Q. Do you absolutely never post anything to CM while you're on your campus because you're afraid Big Brother and his adminiflakes (and their sneaky IT people) will discover what you're doing and fire you? Or is it the wrath of the fucktard colleagues in your department you fear the most?A. ___________________________
I don't worry about posting from work. This summer, my IT office lost a bunch of y emails that were "saved" on their servers. They couldn't find an Inbox without asking Clippy for help.
ReplyDeleteOnce, a golleague did see that my browser was open to CM. He commented, "Oh, you read that? It's kind of funny but they've got some chemist named Ben who writes there. He's a real dork."
I almost blew my cover by saying, "Fuck you."
My only concern is how much I drink when posting. Sometimes I say things here that I regret later. That's why I try to finish the six pack first before logging in.
I feel very confident that even if I were found out, I have changed enough details about myself, my problems, my student emails, and my complaints that they wouldn't be able to figure out which colleagues / Deans / students I actually was talking about in the first place.
ReplyDeleteI occasionally read, but never post or comment, while on campus. I'm at a state uni, in a state where email has on occasion been monitored and/or FOIA'd and scrutinized/published, and I don't have tenure. While I'm making no real effort to make my pseudonym impenetrable to those who know me IRL, including at work, I do want to be able to argue, should anyone accuse me of violating students' privacy or undermining the university's mission or whatever, that I've made an effort to prevent random readers on the internet from figuring out exactly where I work. Mostly, though I'm pretty sure that writing here is both an activity that is useful to me (and others) professionally and one that is protected under academic freedom, I'd rather avoid having a conversation about is merits at all, especially with an adminicritter. The easiest way to do that seems to be to treat CM as a personal activity, conducted during my personal time on my personal equipment/internet connection. That makes it very clearly none of the university's tea-partying business.
ReplyDeleteI look at CM at work but I am never signed in and never post at work. Mostly because I have been known to walk off and leave myself signed into other places, like Amazon, facebook, whatever. There are some fail-safes with Amazon, and my fb page is not going to bother anyone.
ReplyDeleteBut no one that knows me IRL knows who I am here, and I'd like to keep it that way.
You're absolutely right: I really should stop dropping so many hints. I have stapled so many students' dicks to the floor, especially in the past week, if any of my colleagues here at Middlin' State were to read CM, they'd know who I was instantly.
ReplyDeleteI've signed in or posted from work a few times. The adminiflakes at my place, from dept chair to provost, know fully well how I feel about them. As long as I remain anonymous here--that is, if my comments are not openly linked to my real identity or institution--I don't see how I could get into trouble (I'm tenured, and unlikely to be promoted under current management anyway). How is posting here different from posting on FB, from a legal standpoint? Of course, maybe I'm just being naive.
ReplyDeleteI comment while on campus, but from an "unassigned" laptop with a generic log in that somehow took up permanent residence in my office after an across campus, department-wide relocation. I'd venture to say it was "Removed From Inventory," judging by its condition and OS.
ReplyDeleteI live and work on campus (fairly common practice where I am), so in that sense I'm potentially compromised either way. But both home and office computers were purchased by me, with my own cash (the one I was provided at work was running on an OS that was high technology back when I was a froshflake. And that was over a decade ago). At least I don't have to worry too much about nosy administrators confiscating my hardware. Plus: Foreign job = no FOIA (nor, for that matter, a whole lot of other such laws that dictate in variously subtle ways how things are done in 'Merica.) Very different atmosphere over here w/r/t tech oversight and privacy issues.
ReplyDeleteI've always done all of my CM stuff at school. What do people think will happen if a colleague realizes you read a blog like this?
ReplyDeleteTrick question. There is no blog like this.
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