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Do I have a beef?
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here in CT we have a young mayor in Torrington, CT. He was elected at age 23 or so, and was then found to have some questionable words on his myspace page. Oops, he said, but I think he was reelected.
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John Davidson wrote: Now, if you’d like to back up your argument by making a list of all your best paying clients and detail the stupid notes, decisions, and demands they make, be my guest. At this point, I don’t think anyone here will stop you :-).
That’s not the point I was making. There’s a difference between someone posting on a forum asking advice about a perceived problem…and talking up a client’s silly requests.
And I’m not arguing that people don’t or shouldn’t use google searches for employment background checks, only that taking the information and letting it by itself sway their decision, is irresponsible. That’s why I brought up the Howard Dean reference. I loved the guy in 2004. He didn’t even do or say anything inappropriate. He said appropriate things but yelled them in a funny sounding voice. And “poof,” the media pounces on him. He goes from being on the cover of Time Magazine to dropping out of the race.
It’s taking a person’s life and accomplishments “out of context.” We all do and say stupid things. We sometimes do them at inappropriate times or post them in inappropriate places. So I’m saying give Aaron a break. The guy was looking for advice. For what it’s worth, I originally posted that if he were asked to do his boss’s “personal” projects during business hours or within his regular schedule, he really didn’t have a beef.
So guess we can all just agree to disagree. Good discussion though!
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
Ron wrote:
That largely depends on your personal preference in setting the height of the bar while determining your relative definition of what is “good.”
Not sure I understand your “height of the bar” reference. So if I fail to google a prospect’s name I’m lowering the bar for my company?
Ron wrote:…our mouths either do service for us, or they hurt us. In most cases, it is arguably some of both. It is the rare individual that can bridle their tongue or think far enough ahead to weigh the relative merit of what they are about to say. Sometimes, the words carry with them an aftermath — which is what I think John was alluding to.
Our clients love the fact that we actually “tell” them our “real” opinions about their ideas and plans…without filtering it and watering it down.
That’s not to say they listen to us. But they appreciate working with a company that isn’t worried about being politically correct and isn’t preoccupied with producing ads that win trophies and awards…and oh yeah…they like that we don’t use the word “synergy”… EVER.
They appreciate that we focus on producing ads that get results. I tell them exactly what I think. I’ll tell the CEO. But I’ll also do exactly what they want or ask, without argument…even if I disagree with it.
I don’t think you have to muzzle yourself to be successful in this or any business. I think clients want to work with people that challenge them, but respect the final decision.
Ok..this time I’m agreeing to disagree for real!
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
[Chris Blair] “Not sure I understand your “height of the bar” reference. So if I fail to google a prospect’s name I’m lowering the bar for my company?”
No, that is not what I said, Chris. If I understood you correctly, to paraphrase you: you said that if people judge people by their own words and actions on Google — and then dismiss these people whose words and actions considered in the “Google vacuum” appear to make them look volatile, etc. — then they are going to miss out on a lot of good people for their company.
If that is what you were implying (which I believe you were), then I said that is true and becomes increasingly true if you lower the bar of what you consider “good” farther and farther. At a certain point, you can throw out judgment all together and then everyone is qualified — sort of like the new politically correct way that some parents want their children to play games where the parents do not keep score. It’s funny, I have been to some of those games with my grandchildren and while some of the parents are busy kidding themselves that scores are irrelevant, the kids are competing and can tell you who is ahead and if you watch them they know exactly where the score is in reality. They are there to win.
The rest of your comments are completely off the subject of what I was saying and address no points of what I said or implied and so I feel no need to address them. Your thoughts are yours and you are free to state them and believe whatsoever you wish.
Best regards,
Ron Lindeboom
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This has been a very interesting discussion. I took a look at that link about the school official who got his picture in the paper at an aquatic keg party, the school paid him off two year’s salary and bennies to go away. If you dig deeper into the story, the guy had already been under an ethical cloud for some financial shenanigans that he and some other admins admitted to; the school had decided not to press charges in that matter (tends to scare off the alumni fundraising, you know). So that guy was already on “double-secret probation” with his employers when the photo controversy erupted. So he’s not the best example of saying or posting one little stupid thing online haunting your career.
Someone earlier made the point that if people do post something really stupid, that points to their character and judgement, which is a valid topic when hiring, even though the incident happened in a non-business, semi-private, social context. I think this can be true, as long as the “incident” is appreciated in a full context. I’m not fully convinced that this happens every time. In the above mentioned incident, the aqua-kegger party broke no laws. It didn’t happen on school grounds. There is dispute of the facts in the photo, whether the keg is actually full or is working, and if the photo was deliberately posed to be “wacky”. It only hurt the sense of decorum the university officials wanted to preserve regarding staff. And I’m not sure he got punished for legally attending the party as much as for being photographed at it in this way and getting the bad publicity. The article points out they paid him off two years’ worth BECAUSE they didn’t think they had a snowball’s chance in court.
These things are just not always as clear-cut and binary as we’d like them to be.I joined the COW back before Ron had changed the sign-up rules and people could post under pseudonyms. This is common at a lot of sites, then and now. The pen name in that case is just a little bit of extra “cover” in those cases, to preserve some fig leaf of identity for the person as well as the named client, so exercising your first amendment rights don’t lead to a pink slip. Without that fig leaf, a lot of discussions cannot happen. That’s a loss.
Of course, it can be abused, and very badly: people on the net can get quite rude and cruel when shielded by anonymity. It is called “Internet Tough Guy Syndrome”, and it makes you say things you would NEVER dare to in a face to face situation. I can’t imagine any of us standing up at, say an NAB convention gathering, and making a jerk of ourselves in front of the entire industry.
Ron definitely created a barrier to ITGS when he changed his site rules to use true names. Plus, he has active moderation going on, which acts as a “bouncer” to anybody acting out of bounds. That’s his right, and what it does is it makes you the poster make a conscious choice in what you decide to post. That in turn makes the COW’s s/n ratio among the very highest of any such web site. You can’t argue with success, so you have to accept the consequences of posting with a true name if you decide to post. You’d better believe that I have checked, re-checked, previewed, and edited THIS post several times before hitting “send” and yet there always remains a chance it will bite me in the rear some day. I wish I could do this to my spoken word conversations, I’d have more friends, I’m sure:-)
But (finally) back to the question of googling people as a form of background check.
It certainly is not a very accurate way of doing it, but is popular because it’s free. Everyone with online access pretty much should know about this by now, and decide for themselves how much of themselves and their persona (and WHICH persona) to put into the aether. Also, this is a system that can be gamed, people can deliberately plant things about themselves to be googled. Some links get called up more than others, and this too is an imperfect measure, since link popularity is generally connected to notoriety or scandal, and not how well you answered last week’s question about wiggler expressions in AfterEffects. In some sense, saying or doing something stupid-bad on the net is like getting a criminal record. You can spend a lifetime making up for one bad decision, if you’ve reformed or not.I think the more a person posts, the more you can infer of their personality on an AVERAGING basis. To pick out just one outrageous post isn’t usually fair or accurate, as is picking out one comment a politician makes in an entire campaign. Or one dud joke out of a comic’s entire routine. Perhaps if the one outrageous statement, in context, is so beyond the pale it remains unforgivable, that’s all you need to know about a person. I would hope though to be graded on my overall average, and not on a particular “bad day”. I think that’s true for most people. I also know that the more people I talk to, the more I learn, and this changes the way I think over time. If I don’t engage in a give and take, I can’t grow as a person.
I would hate to see people take the fear of being googled to such an extent that it puts a chill on discourse, and imposes too much self-censorship. We do that self-censoring already, normally, in everyday living, just so we can all get along. To a reasonable degree, unless we have Tourette’s or something. But if we’re that scared people will really know what we think, that we don’t speak, ever, we’re all in deep trouble as a society as well as business professionals. That leads to stasis and stagnation.
One site I know of handles this by letting archives age out and go offline over a set time. Though the nature of the net is that you can never un-ring a bell entirely, such archives going stale and fading out, like human memories, give a bad past decision some chance to get drowned out under all the noise floor of daily chatter and more recent versions of who a poster is today.
Maybe it comes down to: do you think people can change, and how much and when do we forgive. What does your faith tradition or personal code say to you? And are you applying it to others as you would have them apply it to you?
I’m Mark Suszko, and I approved this message.
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So many interesting posts, just since yesterday!
I think we all agree that straight talk to clients is important. My rule is to stick up for my spot an justify my creative decisions – once. After that I do what my client wants, which I think is how most of us do it.
I also believe that your job, even if salaried, is very much like having a client. You negotiate the terms of your employment (although sometimes especially when you’re earlier in your career there’s less negotiation and more ‘this is what the job pays’). After 3 years, Aaron should go to his client/boss and calmly and casually renegotiate the details of his employment. Since he’s within a hairsbreadth of quitting over this issue anyways, the experience of standing up for himself will be extremely educational, even if it results in the end of his employment. I bet he wouldn’t lose his job though.
So the real point…
Posting on the web is basically the same as taking an ad out in the local paper, but for free. The medium is bigger, but the concept is the same. This particular forum is kinda like the “Dear Abby” of our industry. It’s the only place on the whole internet I’ve found where those of ‘us’ can collaborate and discuss ‘them’. That said, you wouldn’t take an ad out in the local paper to discuss problems with your client and leave your real name. That could embarrass your clients and leave you broke.So what do we do? My completely hypothetical theory is that there be a link at the top of this forum called “Dear Bessie” (or perhaps something more clever) so that the disgruntled, grinded, and jaded can create a post that generates an email to the forum leaders. If the ‘beef’ is legitimate, they can post it for the world to see. We’ll all flock to Dear Bessie posts like moths to flame because we’ll know they’re anonymous and therefore juicy. Heck, you’d even be able to respond to your own anonymous question. Perhaps this would be a good feature for the next major upgrade to Creative Cow Site.
John
President & Creative Director, Magic Feather Inc. -
[Chris Blair] “Our clients love the fact that we actually “tell” them our “real” opinions about their ideas and plans…without filtering it and watering it down. “
You obviously don’t work in LA. How much repeat work do you think you would get out here by telling producers and directors what stinks in their shows? I can see it now….
(Director) What do you think of the show?
(Editor) Well, the acting sucks, the original script was obviously very weak, and the lighting looks like you never had enough money to do it right. Why would anyone waste money on a project like this?
(Director thinks to self) I’ll never work with this asshole again.
Terence Curren
http://www.alphadogs.tv
http://www.digitalservicestation.com
Burbank,Ca -
[Terence Curren] You obviously don’t work in LA. How much repeat work do you think you would get out here by telling producers and directors what stinks in their shows? I can see it now….
I didn’t say I tell them “what stinks in their shows.” What I said was “we actually tell them our real opinions about their ideas and plans.” That can range from telling them we think the concept needs more work…to suggesting a a script change and on and on. There’s a big difference.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
[grinner hester] “Take a sick day and grab a gig you can grow with at your pace.
this is what sick days are for. “Perfect example. If I was looking to hire Grinner, and I saw this post, I would think twice about it.
Terence Curren
http://www.alphadogs.tv
http://www.digitalservicestation.com
Burbank,Ca -
[Chris Blair] “And I’m not arguing that people don’t or shouldn’t use google searches for employment background checks, only that taking the information and letting it by itself sway their decision, is irresponsible. “
By itself? No. In combination with other factors? Absolutely valid.
Most people in a position to hire can easily read between the lines and come to this conclusion: whiner, complainer, loser!
Now, how much effort does a candidate have to make to move a potential employer away from that negative point of view?
Without that “internet” info in hand, it would be on the employer’s shoulders to “discover” this about the candidate. With that internet info in hand, it’s now on the candidate’s shoulders to convince them otherwise. Why would you want to “”publish” those kind of details about yourself? It’s NOT a good career move.
Mark
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