most of it offline and away from the phone.
I don't like people. It's not that I'm a misanthrope, it's just that I find people are stupid.
I don't give a damn about the TPS reports the big account or your nit picking about how the font isn't just right on my Excel report.
I love talking aloud my thoughts. It makes all the annoying people go away.
Cartoon porn is way more exciting. Especially if it involve anime.
I'd rather be fishing than doing your damn work.
I could be reading a book right now.
I could be causing trouble for the establishment right now.
I'm on atleast two control substances. One of theme is a class IV.
But the most important thing to remember is that I'm crazy.
So when do I start work? See you Monday morning. o_O
The Rapture is NOT an exit strategy.
Second, it is possible that someone who uses legal or illegal drugs recreationally may increase their consumption of same to the point that it does begin to interfere with other facets of their lives. Before I get too many protests, I'll admit that the majority of people who smoke the occasional joint don't become disfunctional potheads and only a small percentage of people who have a glass of wine at dinner become alcoholics. And it is possible that someone who, at the time of being hired, had never tasted an adult beverage could be a falling-down drunk before the first year is up. But I can at least understand that all else being equal, an employer might select the candidate who has a slightly smaller chance of getting into this kind of trouble.
Some see the vessel as half full; others see it as half-empty; We pour it out on the floor and laugh
I am currently working with someone who is a total pothead, and it is terrible. The guys is completely useless. I am not saying that anyone who smokes weed is completely useless, but I would rather get someone clean anytime than deal with this problem.
I used to work a bit with a guy that was very opposite, vegitarian, interested in all sorts of "pure lifestyle" kind of things. Also not the most productive guy I know. And I do know pot smokers that seem to function fine in their jobs. But yeah, if I take the average (I doubt I got a big enough sample to make it statisticly valid) I think they're not as good workers.
And to an employer that doesn't know if you're one or the other - well work it out. They're risk averse, which is why they're often percieved as being racist, sexist and whatnot. Any negative characteristic, any negative behavior they can find about you increases the probability you won't do your job well. Statisticly it might even be right, but it sure as hell sucks being someone that goes against the statistic. A friend of mine was a manager, had to hire workers for low-status low-pay jobs. I've never heard him hold a grudge against immigrants, but the statistics were quite clear. What can you do? Close your eyes and go "LA-LA-LA I don't see this even if its right in my face"? It'll make your performance go down (turnover figures and such), it'll make your job harder (more issues to manage) and it'll gain you nothing. Or you can make a decision on all the factors you know. Unfair? Yes. Does it happen? You betcha. When you've chosen to hire someone though, you should give them a fair playing field. They get the same treatment, same chances. That's the difference between being rational and being a racist.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I have a very common first name with a last name that is a very common religious icon. A google search was 8 pages back before I found anything related to me, and it was from the xorg mailing list. I went a few more pages and found nothing else related to me.
Apparently from my real name I'm a star footballer at an obscure Mid-West American College and from my screen name I'm an old database program.
Being a college student, I have to always be careful about this on the site Facebook (for those who don't know, it's MySpace for college kids). Since anyone with a .edu email address can sign up, all of my professors, research advisors, and med school admissions reps can see the pictures my friend link to my account of any Friday/Saturday night activities I may participate in. Also, the police on campus all have .edu addresses, and there has been alot of controversy over police officers searching through students facebook pictures (MANY of which show underage drinking/drug use). I just saw an article the other day about a freternity that got shut down for pictures of underage drinking http://www.firstcoastnews.com/news/local/news-arti cle.aspx?storyid=53679. I plan on removing my account this summer when I apply to medical schools, not worth the risk.
Simple solution: Educate your friend(s) on on-line privacy issues and teach them basic security skills like using http://gnupg.org/ to encrypt your e-mail while you are at it.
Uh, that dosn't sound very simple at all.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Between comments under my real name and comments under various easily tracable screen names, there are well over 2,000 posts that Google turns up for me. There is tons of stuff in there that is somewhat embarrassing, though not terrible. But I think any employer who holes up for a week to read everything I ever wrote in sixth grade is going to have much bigger issues than me.
I now use my confrontational personality to fight spammers.
Fight Spammers!
if your name really is Hunter S. Thompson.
there'll be plenty of false positives.
my password really is 'stinkypants'
Most smart employers will do a backround check on their employees. I know I would if I were the employer.
Consider the fact that Google might sell your information to employers, and it's quite clear that employers already know as much as they need to know about you.
I don't know if the fact that you've smoked marijuana once or twice is going to make a difference, because most people in the world have tried it before. I think your lifestyle DOES matter to employers. I think your culture DOES matter to employers. I think if you want to work in certain places you have to adapt to the lifestyle and culture of those places.
So while I may think that judging a person on one issue is not very intelligent, there entire profile of a persons personality type and lifestyle does show if the person will be a good worker, or what kinda worker they'll be. For certain jobs being a marijuana smoker is a plus, if you want to be a musician, an artist, a writer, or just an innovator type. If you want to be an engineer, a manager, or deal with mission critical decisions then you don't need to mess with any drugs of any sort. So a decision maker needs to be clean and an innovator needs to be high, at least some of the time.
Googling for my real name turns up several posts/papers by a physics doctor, and a regisseur ... while I am sort of a slacker.
:)
Posted AC, of course
Perscription or non-perscription? It makes a big difference. Right now, I'm taking four perscription pharmaceuticals each morning, and two of them in the evening as well. For three years, I was also taking Zoloft to help manage stress, also by perscription. Unless you make an execption for that, there's a lot of people you're discriminating against for no good reason.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
here is her myspace profile. There's a pic of her munching pills (which are supposed to vitamin C) that she posted, so that one might be what turned employers off.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
We've had some questions for our affirmitive action office about whether or not we are permitted to Google applicants for positions at our institution (our searches are very formalized and monitored closely as to the procedures.) The replies were that as long as we were doing basically the same amount of web searching on each of the applicants, it was fine. So it has added a fair amount of possible information about many of our candidates. It is interesting to see how people present themselves in possibly quite different lights for different settings. I don't think web presence has ever had a profound difference on our hiring decisions, but it certainly helped get an idea about possibly what to expect from people before flying them to visit for an interview.
I use my full name (First Middle and Last) when I post professional stuff online. Unfortunately, there are at least two people with the same full name as myself. One is a surviving relative listed in someone's obituary. The other is listed as being convicted of auto theft in Oklahoma. I have never been to Oklahoma and I am in no way related to the person who died, but my 'conviction' for auto theft has been held against me by people who couldn't bother will a real criminal background check. Of course some people just don't like the fact that my references are 'foreigners' and plainly say as much, going so far as to ask whether my references have "American" names that they answer to. (My references are all legal US citizens by birth whose ancestors did not come from Europe.)
I've discovered something that might be a liability in my search for love...
1. I have a VERY unique name. I'm willing to bet, in fact, that I'm the only guy with my name in the entire world.
2. I have an extensive history on the internet. I've been using it in one form or another since 1995, and before I realized that it was being logged. Once I realized it, I kind of shrugged, noticed it was way too late, and kept going.
So, the other day I got a letter from a potential - she indicated that she'd googled my name on fuck intarweb (my spelling, not hers - if she did that as a joke, I'd ask her to marry me on the spot) and came up with some interesting facts about me. I knew it was all out there, just had kind of slipped out of my mind.
So, now when I get to the point where I'm revealing my name to somebody, I kind of feel like I need to guide them on this - I just tell them "I've been fairly active on pro-pedophilia boards and have an extensive collection of cartoons depicting forced sexual situations among children."
Anybody else run into this? Anybody else do something similar?
If I were an employer, I'd be impressed, but also worried that you'd spend all day posting on the internet (much like I do :P)
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I wish I could rate this post, you would get my +1 point.
The best thing is to not to be ashamed of yourself. Look at gay people. Some of them don't want to be known that they are gay, while others parade it in the streets. Why not the same with all people? What is there to be ashamed of? That we are not religous or of the same religion as the majority? That we like to do things that most people would not agree with? That we have views and vendettas of or against the government?
The Internet is NOT a tool for snitching or blackballing people. While it can be used to expose the government and to search for criminals, It should NEVER be used to persecute people for being themselves.
The Rapture is NOT an exit strategy.
Do you really think the only way they can get your information is by Googling you? Are you really that naive?
They know what you buy, they know how you live, they know your medical records, your credit records, your academic records and any other records which are in any other database. So in general, they know you. If they want you they'll hire you, and if they don't want you then they wont hire you.
http://www.myspace.com/comeoncolleen
Do a find for "weed" and judge for yourself...
More
could it be the one at the top of her profile telling visitors to her profile to F*ck off?
http://www.myspace.com/comeoncolleen
Quit whining about being blacklisted and take down the juvenile profile - you're 27 now, not 16. I wouldn't hire somebody for a professional position with a webpage like that either...
I have spent quite a bit of time on this issue as I have some experience in this area.
Without going into details, (but I know the slashdot crowd can find it, just with a whois on my domains) I was once accused of being a VAMPIRE in a court of law.
Cute, stupid, and it didn't really work for the defendant in the case.
The media had a blast with it. I was on CNN's legal section... I made "News of the odd" The Fax News, several papers, and Fark.
The problems began when a local reporter found my personal website, and went hunting. She found a list of "Pagan buttons and bumpersticker" joke that I thought were humorous and posted them out of context in the article.
Imagine my (very religious) grandmother looking at the paper and finding out that
1) I was pagan (admittedly, my grandfather who was a preacher knew, but asked that I never tell her)
2) I was a Vampire (at least according to some people)
and 3) That I was apparently a fan of throwing Christians to lions! (not true)
Problem is, it never goes away. Someone will ask about it from time to time, it comes up in interviews, and just in places I never expect it.
It is somewhat amusing for me... but can you imagine what would happen if someone were to link your name to something really nasty?
I wrote an article on the need for a "media blackout" type of period in regards to recent child porn arrests, where alledged child porn was found on someones machine by a 3rd party.
Inevitably the media learns of the situation (happened with a Best Buy tech who was snooping someones machine in Tennessee)and reports a name and the fact of the arrest.
Whether the individual is guilty or innocent no longer matters at that point. His (or her) name is indelibly linked to "(insert name) arrested on child porn allegations".
Your life would be OVER.
Now I think people who deal with that stuff are sick and need help and I am not defending them in any way! But I do think we are not far from a period where people are going to start suing to have their name scrubbed from certain places on the net. Good luck to them, because getting something off the net is like getting pee out of a pool.
Or was it "Un-ringing a bell"?
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order- Ed Howdershelt Via Tass
"sorry, you just dont fit our needs" A rather abstract concept. But effective.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
While you arn't really to blame, you gave your friend your myspace password, and he posted it on your account. Or did you really post the pic, and using a friend as guise? >.> .
Regardless, you should of and should just delete the pic, and not let your potential employeers see it. Also keep in mind, having chosen someone else, might not have been based on the picture.
When and if an employeer sees something like that, assure them you don't, and offer yourself to take routine drug tests. If your taking tests every 2-4 weeks, they will be confident your substance use isn't effecting your work. (Unless you have been smoking something illegal, then just find a diff job)
If the information exists, someone is looking at it.
This was my first thought as well - So what? They didn't offer you the job after they seemed interested, it just must be because they read something bad about you on someone else's page on the internet. Nothing to do with finding a better candidate or the other million other reasons you'll be passed over for an offer.
I've been arguing for a long time that completely free and effectively unaccountable speech on-line, particularly when made anonymously, is not necessarily a good thing, and on balance it may do a lot more harm than good. The principled people tend to shout/mod me down, but on this one I think it's the pragmatic view: freedom of speech is not an absolute right, and with that freedom when it does exist must come responsibility for what is spoken. As long as anyone can post anything about anyone on-line without so much as offering any right of reply, never mind (in practice) being subject to the usual legal comebacks in more serious cases, there will be abuses, and the consequences can be very serious, even life-changing. You can argue that the Internet is not a reliable source of information and people shouldn't trust random information for important decisions as much as you like, but in practice it will always cause problems, as we see here.
I've also argued for a long time that archiving of everything on an opt-out basis, as with things like the Wayback Machine and Google Groups, is not necessarily as much in the public interest as the advocates would have us believe. Again, while there is clearly merit in having a record of the general state of the world and useful content that might otherwise be lost, there is also scope for a lot of abuse. Perhaps more seriously, there can be a lot of accidental damage, maybe due to out-of-date information being assumed to be current, maybe because information that was never correct was posted at some stage and later retracted, but the archive didn't pick up the later correction. Of course, it would be best if some information were never on-line in the first place -- quite a lot of it, these days (ask the CIA ;-)) -- and archives that help themselves to content without permission exacerbate this problem, too.
I suspect that in the long run, the abuses will become so great that the fundamental nature of the Internet will have to change. Anonymity will simply not be allowed, with countries not prepared to play along being excluded from the network. Archiving will have to become opt-in. Cross-border regulation will be created to enable people to defend their reputations much more straightforwardly than is the case at present.
It's a shame, but the simple truth is that while the unregulated nature of the Internet has been an advantage in developing it, it has also led to serious problems that, at current rates, will bring about its demise just as fast. I'd rather accept putting my name to my words and standing by my comments than the continued and increasing presence of viruses, spam e-mails, phishing, websites offering incorrect (sometimes dangerously so) information, major crimes like fraud and identity theft being carried out behind the Internet's shield of anonymity, sickos distributing kiddie porn, and all the rest of it. Ultimately, you're never really anonymous on-line anyway, it's just a lot of effort to work out who you. Why continue with the delusion when it does this much damage?
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
that you just did the work for him that he missed (the MS way). He now knows that he is not as anonymous as he thought.
When you are trying to get a snapshot of someones personality, you are going to gather as much information as you can, and their religion, sexuality, and politics are all information. These types of information can change over time so its not as reliable as a psychological profile, but I'm sure if you've been to see a psychiatrist or went to some sort of therapy, your psychological profile is in record somewhere.
There are certain types of jobs which are best suited for people with certain psychological profiles. If you have the right personality type you'll have the job, and it's not just security. Do you really think that if someone wants to hire you to do accounting or deal with money that they'll not look at your psychological and medical records to see if you are prone to stealing? Do you think people won't look at your psychology to see what you are likely to do? Yes they will, and they'll also look at your criminal history. Combined altogether in general, they can get a precise snapshot of how loyal you'll be, what you'll do or wont do, and so on. If you don't want to hire a con artist, you don't have to.
It's not unreasonable to change your name for work. Many women use their maiden name for work and their married name socially. This is popular with people who are famous and don't want their children to be conspicuously associated with them. I've also known people who change their strange name while they're at university so that all their professional papers reflect the career they want to have, and they are free to use the original name informally if they wish.
There's been talk about being careful with use of screen names, which is appropriate. In the end, you're going to have some sort of online presence, through real-world stuff that you're involved in, so it's up to you to decide what you associate with your social name, what you associate with your professional name, etc. Separation helps that process, by confining all your professional references into a particular sphere.
But you just can't expect things you do in public to be private, even if you use a nickname. Even if you use an internet screen name, determined people can figure out who you are. This happened recently to an Australian barrister who wrote a political blog under a screen name so that his blog would not be the first thing potential clients noticed about him. Now his private politics are public, but although it's a bit left-wing and informally written, at least he never had a big public rant or tantrum on his blog or anywhere else.
*#*#*#*#*#******* I love peanut butter sandwiches!
I do most of my posting under my handle. Yet people with an axe to grind against me have used my real name to post false information about me on the Internet that is searchable via Google. Since I have no control over those web sites, I cannot change them or even reply to them.
So much for free speech, they can say whatever they want about me and get away with it scot-free. If I disagree with people on issues, I am told that I have no right to free speech when they post false info about me on the Internet in reaction to what I have to say.
All kinds of things have been written about me, even some who created false profiles in my real name with false information about me on them. While I was able to get the company who hosted the site that had the false profile on me remove them, Google still has them in its cache. Some of the people against me have written porn fiction stories about me on various forums and scoop sites, and the admins refuse to remove them. Potential employers can scan for that via Google using my real name, and think that I am a porn star or something, because someone wrote a fictational porn story on me. I even got ex-bullies from grade school and high school posting about me and making fun of me on blogs.
Not much I can do, a lot of false information was made about me by jealous ex-coworkers because I had a higher salary than they had. That was mostly due to me doing a better job of programming than they did in quality and analysis and design and research, which co-workers skipped. They reported false information about me, and harassed, abused, and threatened me, until I got sick. Eventually I was fired due to having medical problems and the false claims against me. I asked for proof, but management claimed that they believe rumors. I asked for proof and evidence, and management said they didn't need any. That I was getting too sick to work, and that they could easily replace me with someone who does not get sick because programmers are a dime a dozen.
Then again, I really do not want to work for am employer that believes rumor and gossip over facts and proof anyway. All kinds of things are posted in Google. If I was an employer, I'd trust a search of public records over Google anyway because public records are harder to forge and post falsehoods about anyway. Public records are based on facts and proof, Google is mostly rumor and gossip and sometimes people joke about you. Take anything posted in Google with a grain of salt because there is a lot of fictacious stuff posted to Google that has not been verified, proven, or even based on facts.
If I did a background check on someone and his record came up clean, and Google had a picture of his friend saying he got high in a picture, I'd see that the fact that he was not arrested for drug use would show that the Myspace picture possibly is a joke or fictacious. I'd be more interested in his ability to get the job done anyway, what he does on his own time is really none of my business unless it affects his work or job or abilities.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
Change your name to Linus Torvalds. 9,530,000 hits in English alone. That should grind HR to a halt for a while. Damn, I'm jealous, I only have 22,700.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
There really is nowhere near enough evidence to make this conclusion. Employers "express interest" and then change their minds "at the 11th hour" for lots of reasons. That's nowhere near evidence that they did so because of a joke image on your MySpace page.
All this guy did was cut-and-paste a joke posted 20 minutes earlier from someone further down the screen. Typical karma-whoring here.
There must be some recourse here. I'm a technical trainer, and a bass player in Texas has the same name. A drug reference would probably help his career, and hurt mine. And since none of the posts have a picture, there's little way for a future employer to know the difference.
Luckily the bass player has not posted anything bad yet. But what do I do if he does, and it shows on Google?
I mean, with a name like Kluttz, chainsaw juggling, hand grenade handling, and brain surgery may not be for you.
Prenup or nothing.
As for the article link above (http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/401069p-33 9405c.html), would you hire someone who dresses like that?
John Smith
123-456-7890
john@smith.com
myspace.com/johnsmith
Thanks! One of the biggest current cliches is "Well, I have nothing to hide." In response to cameras on street, Patriot Act, etc. When that's not the point at all.
In some ways we live in a self emposed police state. Where we just accept that we work more hours than every before but productivity increase says we should be working less. What makes business owners so special. It might sound naive. But, my view is, it's just another person. Nothing makes them special. If they out of business too bad. We're not alive for them. The country was NOT founded on Capitalism. I don't recall people coming here to open up the first Starbucks.
"...doing a Google search on my alias returns more hits for a british comic book character than anything I've written with this name.
I remember reading those old Captain Crumpet and Tea, the Knave Wonder comics. I like the issue where they went back in time and put the colonials back in line.
Mr. T pitied this fool on 27 July 1992.
This subject was on the news the other week, which made me laugh because I had just come back from doing recruitment at a university and was in the middle of Googling the applicants as the story came on.
Quite frankly, half of these kids had myspace accounts or websites which I found by googling their e-mails. Most of these were 'inappropriate' in some way, but I didn't hold it against them because quite honestly it wasn't 'bad.'
I am not saying that I would never hold someone's online persona against them (e.g. if the content was racist or really disturbing) but in most cases it doesn't make sense to disqualify someone because of something they posted on the web. We're looking for inteligent, fun people to work with, so we don't want to reject people we like just because we found an excuse to do so online. Most employers are looking to hire, not to reject, so I think this subject is overblown. If I think someone is going to be good for the company, I couldn't care less what they wrote on the web five years ago, unless it's indicative of real personality issues.
By the way, I am in the process of creating an online resource for people who do technical interviews and those who are preparing for being interviewed on both Junior and Senior level. If you have any interest in helping me out by reviewing the site, please send me a message.
Thanks!
We Googled all the employees we hired at @stake. A key factor was finding their hacker alias during Googling and re-Googling. There was one guy that turned up in a picture at DefCon, barechested with 2 pitchers of beer in his mitts. Not exactly the image you would like a customer to see.
-weld
Ditto. About once per month I get an email from headhunters for some company or another offering me an interview. They seem to alternate between SMB's / startups and mega-corps. Its nice to know my skill set is still (apparently) attractive. :-)
I can look at my server logs and see hits for "electrical engineering filetype: pdf" and so on on a weekly basis. I'm sure some of these are from folks looking to scavage and cobble together a resume (.edu domains are a bit of a giveaway), but I'm certain that I got two of the job offers I did because of my blog, and its contents. I mentioned some previous jobs and some of the neat things I was doing, and got offered a position mysteriously close to one of those.
I also would like to second the parent poster's comments. Google yourself, your email address, your IM nickname / game handle / whatever. See what comes up, and see what others are seeing about you.
On a slight aside while I'm thinking about it, you should also check your "real" identity as well. I've moved to several states for various jobs, and apparently am responsible for at least four different "Michael Hollinger" identities in the US. For each record, some piece of information is wrong (my middle initial seems to be the most common thing to screw up) but the addresses are all past addresses. Since this can affect credit applications (e.g. your next car, house, credit card rates, etc.) make sure this paints a positive picture of you as well!
Check a list of "Information Brokers" and see what they know about you (and if the info's correct!). - http://www.privacyrights.org/ar/infobrokers.htm
G'day,
~ Mike Hollinger
Michael C. Hollinger
Yeah, I tried to have some data removed from Google or at least block some of the content. The help desk is pretty much for of crap; all they do is give you the run around. Now you may ask why would you put something up for people to see if you didn't want it up. I didn't.
/. readers...... just be freaking careful... and be glad that you have a common last name (if you got one)..........
1) I have a (very) unique last name
2) My relatives have the same unique last name; however, we have the same first name.
I am having a hard time getting a job when a perspective employeer google for my name. I get f'ng tag for something that I didn't do.
1) Cable TV pirate
2) Not paying taxes
3) other bogus sh?t
Yeah, I tried explaing my situation to Google; and they pretty much don't give a rats ass. Here is a small clip from an email.
"Google simply aggregates information already published on the web. Even if
we were able to eliminate the offending page from our index, it would
still exist on the web. Every few weeks our robots crawl the web for
content. If the site is available on the internet, we will likely pick it
up and add it to our index again. Only the webmaster can, by including
code that blocks our robots, prevent a page from appearing on Google."
Yep the info would still exist; but if they didn't index it; it wouldn't be as easily available. Hell, my record is clean; I can pass any backgound check. But the fact of the matter is that I am not getting to the stage of a F_cking backgound check because people do a damn search.
Anyways; trying to have something blocked; is a waste of time. Perhaps if I belonged to a government somewhere is Asia; I could get it blocked. I guess I don't have the money or the politcal clout. AKA not worth their time.
Sorry about the rant
Use similar tactics to what the search engine optimization dudes do. Setup link farms (*carefully crafted* blogs and forums and whatnot) that just extoll your virtues and superior intellect and moral qualities and vast postive and lucrative achievements. Let them go google and find that. Link up with others and exchange these stealth CVesque links. Do a few "positive" posts a day, keep adding to it, add more websites and pages, just give them a ton to look at.
If the Globalist richard-wads want to go find "info on you", why just let them find info on you....
I have the same attitude as in life generally. If you can't put up with my online presence and failed to acknowledge that it's an "online presence ONLY" while judging me solely on my online presence, I don't think I will want to work with you in "person".
"It is just the internet." - anonymous cow. moo
Well my name in Google says I once submitted a review to Gamefaqs and I helped out a few people in a mini painting group on Yahoo. I don't see how this can hurt me even remotely, but then again I tend to keep my surname private. After all my first name is all you'll ever need to know in every day situations.
I like muppets.
You are, of course, right, but SSSSHHH! Don't let the libertarians hear you or they'll tear you to bits like zombies!
It certainly *could* be the picture that insinuates that she smokes illegal substances that put potential employers off.
Or it could be the fact that as soon as her MySpace page loads a potential employer is greeted by a picture of her giving them the finger...
Have fun,
Nathan 'Nato' Uno
http://web.unos.net/
Would you really want to date someone like that?
Is she hot?
You can't take the sky from me...
Right in not hiring you.
I wouldn't hire a fucking jew either.
The real problem is that you have far more candidates than jobs. If you had 1 job opening for every person seeking work, or even several openings per person seeking work, then employers would be far more lenient because it would seriously effect their ability to find employees or would force them to pay a large salary premium to attract people from the limited pool meeting their requirements.
And good Lord! Have you been to her MySpace site? Take a look at some of those pictures of he flipping the camera off or "partying hardy". He site probably only "sealed the deal" on a decision already made 5 minute into the interview.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
...you dont believe everything you read on teh innerweb.
... profit!
You google the prospective Employee before you interview and anything your not sure about you give them chance to answer.
Now for my next job all I have to do is seed the web with missinformation on every other programmer... ???
this is why most (intelligent) people use handles, not real names
Meet the Kluttzes
Watch out, I've found your name and home address through a little google datamining. The Libertarian Comes to Avenge...
Do not downmod posts "overrated" simply because you disagree with them.
How long until they stop doing these checks because the management and HR people themselves made an arse of themselves on teh intarwebs?
Welcome to the age where people are willing to insult each other in public to the end instead of filing defamation lawsuits.
In about ten years, there will be millions of regretful twenty- and thirty-somthings, particularly women. The regret will be tied to two things: pictures on MySpace and tattoos. Both are permanent. Both seem cool/sexy at eighteen and both are neither at thirty.
I'm thankful that the trends of my youth involved only bad haircuts and cheesy clothing.
This is a real problem, and it's only going to get worse. You can google a lot of things these days, and you can gather a lot of information about almost anything. Is it ethical for a prospective employer to google for information on you? I personally do not think it is, and any self respecting employer shouldn't. However, most employers don't give a damn about the average employee, they just want to hire someone to be their slave and work for (generally) poor wages, so their bosses and shareholders can make lots of money .
How do you stop someone from searching for information on an indvidual, how do you enforce it? Quite possibly, a simple way is meta data - all search engines must comply with meta data blocking. For example, if I contact Google and say that I forbid them releasing links/cached information on anything pertaining to myself, then they must tag each page that is in their search cache that references myself (or handle). When someone searches for my name/handle, it comes back with a message along the lines of: "sorry, but the individual you are searching for information about has requested that their information remain private, please contact Google for more information". This would enable you to check who is searching for information about you, and why, since Google would be required to come back to you saying "such and such is after information about you, do you consent?". Yes, this means more work for Google, but in reality, do I really care? Individuals do have a right to privacy, and should have an online right to privacy as well. I mean, you just can't waltz into your local RTA (Roads and Traffic Authority, NSW, Australia) and look up peoples details, can you? Same with FBI details. Tell me, why can't I just do a google search for something like:
site: fbi.gov and
Because people have a right to privacy. Whether it's online or offline is irrelevant.
Just my thoughts.
Dave
Slashdot can go and get fucked.
Admitting the reason that they won't hire you can leave them open to lawsuits in some cases. This is why you get the standard HR line of "the position has been filled" or "we're sorry, but you're not what we're looking for".
Personally, I'd like to know why I didn't get a position, but oh well.
Everything I need to know I learned by killing smart people and eating their brains.
My name is Fidel Castro...I can't get a job anywhere in the US now thanks to Google...
is to seed the web with references flattering to yourself. Extracurricular stuff like all that volunteer work you did for that (made up) charity. Pictures posted on flickr (under a ringer account) of that banquet were you accepted the award for "salesman of the year" (or whatever). Etc., etc., etc.
The googlebomb it until it comes up on top.
Screw the hand wringing. Get creative.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Not very long ago, I applied for a job doing computer support for a local community college. Everything went well, despite it being a rather "trying" experience, with multiple application forms to fill out, a couple of fairly extensive interviews and a hands-on proficiency test - but in the end, I was verbally offered a position. Then, 2 days later, I got another phone call, informing me that my hiring was being "put on hold" due to some new information that had come to light.
What happened was, I used to run a very popular computer bulletin board system. Almost 10 years ago, it was seized by the FBI under suspicion of copyright infringements occuring on it. After all of my equipment was held hostage for *2 years*, they decided to drop the whole case and give me everything back. A rather sheepish-faced federal agent actually came by my house after work with his station wagon filled up with all of my CDs, computers, monitors, etc. etc. and dropped it all over in my living room - apologizing for the whole incident (but still making me sign some type of waiver promising to absolve them of all responsibility, so I couldn't sue later). I thought this story was worthy of mention on my web site, since to this day, people occasionally ask me what ever happened to the BBS, etc. etc.
Well, the college apparently googled my name, found my web site, and read everything on it. (My BBS story wasn't exactly "top level" material on my site, so they had to click through at least 2 levels of menus and read 4 pages about it before they hit that part.) They were concerned about the incident, despite no charges ever being filed - and denied me employment based on it! (Only 2 days after the phone call telling me they were "reconsidering" hiring me, I got the standard rejection form letter in the mail, signed by the very guy I had just spoken to on the phone!)
Extremely irritating - because while, sure, I could just censor this info - I think it's a story worth telling. And furthermore, I'm not so sure I want to work for an employer who is that paranoid over something that speaks more about government's inefficiency and blundering than my own character.
But in the end, I was hired as I.T. Supervisor of a business paying considerably more than this community college anyway, so maybe everything happens for a reason after all.
This is what the feds have been doing to their employees for years, you want a job with the FBI they go and talk to your friends to find out what they think of you. Ever wonder why Enron went bust and people are suing the management and some employees are screwed out of a lot of money but no major investment firm lost much if anything at all and nobody is suing any of them for investing in Enron? They invest in lots of stuff to hedge on enrons but people in the industry knew they were a turkey. You do research and make better decisions. Plenty of normal people lose money on shitty investments like that but rich people generally don't because they can pay for more research to be done.
30 years ago, you could smoke pot like nobody's business, clean up for a few months, lie at an interview and pass a drug test and nobody knows the difference, now kids put that shit on the web, well more people are doing more research and it's becoming much cheaper, if I just google you and see your blog and your drug history, guess what, I might not hire you either. Joke or no joke and that's just the way I am. Society is that way too, you go to jail or prison ad you might be asked about that at your next job. You ever get a sex conviction (be it a plea for "date rape" or sexual harassment type stuff which is a lot more common than you ever might think) and you might have to register and in some states the community can resist you and even deny you residency even though you've "paid your debt to society" (really, if that's going to keep following you around, maybe we shouldn't let them out of prison... and on the other side, don't even think that it's not creating another socioeconomic divide between the communities that are rich enough to have the time and resources to track sex offenders and the ones that are poorer and cannot and thus end up allowing sex offenders to reside.)
Basically, if you take privacy seriously at all, you might want to reconsider how much participation you do in some of the social structures. Worse, google and archive and what-have-you will capture your internet transgressions for ever. That's really what it comes down to, I used to be a cipherpunk back in the day, tor this and anonymous remailers that mean nothing, if you don't want to have your online life recorded, don't have an online life.
I would just like to atest to the fact that I've not hired people because of their online presence.
Namely the great tech guy that went through two rounds of interviews, seemed very charismatic... but oh, apparently likes to take recently-dated photos of himself whacky out on some hard drugs.
Yeah, that'd be a reliable situation if a server went done or a client's database fried.
I'm just saying, it's obvious advice in this day and age; not all PHB's are incapable of operating Google...
-volve
Parent is not a troll, but an interesting question.
You can't handle the truth.
... to someone famous. I'm sure an employer would have a hard time digging up your information if your name was Michael Bolton. By luck, my name happens to be the same as a professional baseball player from many years ago, so all my search results are obscure.
If I had a choice, I would not hire anyone who has ever had any contact with any narcotics. Unfortunately this is not possible to arrange, so the person has to be clean for at least a year.
You can't handle the truth.
Actually I see time to time alcohol usage less of a problem than constant pot smoking. Cigarettes, well, I wouldn't want to work with someone who constantly smokes and comes into the building all stinking, but I don't see this near as bad as pot smoking or alcoholism.
I have no patience with pot smokers, their actions are not always clear and logical.
You can't handle the truth.
Sure, TV is terrible, but it does not affect the person's ability to perform and think clearly at all times.
You can't handle the truth.
Maybe it really is you and this is your way of faking an alibi for the sins of your secret self.
I'm sorry if I just ruined something for you.
Q: What did the comedian say to the crowd?
A: If I knew, this joke would be funny.
So I just googled my first and last name. Then I did it all correct and proper by putting my first and last name in quotation marks, adding a plus sign, and putting my state.
The first 3 pages were all about either a famous actor in France, a professional accordion player in Germany, and an upper-level spokesperson for a state-level California office that works with FEMA to help respond to natural disasters.
I am, of course, none of the above.
A coworker from a place I used to work about 4 years ago, had the unfortunate coincidence of having the same name as one of the 12 hackers in the P.W.A. (Pirates With Attitude) - they got busted and had more pirated data (software with registration hacks, and songs/movies) than any other bust in U.S. history. John Ashcroft was personally overseeing the case and throwing the book at them.
Some dork in Tech Support had the wacky idea to google everyone's name, and his name showed up right next to P.W.A.'s illegal actions and John Ashcroft's anger against the actions.
And, of course, the coworker wasn't in the P.W.A. - but he'd moved to my state from the same area where the bust occurred. He was almost fired, and spent a couple of days convincing first our manager, then our local V.P., then eventually the Board of Directors, that he wasn't being prosecuted by John Ashcroft.
Its a great article, kudos and all, but someone needs to point out the obvious problem of false positives to the executives who run google searches on prospective (or current) employees. Seriously - because a lot of executives out there have some pretty hefty god complexes and its pretty tough convincing them they made a mistake once their mind's made up.
To put it simply, I'll coin an old phrase they used to say in my tiny little hick hometown - if you're gonna talk sh*t, get your sh*t correct first.
Watch your mouth on the internet, sure, but watch your mouth before you accuse someone of something you googled about them. Its a big world with a lot of common names - and user handles.
there is a new service at http://claimid.com that addresses some of this problem of potential bosses looking you up.
looks like they're still in beta, but i've been seeing it on a few blogs.
just take a look at the third result in the Google search. Very scary...just think what her rep is gonna be like now.
Pat
I performed a Google search of my name and the first returned link was to OhioLink for my Master of Science degree, complete with a link to download my thesis. Several pages later I found links to my only published paper in a scientific journal, which is not free to download.
I found nothing bad about me from the search results... I'm not a very religious person, perhaps more spiritual, but the old saying that goes something like "a book of your life will be written for all to see" seems to have a more 'real' context than a religious context, at least for NOW. Since I don't engage in unethical/illegal/morally questionable activities, I don't think I have too much to worry about.
This brings up the subject of relatives... My father and I share our first and last names, which means that googling for our name will bring out his website and law essays (?) along with my Usenet postings and articles on a Trading Card Game, with random stuff of some car racer mixed in. Since we're both from the same country, computer literate, moderately prolific and even look mostly the same (my father is only 18 years older and is fit, while my lifestyle makes me look much older than my age), I don't know what his potential customers & my prospective employees would figure out, especially considering my father is mostly conservative while I'm more liberal, have different positions on his job (patent law) and wrote differing views on the same subjects sometimes! And I'm ashamed to say my aliases are just thin disguises for my name usually.
There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
. . . really sucks these days!
The man is always trying to get the woman down. You gotta rise up sister, take control of your situation. Power to the people!!!
The first site that comes up when you search for my name is the shower project...and i'm working on an MPA, yeah it'll be great when constituents or organizations google me and find that. Of course my name isn't that rare, so there are plenty of other links, but still.
http://www.theshowerproject.com/
*&^%!!!!!
what if you have a really common name? like John Smith, etc. how can a perspective emplyer ever hope to find the John Smith they're looking for with much accuracy?
Heh, i ahve no worries on this score. Apparently there is someone in the NBA who shares the same name as me, so if anyone wants to search through 500 pages of sports stats to find anything on me, they are welcome to.
Ghost of Usenet Postings Past.
of googling for my IRL name and getting a hit which is actually me??
:)
Well, infact, you have to go 12 pages (7 if I click results from australia only) in for the first one which is me. This hardly seems like a successful tactic, how do you know it is them?? Hell, since most of the hits are about Successful CEO's, PHD mathematicians and police force heroes, it probably makes me look good
Sure, googling my handle results in hits which are all me; but there is no feasible way an employer will be able to connect my handle with me. Not without some fairly invasive and skilled investigation. Investigation that just isn't warranted for all but the most security conscious of jobs.
It strikes me that this was a good opportunity to use a spurious connection to make a sensational article. Nothing to see here.
err!
jak.
The parent post should be one of the BEST of slashdot.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
Probably the best gift you could give a son or daughter is to give him/her a very common first and last name i.e. John Smith or Jane Smith. Obscurity by information overload seems like the easiest way to protect one's reputation.
Unfortunately, it's very easy, and has been used to mask genuine discrimination and poor practices for quite some time.
I hope that either we see a return of strong, powerful unions, or changes to employment law. Some I would advocate would be the following:
Companies should be required to, upon request, provide an honest, detailed explanation of why a person was not hired or was fired. If it comes to light that a lie or omission occurred here, we should be talking both lawsuit and jail time. This may seem like a massive burden, but putting it "on request only" would likely mean that, in reality, less then 1% of applicants would ask. More who are fired would, of course-but if you're fired, you deserve to know, in detail, why.
-Employers may do background checks into the following only: job history (limited to contacting former employers to verify your employment dates and position, not to fish), verification that you really do have any degrees, certifications, or licenses that you claim you do, reports of professional misconduct if such are kept for the field you are applying for, and records of adult convictions. (Yes, I said "convictions", not "arrests"). There is no reason for your employer to be sniffing in your credit report unless they intend to loan you money. There is no reason for them to be combing through arrests from which you were not convicted of a crime. They most damn certainly do not belong nosing around your medical records, and they have no business researching your off-the-cuff activities in your personal time, whether on- or offline.
-Minimum wage should be set so that a person working full time at it could subsist on it (e.g., afford basic food, housing, transportation, and medical care for him/herself and his or her family.) There is no excuse for those who -are- working hard and doing what they should be doing to live in poverty. Alternatively, corporations which insist on paying low wages should be taxed at a rate commensurate with which they rely on public services to keep their employees going (public housing, food stamps, Medicaid, etc.).
Employers which employ large numbers of part-time workers should suffer tax penalties, this is generally a way to pretend to offer benefits while only a few employees actually receive them. There could be some type of "special circumstances" exemption to this (such as a business which is only open for 4 hours in a day or is by definition seasonal).
Employers should have no regulation over what their employees do in their off time, including: No substance testing, it's not your business what Joe did this weekend. No regulation of what would normally be considered free-speech activities. No firing for whistleblowing (and make whistleblowing include acts which could be considered by an average person to be potentially unethical, not just illegal.) No firing for discussing working conditions, even negatively. Layoffs would be allowed but must be a genuine elimination of the person's position (no hiring someone else to do essentially the same thing 3 days later), and if for any reason except that the company is in dire financial distress ("We need to raise our share price" or "We found third-world sweatshops to be cheaper" doesn't count), should trigger massive tax penalties.
-Companies based in the US should be expected to hold to US standards when overseas, including minimum wage (this could again be done at a local reasonable-standard-of-living level rather then "You will pay this much period"), and environmental standards. Failure to do so should be a criminal offense punishable by jail time for anyone knowingly involved and possible revocation of corporate charter. We should also use our international clout to push for extensions of -this- rule worldwide, not million-year copyright terms.
It's about time we saw some corporate reform here. Our Constitution, that so clearly protects against the government overstepping, does not help us if other massive organizations can silence our free speech and snoop us without cause instead.
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
i know my first name is colleen's Blurbs .. width="425" height="350">
About me:
I did have one company google me, but when they realized I played CoreWars I got hired almost immediately. Go figure. My currently URL would probably get my resume thrown out the door faster than my Redcode was eaten off the KOTH competitions for corewars.
I don't know about other slashdotters but I could have used this maybe when I was first starting out on the Source (forerunner to Compuserve) with my Apple II and Hayes 300 bps modem (you can read the words as they roll in).. But that was 25 years ago. To say this is common knowledge is an understatement. The problem is nobody gets taught this shit in elementary, middle or high school. I've watched what I typed online at way back to BBS days and as a matter of course google myself once in a while. Everyone is googling, so if you don't you are just going to voluntarily lose an edge. What is scary now is the same thing will be happening with video, and worse will come when ubiquitous video gets ubiquitously tagged and stored. We are just at a point in time between back then and that future time. Only big difference is myspace becoming popular among teenagers, ascent of google, and massively litigous society being warped by doublethinking neocons. I think that's all I want to say with this login.
Unless of course, umm, you only post the trolling, stupid, silly, brainless, drunken, experimental, pratty, crappy, lewd, pointed, semi-bigoted posts under one name (lets say, eamonman) and save the other 1 percent of the positive, forthright, life-affirming good comments for ... well, I guess I forgot to mention lazy because I haven't bothered logging into my other account for a bit (haven't logged into my original account in years).
0- Eamonman Proud member of DNRC
This is the exact sort of thing we should be thinking about! Don't like the system? Hack the system to fit your wants and needs.
The solution you describe could be cobbled together in half an hour. Depending on how involved one wanted to get, and how much time and expense one wanted to put into it, one could create for themselves an extremely hirable persona.
Take it from me, I was my high school's valedictorian*.
Not my high school's valedictorian, but I play one online.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Read how Anil Dash got a picture of himself in the New York Times wearing a GOATSE T-shirt - he doesn't seem to have done so bad for himself ... ;-)
Hulk SMASH Celiac Disease
... if you trust your online persona to MySpace, you deserve what you get. Likewise, if you don't have a MySpace account, and someone creates one for you, and you don't fight them tooth and nail (oh, and GOOD LUCK! fighting against Rupert Murdoch ... though, his lawyers probably make less than the lawyers at IBM, and are probably pretty pissed about that).
Which brings up an interesting question: what if I live my life, and discover that someone else has created a myspace account "for" me? now what? Am "I" obligated to create personas everywhere? Even in those places that don't yet exist?!? Can I be held accountable for information about myself in an online environment that didn't exist the last time I logged on? If not, how can I prove that I am separate from any given online entry that purports to be me? And, how can I *disprove* that I am the person in that movie, that picture, that whatever?
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. (Einstein)
I've also run into the seemingly innocuos practice of being sent a resume using an email address that contains a personal domain (joe@joeschmo.com). If the domain name is the canidates name of course I'm going to check that out too. In a couple instances people have included blogs with way too much personal information. It was nothing sinister enough to rule someone out as a canidate. But enough to leave me scratching my head as to how someone would be so unaware or indifferent to having such personal information available to a potential employer.
I think personal website or blog, can be a very powerful tool for job-seekers. It's any easy way to demonstrate your talents and knowledge. All of the best canidates we've looked have had something available on the web. But you need to be very conscietious of what you put on your site or blog. Too much personal information can be a turn-off to the person doing the hiring.
Employers can now threaten to fire you, then give your next employer a negative job reference, and at the same time replace you with cheap illegal immigrants, H1B visa holders, or outsource their work overseas.
It's called maintaining an employer's market. In an employer's market, there are far more job seekers than jobs. An employer then becomes the economic equivalent of the only female on an island full of men.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
This is nothing new: the need to balance personal privacy against our urge to debate with and convince others is as old as parchment, and everyone knows that although Big Brother may not be watching you, he's damned sure reading what you wrote. If your opinions are different than your employer's, your union's, or your loved ones', it's sometimes necessary to publish them without attribution. The most common solution for this problem is to publish anonymously or with a pen name: many of America's most famous authors have done so, and that's what I've been doing for years(1).
On the one hand, having a pen name gives you anonymity for purposes of Google searches, and you can even build a reputation separate from your own under the pen name. Be careful with your other hand, though: not having your name online can backfire when an employer is looking for someone with "street cred" in online circles. As other posters have pointed out, experienced internet users are now climbing the corporate ladders and are making decisions about hiring and promotion: decisions that will be influenced by your online reputation as well as your meatspace personna.
What this boils down to is a short question you should ask yourself: "Am I a nice guy on the net"? You might think the answer is "Of Course!", but a few days of research will often change your self image, just as it did mine, and I made up my mind to be a lot more polite after I read some stuff I'd written years before.
If you're concerned about potential employers knowing too much or too little about you, the first thing to do is look at your own posts, especially old ones you've forgotten about, and ask yourself "If I heard this guy saying this into a cellphone while I'm on the subway, would I look forward to going to work with him"? In other words, you have to read what you've written with a stranger's eyes, and see if the words take on a new meaning.
We all know how easy it is to start flame wars or otherwise give offense, deliberately or not, and that's a fact of online life that I hope future managers will learn to account for when they read things I've written in the past. With that said, I'll also say that there's something about a keyboard and not being face to face that brings out the worst in a small percentage of Netizens: I don't know why, but some Internauts seem to think that the online world is the perfect place to vent their frustrations. This is understandable when you consider the alternatives: many Usenet posts would be grounds for dismissal if seen in a company newsletter, and grounds for divorce if seen by your wife!
Long story short: if you use the net as a safe place to play at being nasty and mean, keep your identity a secret. On the other hand, if you're proud of your writing and of your contributions to the net, by all means sign your name.
1.) In my case, there's a special reason involving a developmentally-dalayed child I don't choose to have potential employers aware of.
Even funnier, considering the title of his post.
"Our interests are to see if we can't scale it up to something more exciting," he said.
'inquiring' not 'enquiring' for a good many years now
Great, now we gotta work the web with DIY personal spin and disinfo just to get/keep a job... Wouldn't it be easier just to overthrow capitalism?
If I've got any privacy against Google searches, it's that "MyFirstName MyLastName" yields about 400,000 hits (whether you use my nickname or formal name), and I'm not even on the first couple of pages, though "MyFirstName MyMiddleName MyLastName" only gets 115 hits, all for me.
But what happens if you have the same name and surname as someone else ?
Myself, I have a fairly common portuguese name. And to add to this, I wear a
surname that was very common in the seventies when I was born. So my name is
quite common.
In the company I work for example, there are two people with the same name
as me. And one day, one of my friends told me that a guy with the same family
name and surname had created a web page repertoring most of us, our location
and what we did in life !
So what happens if someone googles for your name and surname and finds
information and/or posts from someone else than you ?
It's even funnier yet considering that his name is actually Anil Dash! Isn't that what you do when you've got diarrhea?!
Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
Right... because people who are normal obviously don't have any other problems...
The government itself is not stealing your liberties. Their new programs are enabling criminals who will.
> I have no patience with pot smokers, their actions are not always clear and logical
Funny you should say that. I have no patience with idiots because their actions are never clear or logical.
I've met lots of idiots. Some of them smoke pot, some of them don't. To be certain, though, a far greater percentage of people who don't smoke pot are likely to be idiots. If an idiot smokes pot their less likely to be actively destructive. Sure, they may be as useful as a bump on a log, but an idiot who doesn't smoke pot is more likely to think they're useful and run around fucking everything up.
You rub off as an idiot.
The government itself is not stealing your liberties. Their new programs are enabling criminals who will.
> if they had a drug habbit that prevented them doing their job to the best of their ability
Bullshit. This promotes the following situation:
You: "Holy shit. You just sorted completed the project 50% ahead of schedule with 150% performance. If you weren't smoking marijuana, I bet you could double it!"
Me: "Yeah. Probably. How about you double my salary and I'll think about it... as long as we both recognize I just leveled your expectations."
You: "Why you ungrateful little pothead! You're lucky I even give you a job! You're fired."
Nothing's ever good enough for jag-offs like you.
The government itself is not stealing your liberties. Their new programs are enabling criminals who will.
I was interviewing and Googled on the candidates names. It was quite hard to prove that, say, the John Smith we were interviewing was the same John Smith who was posting to the Neo-nazi forums. A picture gives proof positive that its its you!
Tattoos were trendy enough 10 years ago with the teen crowd that tattoo-removal shops are seeing a huge increase in business, mostly from (you guessed it!) women in their late 20s who are settling down, having children, and realizing precisely what you've stated.
10 years from now, it'll only be worse, because it seems like every single 18-21 year old female has a tattoo, navel ring, or (usually) both.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
Completely ignoring everything we know about basic human behavior, psychology, and neurochemistry. It's a effort:reward machanism. Once I'm baked I'm more likely to concentrate on my job because my reward mechanism has been satisfied. If I'm not baked then I'm not thinking about my job because the prevailing thought in my head is,"What's the fucking point? My salary sucks."
Alcohol isn't the same way. Alcohol really limits the ability to think. But getting baked? Best thing since the horsewhip for an employer, if you ask me.
But you just go ahead and spread your ignorant bullshit. Your kind has been getting along quite well for the last 100 years.
The government itself is not stealing your liberties. Their new programs are enabling criminals who will.
AWESOME! Now, all I have to do is create a network of websites which make positive reference to me, and how I've saved the lives of hundreds of projects for thousands of companies, how I once single-handedly wrote a program that ended the cold war, and how I have to beat off NASA/Pentagon/Sun Microsystems recruiters with a stick.
I get the feeling that my next prospective employer will be offering me a less-than-demeaning salary.
You can run but you can't hide, except, apparently, along the Afghan-Pakistani border.
The parent groups too many substances into one catagory (alcohol == pot == herione?) for the question to be taken seriously.
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
I was contracting at a company when a CV came my way. I'd heard of this developer before. He worked for a very respectable company with some impressive projects on his website.
Why didn't he get an interview?
Because his blogger profile listed pornography as an interest.
So what you're saying is you somehow got the one honest man out there interested in working for you, and you let him get away?! No wonder you're stuck with contract gigs.
Umm, the woman in question is a film producer. I don't think implied illegal substance use is going to have much impact on hiring... Unless maybe she specializes in religeous broadcasts...
An engineer who ran for Congress. http://herbrobinson.us
Computers and the internet are really great and will advance the world by miles, but, social scientists of the future will probablly come to the conclusion that the googling of prospective dates, job interview subjets etc, is just an equivalent of the "grape vine" people used to experience in high school before the current age of the internet and cell phones etc.
Personally, I was a total reclusive, well behaved nerd in high school (I was aware of peoples opinions, sort of, but I was waiting for the very distant great future of personal computers to arrive, (something complex: (hardware and software)), not the endless drivel of sports and anything else (video games had yet to be invented), internet was text and something you found at university etc.).
So well, the great progressive future has arrived and now it's the early 21st century with intel and microcrap and software patents, oops, that really worked well! (murphys law, I guess!).
Nowadays, I have better things to do and I personally don't care if somebody googles me for a job interview etc, (what with the world getting hyper-compettitive etc.), face it, most of the population are screaming monkeys in the big machine that represents this world, it will probablly happen to them in the future, so eventually, everything will even out...of course, when we all have nano implants and can communicate by thinking/internet etc., and transmit life experiences, then googling those experiences may create a whole new social paridgm, but what can you do, the internet is more fun with blogs/discussion groups etc, so what if I myself have ranted off about this and that a few years ago, if they are going to be a prick and look it up and not tell me, not hire me, then they should take and long hard look into that mirror we call life!
What do they want as an employee?, most creative people have their differneces, or do they want: THE BORG!!! (a bunch of zero creative yes men/women)!
I am not going to leave my email address etc, do you think I what to add to what I'v spouted off on the net before? (best to shut up while I'm ahead).
"While the caption was a joke, Kluttz now wonders whether the past two employers she interviewed with thought it was so funny. Both expressed interest in hiring Kluttz, but at the 11th hour went with someone else."
Well, back in 1997 fresh out of first year University I interviewed with a genetic research company with big goverment contracts. They gave me two interviews, had a 45 minute (long distance) phone conversation with my High School Biology teacher, a not-as-lenthy but still sizeable conversation with another reference, called back the Bio teacher for some clarifications, and at the end of the 2nd call said "we're going to call him right away and give him the job."
15 minutes after that call ended, my teacher phoned me to congradulate me on getting the job, not 5 minutes after I'd already been called by the company...to be rejected. They changed their minds, and we never did figure out why.
Of course, being 1996 we couldn't blame Google. The moral of the story here is that sometimes a "sure thing" interview process doesn't work out like you thought it had minutes before the news is revealed. While I'm sure the occasional employer might check for your Jewish Banking Conspiracy blog entries or your website teaching how to steal from the jobsite without being caught, this is just a long-standing hiring practise given a convenient new excuse.
Swimsuit photo. Mmmmmmmm.
Think about it. Wouldn't you like to know "as much as possible" about a person you are about to hire?
Not really.
If I was an employer, only two things would really concern me. One, the candidates competance and skill at performing the required labour, and two, the amount of compensation the candidate was willing to perform the labour for.
I really don't care if; you go out every night goofing off with your buddies, have a myspace account with silly pictures, vote for another political party, have an unusual sexual orientation, are religious, have extra curricular activities, can sing or dance, eat parsnips, use black pens, build rockets, watch anime etc, etc, etc....
As long as you can do the job you get paid to do, there isn't a whole lot else that concerns me. Maybe I'd have some limits. Clearly anything untoward done on company time is grounds for dismissal. Probably murdering someone outside office hours would make me think again about having you on company premises. But realistically, I not going to waste my time or money googling you on the internet, and if I found any HR person had done the same, they would quickly find their job vacant.
And a note to employees, if you work, or are looking to work for a company that does this; leave. Walk away now and never look back. You can do a hell of a lot better. Employment isn't bonded labour. It's about you selling your skills to someone who needs them. Anything else is a waste of your time.
May the Maths Be with you!
I'm not sure which is more sad - that some employers won't hire someone because they might have smoked pot in the past, or that some employees are so desperate for work that they are willing to work for such an employer.
You wish! Even with quotes there's some level of garbage that google will accept between the two search terms, or at least one particularly annoying case, that being "'s". For those of us whose last name also happens to be a commonly used noun this can result in a lot of either interesting or annoying results, depending on how you view it.
Luckily there's at least a simple solution. Compare searches for the fictitious name "john stomach" (about 555 results) with +"john stomach" -"john's stomach" (about 281 results)
For me this is second only to google's general ignorance about punctuation in annoyance factor. (Altavista could handle punctuation just fine! Right up until they decided to "be like google" and eliminated the only reason i still ever used their search engine.)
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
This is not new, the media just woke up to it. Probably because of recent controversies over MySpace and Facebook.
Before there was a web, employeers were searching USENET postings to see what applicants had been up to. The technical newsgroups are the most interesting as they can give some insight into how the person learns and how they might interact with others via email.
Is the applicant offering help to others? Are they asking questions? Are the questions getting better? A dumb question last year is a good thing as long as it isn't reapeated. A dumb question last week might indicate a problem, especially if it's about something they mention on their resume.
None of these things are end-all be-all evaluations of the person, especially since they are created over time. But they can give an interviewer some good ideas for questions.
It was one of my better writing efforts, I was mildly offended that the guy did not credit me just a little for my prosaic abilities. Oh well, the prospective employer went out of business shortly after not hiring me anyway. In retrospect, I wonder if my criticism of AEFA would have been even for this other business.
Things happen for a reason. I'm glad Slashdot came out when it did, or I would never get another shot at firing off a dig against AEFA and the hedonistic blatherskites that infest its tired walls.
That's why I changed my name.
Regards,
John Smith
True story:
t ml
.com site for a major company. In C#.
I am an independent consultant. CBN (Yes, that CBN) is locally-based. They also have some very interesting and cool tech projects going on. Their IT group (a spin off of CBN called Compass) is working with some great stuff. Anyway, I happened to get a lead on an assignment there that I might be able to fill.
In the phone interview, I was gold. "You sound like just what we are looking for."
In the follow up technical phone interview, same thing. "We want you to meet the manager you'll be working with for this project."
The in-person interview is going great too, until I get this question:
"Have you ever worked with XSLT and related technologies?"
To which my dumb ass replied:
"Sure that's what I've based my blog on."
And I immediately saw the stupidity of my answer. Why? Because not a week earlier, I was having a discussion with a friend about Christianity's reputation. The result of that conversation is found in an entry on my blog here:
http://tom.digitalelite.com/2005_08_23_08_01_00.h
After I mentioned my blog, every one of the interviewers asked for the address. I gave it to them, knowing that entry was still on the front page at the time. I knew it was over. Sure enough, within 6 hours I get the call from HR telling me they needed someone with more c# experience. Hmmm, my c# experience was discussed in two interviews before the in-person interview and wasn't a problem then. Oh well.
Two things of note about this:
1) I don't censor my blog. If someone doesn't like the content on the blog, we probably wouldn't have gotten along anyway. It's a sort of self-selecting barrier for people without a sense of humor.
2) There are plenty of good IT consulting gigs out there. I'm on one right now. Redoing a
Note that I'm not speaking ill of CBN here. I really don't care one way or the other about them. It must not've been a good fit. No big deal to me. I've heard that that are a great place to do a short-term gig, but it just wasn't the best place for me in the end.
-Tom
when i apply for jobs, after first interview, i not only read the company website, but google to company name, google the person who interviewed me, google names i can walk away from the interview with. i carefully screen who i will be working with now. i now want to know what the companies history is as well as what the owners history is, and what the other tech staff's history was (senior techs to managers anyways). this is cause i took a job working at a place where i was assured everyone was a "guru" and they pretty much said it themselves too, after a bit they didn't seem too "guru" to me so i googled all the senior techs pasts and it turn out that they just ran computer stores for 10 - 20 years, and one of them had a 1 year govt tech contract....some gurus
My university has to deal with this issue. Students are using MySpace, Facebook, and local community websites to post pictures of themselves drunk, passed out, holding bongs, etc. Meanwhile employers both inside the university and out are finding these images and passing the student over for jobs.
Interestingly enough, the students see this as an invasion of privacy. Yes, we all know that once you put something on the Internet, it becomes public record, but students are flabbergasted these pictures are coming back to haunt them.
This is another corporate hush tactic meant to deal with free speech on the internet. Ignore it.
All this guy did was cut and paste his own joke back into the thread. It was just an experiment, actually. My first joke post was modded to 0, and while I don't consider my joke to be the funniest ever, it certainly wasn't worth a zero, so I posted it back into the thread. Funny thing, the zero post was then modded up, and the second was (correctly) modded to -1, redundant. I guess the moderation (sorta) works! Now if clueless AC's want to trash my (not so) good name, at least get the facts straight...
As for Kluttz, I guess if you want to hire a 27 year old twinkie with pink nail polish with a myspace blog about how hardy she parties, she's the girl for you! My advise would be, when you are no longer a child, you put away your childish things. She just thinks she's still seventeen. She is kinda cute, though. I'd take her home, but not before 2am... Unless she had some killer. That might move her up to about 10pm.
Note that no amount of Googling will connect my true identity with this post, for I, while many things, am not an idiot. Maybe that's the true test. (If your dumb enough to use your real identity online....)
I used to work with a couple at a past job, they were husband and wife. Nicest people you've ever met, by the way. They had to go to the methadone clinic every morning because they were addicted to opiates. Then they would drop their kid off at school and go to work. During work they would go out to their car to smoke some pot at 3 hour intervals plus lunch.
They were having some issues with the CFO (of an 8 person company, go fig..) and he was stressing them out along with other personal stuff in their lives. At one point, the wife (presumably high) smashed their (only) car into a sign on the interstate with their daughter in the car. With no car and a lot of stress, their combined performance went into the shitter quick. The CFO (who later bankrupted the company, go fig again) fired the wife which caused the husband to go into a tailspin.
I don't know what he was on but I've never seen a person so wasted at work before. He would space out for 15 minutes at a time. Once he fell asleep holding a broom while he was sweeping the same spot aimlessly for 20 minutes. Eventually he was canned for his (lack of) performance. I don't know what happened to them after that but it really was a shame. Everyone saw it... they apparently didn't. If you do drugs long enough, you just lose the part of you that is ashamed of doing bad things.
That said, I'm no angel either.. or at least I wasn't. I was for lack of a better word addicted to ecstasy for 5 years. It almost got me fired from a job or two because I was constantly late and useless during the day. I would get fucked up Friday and Saturday night every weekend, sleep through Sunday on occasion and head in on Monday waiting to do it all again next weekend.
BUT I NEVER DID ANYTHING ON THE JOB DURING THE WEEK. So I'm OK, right? No... My drug use was OBVIOUS to everyone, including myself. Fortunately (and perhaps a little late) I outgrew the pills and bullshit like that two years ago. Maybe it was because it was getting old? Maybe it was because I was getting old? Maybe because supplies dried up? More than likely it was because my wife got pregnant and my daughter turned 1 yesterday. I don't smoke pot or do pills, I don't even drink. All I do that's "bad" is smoke cigarettes.
At my current job, there is one guy especially who is almost never here. He is late 90% of the time and more than half the times he is late - it is more than 30 minutes late. He likes to party on the weeknights and people at the office have to pay the price of his choices when he doesn't show up on time or at all.
If you look at this and think I'm some kind of straightedge "Say No to Drugs" kind of person, you're wrong. Drugs are fun, experiment, whatever... do it on your own time when it doesn't affect anyone but yourself. Regardless of wether you don't show up for work on Thursday because you were drinking, doing coke, smoking pot, shooting heroin, popping pills or you just stayed up all night to watch the sun rise sober and didn't wake up to go to work, you didn't fucking make it in to work and the people who depend on you will suffer.
There are still times when I wish I could get fucked up beyond words for just one night..... But I can't - with my daughter, wife, family, dogs, fish, house, friends, coworkers and employer all depending on me to be at my best 24 hours a day, 7 days a week - I couldn't even consider it.
Reviews with a twist! http://www.sardonicbastard.com
1. sur.name \'s*r-.na-m\ n 1: an added name derived from occupation or
other circumstance : NICKNAME 2: the name borne in common by members of a
family
How does pot affect a person's ability to think clearly at all times? Chronic use of any substance is bound to affect their life. This is true with lots of substances, ilicit and not.
I know some stereotypial pot smokers, who are impossible to deal with and relate to. I also know a lot of people who smoke pot every week who act and behave like regular people. I think that if you have someone who is a flake, then fire him because he is a flake. I don't think that you should not hire someone because they tested positive for THC.
I know that another concern, besides the effect that the drug has on their work-life is the possibility of addiction. I have seen a meth addict steal from friends and family and it isn't a pretty sight. I know that this, and gambling debts and habits are concerns of employers as well.
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You generally have to be able to confirm the request through the address you used to post the article, but then again if an address is so old you no longer have access to it, it's probably not likely to come up in the first few pages of results if you've been active on USENET since then.
There's also simple deniability. If the address is so old you can't use it any more, you can probably deny it was ever yours if the subject comes up. The odds of them asking before they kick your resume to the curb are pretty small, though.
-- Old Man Kensey
I'm a little slow today. If she never used her real name online, how did they identify her site from the information they had about her? Presumably if she used an alias on her site, she made sure never to give it to them.
-- Old Man Kensey
my google results:
a country music star from Texas
Kevin Spacey's birth name
more doctors than you can shake a stick at
25 pages of crap
I assume at some point, my slashdot posts.
2 fluff articles about me in the local paper from high school
All clear.
I look EXACTLY like 2 other people with my name who live somewhat close.
Bury me in mashed potatoes.
is to post to slashdot...
Ya, even if this were remotely true it would seem like he would get the hint, and *hesitate* before whining to a public forum.
Lets just say the world is out to get him and call it a day. Or maybe its his freinds fault. You could go that way too. I am going to write this one down as "pretty good prospect but a little wingy". Then I am going to post it.
Just for spite.
I think you underestimate just how much I just dont care.
To be certain, though, a far greater percentage of people who don't smoke pot are likely to be idiots - this does not follow from anything that you said. If population has a number of idiots, without getting into details, you will have an equal spread of idiots per any subgroup of the population. So the ratio between nonsmoking nonidiots and nonsmoking idiots should be the same as the ratio between smoking nonidiots and smoking idiots.
I have no real numbers, but personally speaking I consider pot smokers to be more idiotic than the rest of the population.
You can't handle the truth.
It could be worse. Your internet alias (picked while gaming in high school) could now sound like a brand of herpes medication that came out years later.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
As a matter of opinion, I stand my grounds here. I think those who smoke pot are more likely to get into some sort of problems than those who do not, I prefer people who have less of a chance getting into/creating trouble especially when it comes to work (but I am sure the same applies to an everyday life.) I don't want to have anything to do with drug addicts no matter what those drugs are.
You can't handle the truth.
It could be worse. I usually show up fairly quickly as the author of one of the Alt.sex.* FAQ's. Ah, well; at least I never planned on a political career.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
Once I'm baked I'm more likely to concentrate on my job because my reward mechanism has been satisfied. - what a load of horseshit. Once you are baked you are less likely to concentrate on anything period. You also are less likely to be productive. If I catch someone 'backed' at work they are gone and gone.
You can't handle the truth.
at least with 'normal' people there is one less serious thing to be worried about.
You can't handle the truth.
Dude, you do realize that you overstepped the boundaries of overprotective, jealous boyfriend and went straight into creepy stalker land, right? You tracked down personal information on a person that you feared she might have been interested in, flaunted this in front of her, and then "[left] it up to the reader to determine what one can do with such information."
Next, "you dumped HER" (I'm really hoping for her sake that this is a lie and she had the sense to dump you), you messaged the other person (who you give no indication of knowing personally) to say that he can have her (leaving the two of the them with a good story about her crazy ex to bond over), and then you post something showing how much you glory in the private information you collected about her behind your back by spying on their conversations.
I honestly pity any girl that you next set your sights on. Get help. Get serious psychiatric help before you hurt somebody or leave yourself doomed for a serious of failed relationship because you have a serious combination of trust issues, possessiveness, and vindictiveness combined with a lack of empathy to see how your actions would affect another person.
(Posting AC because the last thing I want is some crazy, vindictive stalker after me.)
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Only if you're looking for corporate jobs or hang around with people with that semi-facist mentality, but more and more, technology and the spread of a more advanced outlook is allowing young and older people to create spaces away from fear-based corporate structures and closer to enthusiasm-based ones.
It's not what people say, its how they think. People say a lot of stuff, because most people just arent so serious about what they are saying in a lot of cases, or because they just say what the feel in the moment. It's more important to understand a person and their behavior then to just take some words they've said. It's not like people are running for office or something, it's just a job, and if getting a job becomes like running for office, then all of us are going to have said or did something in the past that was stupid.
It's basically impossible to go your entire life and not say or do something stupid, and if everything is logged on the internet, so what? What matters more is the psychological profile, and if the people or persons involved have learned from it.
quality employees.
Fuck you nerd and your 'ethics' and 'standards' if I catch a worthless pot-head I will call the cops because
this it is ILLEGAL and therefore IMMORAL
no 'pot-head' in my company!~
if you think me a fool you are only part of the problem!!!
Back in the middle 90s in a few rare instances used my real name to reply to posts on the Usenet. Nothing controversial but the problem was those that replied to the long list of replies, snipped information and then left in email addresses (like mine). This fragmented information appears as if someone elses comments are my comments. Over time I and others who replied to these threads removed the posts. But there are a few people whose email addresses no longer exist so there is no way to contact them to have the information removed. I contacted Google Groups time and time again about my email address appearing in these threads for comments I did not make but my attempts are hopeless.
If a potential employer were to google my birth name they would get no results for me. They would however get results for a Porn Producer who has the same name. This guy goes by my complete name, including middle name. Even better, he is a really hardcore producer. Things like Lactation and Sodomy and Transgender.
No, I won't provide links but I have seen one of his films given to me by a highschool classmate who said "Dude, you HAVE to watch this!" Thirty seconds into it I knew why when I saw my name scroll across the screen. About 5 minutes later I hit the stop button becuase women peeing on each other ain't my cup of tea.
yeah that'll solve all our problems!
ps if I find out you're gay i'll have your faggit ass lynched
Maybe something similar will eventually operate here? Once more and more personal material becomes available, and people begin to see just how much misleading, mistaken, malicious, and downright false material there is on the web, maybe they'll learn not to take any of it as read.
Meanwhile, I guess we'll all have to be careful...
Ceterum censeo subscriptionem esse delendam.
so you really think that teh prospective employers saw your picture on a friend's myspace? How the hell would they have found that? Maybe, just maybe it was your deductive reasoning skills that cost you the job. the type person who concludes that a picture on a blog that has virtually no chance of being found cos tthem a job probably cant reason themselves out of a nonexistant wet paper bag. the employer probably got this impression and ran like any smart person would.
While there are a lot of things to worry about in your online presence, your picture on a blog is not one of them.
New and improved Guilt. Now its alcohol soluble!
What? We should do, say, or post anything online that we wouldn't do, say, or post in the village aquare? Whoa! What a revalation!
This is what happens when you teach a generation growing up on the internet to use 'handles' and 'screen names'. Telling them they can and should remain annomymous. You're not annomymous. And everything you say is backed up... somewhere.
This is exactly the reason I use my real name everywhere. I wouldn't check into a hotel under as supra_dude164 so why is it acceptable to do so online?
Whoo, signature!
DesireCampbell.com
I, on the other hand, have a comparitively significant web presence and a unique name.
I too have the fortune (good or ill) of a very unique name, any any search for even my last name is likely to return mostly results for me (just checked - it seems some of my family members have recently gotten greater internet presences, but the second result is still me). My first name, guaranteed all me - there are no other Forrest Cameranesi's in the world.
On top of this, I have the odd fortune that, for some reason, the web site for the Rocky Horror cast I perform with is very, very high-ranked on Google, far more so than any of my genuine internet presences.
Go do an "I'm Feeling Lucky" on me. Caution: Men In Drag.
Doesn't really bother me that much though - I make a point of not keeping any secrets, that way there's none to come back and bite me. Anybody out there doesn't like the things I do, that's their problem, and if they don't want me around for some reason that's fine. I probably wouldn't get along with them anyway.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
Speaking of not putting your name to saying something stupid...
actually use there real names? Or refrain from killing/suing others who do?]7[
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
I Googled myself the other day and found that I seem to be one of John Gotti's hit men... now if only my salary refected that.
Guess it's time to get rid of the president then!!
(ok, bad example!)
But anyways, you live to your standards, and I'll live in mine. Hopefully we don't need to cross paths in the future.
"I was able to find out quite a bit about him and his immediate family.
Even dug up a picture that might be of him, she wasn't pleased when I said that as she had never been sent a picture. Seems they weren't that cozy after all."
Wow. Im sure thats why she dumped you, not becuase she found you secretly investigating her friends. So you did all the 133t h4xxing of looking at facesofwow.com congrats. Amazing. Its simply amazing how people can convince themselves they arent a shady stalker and the girl in question is actually the one that made the mistake.
A relationship is built on trust, not driving by her house every day at 11 at night to make sure shes home. Oh and you might be interested to know that i did a little digging as well. I found your personal blog as well as a current photo.
I'll just use my special getting high powers one more time...
It doesn't matter. Many employers ask for the nicknames you use online if they do google searches. Most people have only one and then they're screwed. The trick is to use a different name for every site. If you're on too many sites to remember that many names then get a damn life. See. Easy. :)
... to an employer! Why do the "Klutzs" in the world express their stupidity? because they can! thanks to MySpace and other outlets.
If you need text styles to communicate then you don't have a message.
I think that it should go without saying, but all drug users are not addicts the same way that not all drinkers are drunks. Alcoholics are drug addicts, just like cocaine addicts and Oxycontin addicts.
... no.
I think that what it gets down to is that the person is doing something illegal. Most pot users that I know just don't see any reason for the law and therefore ignore it. This is similar in some ways to how people feel about patents and the DMCA et cetera. I have used DeCCS (actually software that uses it) to decrypt DVDs so that I can watch them. I did this because I didn't think that it is right, and because I am not concerned with the law. The same thing happened during prohibition. Are these things illegal? Yes. Do they hurt other people
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People seem to think that they have the right not to be judged by their actions. This is a very strange idea. You should not be judged by anything that you have no control over like your gender, race, or nationality. However the on thing that you can and should judge someone by is their actions. The problem seems to be that people don't seem to understand that the internet IS a public space. Just as you may not want to hire someone that you see screaming profanities at the top of their lungs in a shopping mall you may not want to hire someone that has pictures of themselves flipping people off posted all over the Internet. It shows bad judgement.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
I did a Google Groups search on myself some time ago and was surprised to find Usenet postings from circa 1996. I suppose there's nothing I can do about those old alt.drugs.psychedelics messages but hope that any potential employer that sees them doesn't jump to conclusions.
Shame on me for not protecting my identity back then, but at the time there was no reason to assume that such content would become so much more accessible a decade later.
Actually, you might have the wrong BBS in mind? I don't think my incident was ever publicized on TV news. It's possible, but not that I was ever aware of. You might be thinking of the Offworld BBS, which was also involved in an FBI seizure around the same timeframe? I think in that case, it had to do with complaints of the sysop being involved in child porn.
Furthermore, I didn't say that if you smoke pot one night that you would universally and inevitably be a drooling idiot the next day. I just said that you should smoke pot the morning before an interview so that you potential employer could see you as you normally are. Implicit in that statement is the assumption that if, after such an evening, you presented yourself as a perfectly employable person, than your recreational proclivities would not be an impairmant to your suitablility as an employee.
Some see the vessel as half full; others see it as half-empty; We pour it out on the floor and laugh
I hacked my gf's POP3 account in high school (8 years ago) because I thought she was getting too close to one of my good friends.
Libertas in infinitum
Wow, our mileage varies. I've been working in software almost fourteen years, been hired by eight different companies, and nobody has asked for account names. Until now I'd never heard of this ever happening to anyone.
I'm not an native english speaker :)
Ahh yeah, it was Offworld for the TV story, but I definately was on File Cabinet. I was a St. Louis BBS Slut... I got around ;)
Apparently the humor went over everyones head here, but this made me laugh out loud. Literally.
For context, click Parent.
I'm never going to get it right 100% of the time, but more information is better than less.
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
Why would that leave them open to lawsuits if they're not refusing to hire you for an illegal reason?
We've secretly replaced Slashdot with new Folgers Crystals - let's see if it notices.
While you would have been urging the crew to cast off half-empty lifeboats to save your own ass? I have a lot of respect for those guys in the band, they died doing something they enjoyed and bringing comfort to those about to die. I'm sure you're the type to call soldiers who throw themselves on gernades to save their comrades idiots; I feel sorry for you.
Whewwwww, the only thing more laughably stupid than you praising and respecting people for schnookering passengers into not believing their lives were in danger, is you comparing them to troops who give their lives having each other's back.
So, can I ask at what point outsourcing becomes "evil". Is it OK to import bannannas, since they don't grow in the US? Do you only by made in the USA clothes? Drive American cars?
a) b) and c): I would if they were made in the USA. I pay more for made-in-the-USA stuff wherever I can.
Unlike you, I like my country, and I like my fellow workers. They made this nation great, not China.
You're perfectly willing to living in you alcohol addition induced nightmare of immenient collapse, or your "world is flat" groupthink that you seem to take comfort in. 40 years ago the majority of Americans though Communism was going to take over the world, and if Vientnam fell all of Asia would go. 6 years ago everyone knew we were in a new economic reality and the internet boom would last forever.
80 years ago Americans just like you were totally sure that their laissez-faire paradise would go on forever. At least until 1929 when all the "world is flat" chicken littles came and cooked your head-in-the-sand ostrich predecessors for dinner to forestall their own starvation.
Your way has been tried. It brought this country to ruin. We will not tolerate giving the likes of you a second try.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!