Meteo Xavier

I think it was me.

This is a godblessed big topic. Nevertheless, I want to throw Ichigo Mashimaro in there. I can't figure out what it is, but I cannot stop watching it. It speaks to me and fills a void in my life that will forever be present until one of those pussy assassins actually luck out. Its not an easy to appreciate series/manga. Its cute, slice-of-life that doesn't have a single thing standing out for it other than a spotless series of soundtracks, but anyone who appreciates Charlie Brown and, dare I say, the artistic aspects of David Lynch will appreciate this series. OVA Encore brought tears to my eyes. I can die happy now. I don't know if I'm supposed to provide links or something, but episodes exist on Youtube always. I'd start there to see if its your thing or not.

Yeah, I really don't know what happened here. It was going well enough for a while but it went to hell right as I was at work.

The opinions of cocksuckers are amusing to me. Post more.

Does this topic bother you?

And this means what?

No, we were originally talking about social networking possibly declining many values on the horizons.

I already admitted defeat, dude.

It was a good topic while it lasted.

Son, you're going to have to try harder than that.

Don't pay attention to Bleck, other than to say don't pay attention to Bleck.

If I printed out my myspace page and gave it to him, it would be the exact equivalent. Otherwise, that manager is fishing for information to get around illegality. It bothers me the only thing seperating its ethicality is whether or not the dude asks me to my face. Anyway, I'm going to lose out in the end here and anything else I post is going to be redundant, so I'm probably going to bow out here. I'm just seeing a lot of potential problems building up down the road and I think it starts here.

I don't actually remember seeing you posting here before, but ok. The difference here that I'm seeing in your example is that I'm entering their world so they can probe me. I'm cool with that because that is all on the record in the professional environment. The problem I'm having is that that professional environment is trying to extend itself out into my other business far beyond its means and necessity. My big question is why this information is different on the internet than it is in real life. If you cannot legally ask me to my face, why is it ok to fish online for it? What makes that different than showing up at my house at 6:00 AM, interviewing me further, peering and pushing inside? What makes tracking my conversations online different than doing it in real life? Because its easier, its ok? Thats a lot to ask for for a job paying between $8-$14 an hour. The only thing that I'm seeing that seperates this information is convenience. The internet does not exist for professional purposes alone (or so I thought), people are allowed to be themselves and say what they want at some point, right? Or at least thats what we are lead to believe. How does that work then? But where do you draw the line? At some point it GETS unreasonable; where is that point? You cannot figure out how a person works until long after they've worked there for a while. You are not a psycho-analyst, you are not a police investigator, you are a manager. You should be working on budgets and schedules and getting us ready for our next assignments, not wasting company time stalking us online. Thats all I'm saying. At some point, it gets unreasonable and if employer-stalking isn't illegal, than its at least highly inefficient and ineffective. You want to get your money's worth? Stop wasting company hours online looking for teenage boys in thongs. I get the feeling if that a manager doesn't trust a physical version of a dossier, he won't trust an online version either.

Well, to Zircon or whoever's credit, that is not the same thing. Sex and Teachers is a HUGE, HUGE HUGE HGE HUGE HUGE fucking issue and anything even resembling it logically follows that she's even lucky she got a teaching job in the first place. A teaching job is not a regular job because the ability to project a good example for hundreds of young minds to follow is more important than textbook teaching. You can't do that anywhere else. If she used to peddle pornography, in any way, such a short time ago, its against her job to produce the wholesome subliminal image that teachers are supposed to project. It does conflict with her job, therefore she cannot work it any further. Edit: My name is Meteo. Not Meteor.

Ok, everyone shut the fuck up for a minute while I try to get things back on track here. This isn't about vampires or guns or playboy teachers or extreme circumstances or special cases or reality or anything like that. This is about DRAWING THE LINE IN THE SAND, dude. This is about boundaries and what seperates what. First of all, its only been said a couple times, first by me IIRC, that looking for dirt on people online is potentially illegal because it circumvents laws that forbid asking age, sexual preference, religion, family information, etc. If the employer is not allowed to ask those questions during the interview, why is he/she allowed to dig up dirt on you on Myspace where, more than likely, you have that printed? Secondly, who's talking about poor judgement? If we're going to such fine lengths to arbitrarily prove poor character based on information that is vague and without context, what kind of judgment is management showing by trusting pictures on the internet over an 8-year excellent work record, references, decent interview - pretty much mandated company policy and state laws to a point. What kind of good judgment is that? Third, and this is where we get to boundaries, you should not have to live outside your house thinking everything you're going to do is going to jeopardize your job. That is thoroughly unreasonable. I have to disagree with Audix, BGC or whoever, but no, you do NOT represent your company outside of work. We're not talking about a potential cop getting fired, or a teacher getting blackmailed. Those aren't typical jobs and the circumstances surrounding those (guns and sex) are hot anyway. That is reasonable considering those circumstances. The problem is, those in favor of this practice, are pretending that all occupational circumstances are the same. There's a term for people who represent the company every minute of every day as long as they live. They're called CEOs. Apart from that, representing that decorum is not only unreasonable, it almost a workers' rights issue because its asking me to be on clock all week while only paying me for 40 hours. With our current economy, growing unemployment, growing social networking, this presents a possible growing problem where interviews become interrogations, Staples Managers think they're psycho-analysts and police investigators at the same time, and people have to rewrite the laws of time to be able to get a fucking job in North America. I'm sorry, Zircon, but you are flat out wrong. Being denied a job for pictures on Myspace isn't "taking responsibility for your actions." Its "paying for something that was only probably a mistake several years ago well after any relevance to the modern world is lost that also has no indicating factor as to how I perform on the job which I have documented evidence saying I was really good." I mean, yeah, if we're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars, thats one thing, but these are just regular jobs that people, normal or not, need to survive in this country. So here are the lines: A. Where do you draw the line between your personal and professional behaviors? B. When can you stop paying for something trivial you did in the past? C. What is reasonable information for an employer to see and obtain that has any relevance to the job I apply for? D. When do you truly get to be apart from the company? E. What is personal and what is not on the internet? You couldn't say its my own fault my apartment got broken into because I have a window instead of 2'x2' of brick wall, why would you say its my own fault an employer decided to go to lengths to find dirt on me because he doesn't trust anyone anyways and wasted 2 hours of company time and found something on me, years old, that is questionable only inside its own context? This clearly crosses the line between reasonable employer behavior and nobody is doing shit about it. Thats why, if you very extroverted, you need to get off Myspace and Facebook immediately. Your life could depend on it.

So what happens to those of us who enjoy having a personal freedom somewhere in our lives? Do we lay down and die to help clear the channel for others?

What happens during all these meetups? What do you all do?

Because its not always up for EVERYONE to see. If this were the case, anything you type online becomes public domain. I'm not typing this for ALL to see, just those on Ocremix who are interested to read this topic.

Well, deadly force is one thing, but like I'm someone who easily falls into the category of people who outwardly appear like one of those people who dreams of climbing a clock tower and going Columbine on everyone's asses. I have martial arts equipment, a long list of enemies, history of bizarre behavior from childhood, live alone, virgin, flights of fancy, an addiction to the greatest anime of all time, Ichigo Mashimaro. By basic employer standards and psychology (if that term even applies to what they do in the interview process), I'm a card-carrying psycho, pedophile, rapist or at least budding. It doesn't matter I'm a Church Council Secretary, Crucifer, physically healthy young man who's saved 3 lives thus far despite low intelligence with an excellent working record and no criminal record whatsoever, as long as those pictures and information exists without context somewhere with my name attached to it, I'm fucked. I might really need that job to help take care of my ailing Dad but I can't get it because my three-year-old Myspace page shows me in a thong at a friends' party. Besides the fact that it completely throws out the inability to ask age, sexual preference, religion, etc. in an interview if they can easily find that shit online, which is probably illegal, its just plain wrong. Its saying you don't ever get to be yourself, whoever you are, outside of your apartment which is 400 sq. ft. and without proper insulation. Yeah, its a total double-edged sword. We occasionally catch some real potential psychos, but people like me get caught up in that shit all the time because of something trivial like that.

Well, its like Alexander Graham Bell trying to build the telephone, its constant experimenting with wires (connections) of varying quality and success and hoping you learn something from it. I tried virtually every angle from the experimental point of view and every lead went cold. I didn't learn shit. You have to figure out what happens and the other person isn't talking. And yeah, its like you say, thats the issue. Many, many people do not know what their or your boundaries are for online management. Myspace and Facebook is inching its way forward to being completely beside the points. The communicating factor is diminishing, while the whole rest of the world is getting and looking for you (employers, thieves, police, relatives... everyone you don't want looking for you). Its going to turn on us. And its going to take a big crash before it resets itself right.

I'm only going to go over bits and pieces of it, because I want to stay on track and not turn this into my personal sob story. Ok, cool.

My concern is that this very impersonal and flawed way of communicating is quickly becoming more necessary in our personal lives and in the way in which we live. More and more every day, and I'm concerned those habits and lack of priority and etc. is going to start affecting the way people physically communicate. Let me give you the example that planted that fear for me. The best friend I ever had completely shut off contact with me last year after the crazed man she was living with and had children with broke into her Myspace account, read my messages and, from what I understand, went on a rampage. A full-on physical, crazy-ass, rampage. He beat the shit out of her, and I guess the kids got some of that too. Someone broke something, I don't know who. Both blamed me for it. Granted, that is an extreme example... Is it? The difference between email and Ocremix and Myspace and Facebook is that email and Ocremix... you don't go in with the expectation its going to be a personal tool. You go in knowing its going to have its own rules and impersonality. Myspace and Facebook present the illusion, either through advertising or whatever, that it IS more personal and thus facilitates more personal behavior and you can flow more personally, but its still THE INTERNET and its still VERY IMPERSONAL and..... fuck, man, they just don't line up to work. I mean, yeah, its the same problem here and email present, but its more exponential for the reasons I described above. The virtual world affects the real world. The IMPERSONAL is affected the PERSONAL. And more people are relying more and more on the virtual, impersonal world thinking its not. This could overtake. This could be a problem down the road, thats all I'm saying.

And this is where being autistic over a social networking simulator (this thread) comes into play because I can't tell if you're insulting me by using my full name and referring to "Cryspace", or if you're being genuine and I just don't get it. Well I personally find that difficult to do, again referring to my communication incapability and the emotional confusion that follows as nothing was learned, but that reads mostly as an excuse to be a douchebag in the first place. The lack of a body doesn't mean shit, I'm not talking to the body. I'm talking to a person that has time to log-on to a connection I have with them, permission to communicate, good terms... pretty much everything I need to ask something and expect a reasonable answer.If not, I am at least entitled to know what has changed and I am expected then to comply. Long story short, if I can still communicate, the rules of communication still apply. Now, see, if people knew how to lay it straight like this in the first place, this wouldn't be a problem.

Well, you were, but I really wasn't going to say anything because I know for a fact you ARE fucking busy as hell and can't get to a Myspace message that easily and that its not even close to my place to bitch about it. My "rant" (which wasn't my original intent here, but anyway) is not that people don't get an answer quickly, its that people don't get an answer quickly when the other person is online all fucking day, writing messages, clearly not being overwhelmed despite having two young children, and still, if you get a response at all, being told "Sorry, I was busy, :P" BITCH, YOU'RE ONLINE! I CAN SEE YOU! I mean, its really not asking that much to even hear "Sorry, I'm busy doing etc. etc. but I can look at it when the kids are in bed." That sentence took ten seconds to write and makes all the difference. Its the silence that creates that tension. If you have obligations, tell us about them! We can accommodate. Its just common sense for goodness sakes. Thats all I need to say on that part. And for effect:

I find it hard to argue your point core, however there is a difference between simple Email and Social Networking. And I know there was stuff like this with profile and AOL Hometown and such, I think its the "convenience" of bring all that together that gives people the lax to take it for granted and abuse it. Does that make sense? I'm not sure. As for MY problem, it was far more complicated than messaging people who didn't respect me, but I won't get into that here. I miss the days when the older generation used to bitch about how far things have gone. I just think its the weight (inertia?) of that combination of trend, necessity, accessibility and all those hundreds of millions of people creating a huge heavy wave thats going to crash soon and cause some problems. Too much too soon. And killing time? That doesn't begin to describe it. What people used to do as far as connectivity goes: check email, check personal profiles, write/read, check out music, blog, etc, etc. With Myspace you could effectively be doing that double. Then you sign on a Facebook page and do it there too. Then Livejournal. Then you check Twitter. Then you open an account for something else to check out all the shit on that. Next thing you know, what you used to do in roughly 45 minutes took close to 4 hours and you don't even know its happening. And this is happeningly mostly towards college age when people are busy enough trying to get school and life in order. You don't even see it happen because its so convenient and easy to get into. Easy to abuse. I can't really pinpoint it any other way other than to say when I killed those two accounts, I suddenly had a LOT more free time which I put towards other things. Now, yes, thats not Myspace's fault, but thats how it happened... I'm not blaming the SITES, other than to suggest they are built in such a way where its really easy to abuse all that "connectivity". I'm focusing more on the larger picture of it, the TREND. The TREND now is not interested in limiting the amount of time you spend a day on it like you should. I'm concerned because the trend (use my wave example if you must) is only to the point where bigger problems might be on the horizon still. Hence this thread. And I really don't agree with your point on wasting time playing video games. That I play video games does not indicate I don't care about time. Too many hobbies. Well why should internet communication not follow the same rules as regular communication? Why should I ignore you if you ask me a question just because its easier on the internet? Thats still rude (at least) no matter how you cut it. Why am I on your friend page if we are not friends? Cutting off ties to social networking sites is a shitload better than having 130 friends who have no interest in you at all. It's 130 people telling you they don't even care enough about you to DELETE you, all at once. Man, I'd sell both working testes to forget those people, but I digress. Also, I apologize if I'm not making much sense. I don't write well on larger scale projects like this.