Only people with something to hide, hide it.
Originally Posted by: Dexter_Sinister
Argh!
Hell, yes, I have things to hide. And why shouldn't I be able to?
Sorry, Dexter, but I hate this attitude. People like privacy for lots of different reasons, most of which are no one's damn business. And they certainly aren't their employer's business.
The employer is entitled to know what people do in their private lives only if the employee is working for them 24/7.
If it's one a.m., and I'm being naughty/immoral/disgusting, that's my business and God's. Not my employer's.
The more I have to worry about "my job" during off hours, the worse the quality of my job is. When you work at an institution as politically correct as mine, you end up worrying about "things getting back to the boss" all the time. (When someone asked me to post my "rules" yesterday, I had to think about whether I was going to put my name on the post, because I know that if some of that content gets back to certain people above me in the food chain, it's going to be (another) black mark. In the end, I decided to go ahead and do it.
But frankly, it bothers the hell out of me that I have to think that way about nearly everything I say anywhere in this small town or on the Internet. And it bothers me not just because my "bosses" are these politically correct people who believe bonehead economics. It bothers me just as much because, it bothers me even more because there are so many of my fellow workers and neighbors who take this sanctimonious "only people with something to hide, hide it" attitude.
I expect that when the revolution comes, I'll be near the front of the line for IowaGitmo or to be shot as a counter-revolutionary. Revolutions demand even more conformity than sanctimonious, puritanical, quasi-liberal, corporate America does. But while I'm going to my cell damning the latest iteration of the Committee on Public Safety, I'm also going to be damning the moralistic bastards who went along with every intrusion into people's lives because of their fears and their believes that those who are doing nothing wrong have nothing to hide.
If someone wants my password to PackersHome, to Facebook, or to any of the other hundred or so places I enter with a password, if they're going to ask for a drug test, then they better damn have probable cause or a search warrant backed by a deputy packing a gun. Because otherwise I'm going to tell them to fuck themselves with a large blunt instrument.
I have no doubt that most of the people I work with, "having nothing to fear," would blithely go along with any and all of the above, that they would look at me as an even bigger loon that they already think of me. But so be it.
I'll admit it. I have things I hide from view. Some things that my closest friends and family probably don't know about me. Things that are going to stay between me and God unless *He* tells me to disclose them. If that bothers someone, they're free to assume the worse and disassociate themselves from me. I have no intention of disclosing those secrets. And I'm certainly not interested in doing so to save my job. If I have to disclose to save my job, my job is by definition not going to be worth it.
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Romans 12:2 (NKJV)