ediblepet.net

Yeh

Posted by Joel Thu, 01 Jun 2006 18:52:00 GMT

Yesterday I watched everyone's favorite movie about gay cowboys (one of the many!). It was really good.

I started writing a long entry about how it's naive and foolish to keep a personal journal like this on the web. How I'd been doing it since I was 14, but I needed to stop.

My rationale was that my name on the web should only be attached to positive work-related things. For instance, if I had a site with a portfolio of projects I'd worked on, and maybe a web development blog which was useful for fellow devs to read, I would look much more impressive.

Instead, potential employers or girlfriends or whatever can find this blog and see a guy talking about his life fairly candidly and for many people that can be a bit weird. I don't personally think my life or thoughts are all that outrageous. Sure, I don't present myself as some totally together and with it and perfect guy, but I'm pretty sincere with what I write about.

I don't have a secret double life, online or otherwise. This blog strips all of the mystery out of my life. Yes, I'm a guy who spends most days at the computer reading about random things, learning about things, implementing things, chatting with people, and some days I go out to eat or drink or visit people. It's not that abnormal.

As for why I do it, that's a tough question. But ultimately I decided not to close my blog. I don't want to push some fake public persona, this is the real me, and that's all I can be, so whatever. If you don't want to hire me on the basis of this blog than I don't want to work for you. I've learned over time how to be tactful and not offend people and still get my point across.

Anyway, I talked to the big company again today, and they really liked my worksheet. In fact, they said I got a perfect score, and that that was very rare. They also asked me for my GPA, which is kind of a bummer because it's not very high, but hopefully they won't judge me too harshly on that. I'm looking forward to interviewing with them.

I updated my resume on Monster and got two pokes today from companies. One is just a limited-scope PHP contracting gig. Pays really well so I'm going to probably take it if offered.