I wish we had blogs when I was thirteen

I wish we had blogs when I was thirteen. Or fourteen, or even fifteen. Too bad we didn’t even have personal computers then. The most advanced pieces of technology I had at that time were a typewriter and a bulky Texas Instrument calculator. Xerox copier were just at the beginning, they used this weird shiny paper that left a bizarre feeling on your fingers and were very expensive. No, I am not 103, just 43.

I wrote all my secrets, angry and loving thoughts in notebooks and, believe me, that practice was extremely inconvenient.
First of all, my parents could find them and read them (and they probably did). As much as I wanted them to know the true me, I would not have wanted them to read what I was writing in my diary. Really.
Second, diary writing is so private. Blogs are public and anonymous, just the best. Today, I surfed around Blogger.com a little bit and found a lot of thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen year olds blog writers. Isn’t it great to have a blog? Other kids around the world can read you, and leave comments, but they don’t really know you, so you can still be completely open and sincere, and as crazy as you need to be. Blogs are social and private at the same times.
Third, words written on a page are so permanent and definitive. Words written on a computer screen change, grow, shrink, move. I could go back at any time and rewrite history.

So, maybe this is why I am writing this stuff now. The web is so vast, maybe nobody will ever notice my little blog. On the other hand, there are so many people on the web, in all parts of the world, maybe somebody will notice. Either way, I am opening myself to the wide web world.

March 27, 2005 | Filed Under Blogging | 2 Comments 

The humane side of business

Yesterday I was at a management offsite for my company. We were trying to “clarify and address” some of the problems we are having with roles and responsibilities, and how to make our department work. I was being my usual restless self, one mental foot there and the other out the door, threatening in my constant mental dialog to leave as I have done many times in the past (and judging from the past, I’ll probably not leave for now; but I will at some point, when all my hope supply is exhausted and the scary unknown future will look better than the known hopeless present). I was looking at the faces of the 26 people that shared the classroom-like place with me, and I had a kind of revelation.

As much as the impossible problem-solving exercise we were doing intrigued me–at least the overdeveloped cerebral, intellectual part of me–what I was really drawn to, what kept at least a part of myself there, was the human individuality of each of those faces. The messy story behind the proper business appearance. The feelings, the emotions, the struggles. The only reason I could bear the extremely appropriate behaviors, the smart discussion, the polite and not-so polite jokes (ever noticed how the less polite and PC a joke, the funnier? At the end of the day, when everybody was too tired to be so proper, we had so much more fun) was because I had a glimpse of the life behind the facade. How was Ann [not her real name] as a child? What brought all these people there? Why did Sarah [not her real name] look always so worried?

Boy, I’m never going to have a career in corporate America.

March 20, 2005 | Filed Under Corporate Culture & Career | Comments Off