Perpetual Smile

I’m still trying to figure out this whole keeping work and play separate on the internet thing. In real life, I don’t have to tell my coworkers anything. But online? They can Google me and every. little. thing. ever. pops up. Suddenly I’m self-conscious about every swear used on my blog and wondering if they think I’m crazy since I run a pen pal project for people with depression. I put myself on display, but when am I going to get bit in the ass about it?

Because it’s gonna happen. And I don’t know what I’ll do when it does.

So I’ve been ignoring the possibility that I could lose a client because of Twitter sarcasm about having a bad day, or that someone could stumble upon my blogs about depression and suicide and cutting and fire me dead because that’s shit that people just aren’t comfortable with. I know who I am. I’m a person who’s got a lot to say and doesn’t want to censor anything. I want to tell the truth about the things I experience, see, think, and feel because if I don’t, who the hell else is going to? I want to talk straight up about my past and muse about my future. I know I have a hell of a lot of potential, and I know what I want to do with my life. But the what ifs of being this OUT THERE and HONEST are terrifying.

The people who know me love me because they know me. The people who don’t already know me and may want to hire me aren’t going to love me. They’re going to be looking for any reason not to hire me, because that’s what people do. Especially now that I’m getting my teaching certificate. What if my hypothetical principal finds out I used to cut myself or that I used to starve myself, and decides I’m just not mentally stable enough to teach a bunch of kids? What if I lose a big website client with the company I’m partnered with because of something I’ve written about? I can’t blog and not be real. I’m not funny, so I can’t write up a riot about how to make corn. I’m not a mother, so I can’t write about little girls shoving handfuls of sugar into their mouths. There are a lot of things I’m not.

But I know that I can’t not blog. I know that I can’t blog only about work. I know that I can’t blog only about mundane, blah things that no one cares about. (Unless my blog is already mundane and blah. Then you should just let me know, so I can quit while I’m ahead.) I have a compulsive urge to write about everything that I know I shouldn’t write about. And I can’t figure out how to keep my professional life from colliding with my writing. I mean, let’s face it: I don’t hold much back, especially over at Scars Can Speak.

So tell me, all of you bloggers who do it anyway without worrying: what’s the secret? What’s the trick? What do I do and how do I do it?

So, I’m trying to figure out this whole social media thing. I understand how to use it for business. I understand how to use it for personal stuff. It’s the two together that I have a problem with.

Everything was going well, until co-workers started friend requesting me on Facebook and I started maintaining our company’s page on Facebook. Instantly, the game changed. Obviously I couldn’t just deny their friend requests. That would be rude and difficult to explain to them face to face on Monday. Where I was once careless and didn’t give a shit about what got posted where or what I said, I was suddenly frantically deleting status updates, notes, comments — anything that might get me in trouble or frowned upon. People at work like me. They have no idea that I’ve got a potty mouth, so I didn’t want to dirty up my professional image.

Not too long ago, I noticed a comment on my blog from a co-worker. Obviously I don’t restrain my inner trucker around here; I figure, I pay for the site, so I should be able to say whatever I want, and fuck what people think. This is the way it should work, right? Wrong, probably. I can’t really write about work here, because who knows if something I say might upset someone. I should probably not swear, in case one of my clients finds this. I mean, you can Google my name and this blog is one of the first things you’ll find. Hell, my (now-private) Twitter account @elizawhat is on the first page when you Google “Elizabeth Barone.”

This is all very good for my internet rockstardom, but what happens if a client reads a blog post about my chronic pain, my depression, my miscarriage? What happens when a co-worker who might have it out for me reads a post with a whole slew of yet-to-be-invented profanities and turns me in to the big wigs? No one really wants to read about how shitty my entire April has been, or how so-and-so is being an even shittier friend.

Despite this blog’s title, things aren’t always so sunny around here.

I haven’t exactly been careful with the above mentioned Twitter account, either. I have been using it as if I were talking to friends, as opposed to potential clients and colleagues. I created a second account, @elizabethbarone, for my professional/business contacts, but do I really want to maintain two accounts just for me? Do I have to keep two separate personalities on the internet, just like I have in real life (work me, regular me)?

I envy those of us bloggers who can live off of their ads and other stuff, rather than having to worry about their bosses reading their blogs. I mean yes, I get that you should just keep certain things to yourself if you don’t want anyone reading it, but we all have our moments where we want to rant and get that ego-stroking feedback. We all want to share things with other people, which is what makes the blogosphere so fucking awesome.

But I ask you, is a disclaimer in my about page enough? Should I just yank all of this down and erase the regular me from the internet and strictly maintain the digital work me? How can I balance the two, when they so often bleed into each other?

My life is going at the speed of a frog in a blender. It’s almost too much!

I started working two jobs a couple of weeks ago. I am not used to working all day, every day. It’s exhausting! It’s totally worth it at the end of the week, though. I’m actually catching up on things I’ve been trying to save for. Maybe I’ll even be driving the Sunfire soon, rather than my death trap Mazda. I even got the BlackBerry I’ve been dying to have (thank you to Sarcastica for being so patient and helping me get on BB Messenger)!

A couple of days ago, I also partnered my web design freelancing business with my aunt’s web design and print media business, OSC. We will be collaborating on social media websites. So basically, if one of us has a client that needs a website and social media, we will work on it together. I will be working on the social media end of it, be it setting up accounts on social networking sites (MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, etc) or building a site in WordPress. We will be offering training and hopefully will be doing seminars. We have an expo in about a month that we need to prepare for, and we’ve been doing a lot of networking. Needless to say, I’ve been working pretty much non-stop and I could use a nice, long nap.

Somehow, through all of this craziness, I’ve managed to stay smoke-free. I don’t know how the hell I’m doing it.

Of course I have another sinus infection. I have to call my physician in the morning and get some drugs! I thought that by quitting smoking, I wouldn’t get as many sinus infections each year. I guess I thought wrong. I don’t want to go back to smoking, though. I don’t even care that I quit, and I’m glad for all of the extra cash (especially now that Connecticut is hiking up the taxes on tobacco).

The only real problem with all of this working is that I’m starting to feel like I don’t ever do anything fun. I realized the other day that I’ve been much been working non-stop for the last year or so, and that sucks. It’s starting to drain me. I spent most of the day yesterday trying to stop the

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and

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from leaking out of my ears.

My only consolation is that today is Wednesday, Friday is pay day, sometime this weekend I am going to get my hair cut, and Julien-K finally released their debut album. Oh, and did I mention that Mike found me the ultra-rare translucent Dr. Manhattan figure? Cool beans.

It’s starting to aggravate me that I’m getting irrelevant messages and friend requests on a particular MySpace account that I run. Mainly, these requests are coming from bands. Now, I’m all for checking out new music, but the account is very obviously not a personal account. A message or friend request saying, “I’m really interested in what you’re doing,” or something to that effect would be much more welcome than, “Listen to our music! We didn’t even read your profile so we obviously don’t care about who you are or what you do, but you should support us anyway!”

In this day and age, social media is about branding and caring. If you’re going to use social media as a marketing tool, you should use it the correct way. Look at the profiles of your potential clients, consumers, or fans. Decide what they need and how you should approach them. If you send me messages trying to get me to comment on your page without even checking out mine to see if I’m going to like what you’re trying to sell me, I’m going to see right through what you’re doing and I’m not even going to bother. Even worse, if my account is for a jewelry business and you’re telling me to check out your oh-so-awesome hardware site, kthxbai, I’m not even going to bother with you.

We have to learn how to use the tools we have in front of us to target our audience, our niche. Stop sending automated messages and comments telling me — and others — how cool you are or that we should check you out. Pay attention to your audience first. Find out what they need, and if they will be interested in whatever you have to offer. Do not send messages that look as if you just cut and paste from a saved document without even bothering to see if the recipient is going to be interested.

Learn how to care, or get out of the sandbox.