A Doocing Averted?

March 9, 2006

At my current job, we have a couple of partnerships and affiliations. Since we’re essentially an academic group, ‘partnerships’ and ‘affiliations’ typically mean ‘please give us money’ and ‘we’ll whip you up some data’. Such is the way of the essentially academic group. Fine.

Recently, however, I’ve become a lot more open with my identity on this site and elsewhere. I enjoy writing — and not as some anonymous smartassed jerk, but as me. In other words, a very specific smartassed jerk. And so, I’ve made the conscious decision to associate my name — my real, full name — with what I write, along with my picture. While this is fantastic for the purposes of making myself a recognizable, identifiable wordslinger, it’s also potentially terribly helpful for also becoming a recognizable, identifiable sass-spewing and possibly mentally unstable employee.

This poses a dilemma. One that’s very easy to agonize over, now that Google and the like have made the decision to dislose rather… permanent.

“Anybody know of a place hiring rugby-wearing sassy douchebags, just in case? Anyone?”

On the one hand, I have little to worry about. Many of the folks in my office know about my standup career/hobby, and quite a few of them have seen me perform. So the ‘mentally unstable sass-spewer’ bridge was crossed long ago. And they seem to have come to terms with it, thankfully. Maybe they’re just afraid to fire me, for fear of becoming the next punchline. Or maybe my office has some sort of affirmative action quota for ‘striped rugby-wearing douchebags’.

(That’s the gubment’s language — not mine!)

Whatever the case, they seem to be dealing with my humorous aspirations — and you can take ‘humorous’ in that sentence any way you like. It’s okay; I’ve got thick skin.

That leaves, however, the fine and upstanding companies with which we’ve partnered. Who knows how they’d react to my particular flavor of assbaggery, online or on stage or on video in three web-friendly formats? Or for that matter, how they’d react to the very term ‘assbaggery’, or the notion that it comes in assorted flavors? These are questions that I don’t relish having answered any time soon.

So imagine my anxiety — nay, my panic and welling hysteria — when I noticed a hit in my logs yesterday from one of those very partnered-up companies! It’s a big place, to be sure, corporate and sprawiling, but there was a chance — just a chance — that it was a direct contact of ours, who’d stumbled onto this site accidentally. Maybe even someone I’d met at one of the business meetings! Eep!

I pondered the possibility for a while, after I found the hit. Maybe someone had Googled my name — looking for awards I’d won, or publications in which I’d had a hand. Something, perhaps, to cement my position as a capable member of my team and an experienced, reliable resource in my field. Instead, by the second paragraph of the first active post that day, they’d have read, ‘Life is like milking your cat.‘

Oh dear lord, what have I done?

With trembling fingers, I clicked the link to see the details of the visit — how much did they see? How damning the evidence? And how exactly did they ferret me out, anyway? Fearing the absolute, pink slip-worthy worst, I checked the info. Just one hit. They’d come via Yahoo Search. And the search string?:

hairy Armenian women

(I’m #59 on the list right now. Mother would be so proud!)

So now I feel just a little bit better. I could still be rooted out at any minute, I suppose — but if this particular guy is someone I know, he’ll probably keep his lips zipped over this little discovery. Because if he raises the red flag on me, someone will naturally ask him, ‘Well, okay… but what the hell were you looking for, to find that kind of nonsense?‘ And that’s a big ball of wax I’m pretty sure he doesn’t want melted.

Unless it’s all an astronomical coincidence, and he’s married to a hirsute — but fetching, no doubt! — Armenian lass and looking up suitable birthday presents, or traditional garments, or electrolysis centers, or something. In which case, I’m seriously screwed.

Anybody know of a place hiring rugby-wearing sassy douchebags, just in case? Anyone? Hello?

Rats.