All the world is not your blog.
I've been learning that one the hard way, again.
When I was in my first two jobs in the world of public relations, I was often coached to keep my extroverted mouth shut. My second boss, in fact, gave me a wicked review in which my work was praised but my personality was not. I was deemed a tad too "exuberant" for the firm. I left a few months later to no one's surprise.
As I started progressing through various different jobs, though, I began to be rewarded for my outspoken ways and hyper-vigilant observations. I notice obscure details, something that often surprises my friends and family. I notice details of people's appearance, and this often freaks them out if I mention it. I don't usually judge most of the things I notice, but I can't help but note them. This technique was emphasized in my graduate writing program, as my teachers deigned it highly important to note every specific detail about a person or place before the writer was allowed to pick up a pencil. My fiction professor told me if I didn't know what a character had for breakfast that morning, he or she wasn't ready to make it into the story. My magazine writing professor told me if I didn't know the color of the house in which the story's subject lived, I couldn't begin.
The fact that I notice this stuff and consequently analyze it has brought about anxiety in my life. It's made me hypercritical of myself as a mother, because I notice so many details about other mothers and their children, things I am not doing. It's made me better as a manager, because I do tend to pick up on nonverbal cues and tacit messages and then can address them in what I hope is a helpful way. It's probably also made me more difficult to deal with as a co-worker, though, because when I notice something that seems to be making other people uncomfortable, I point it out.
This past week I learned that while my blog is a great place for observation and discussion, sometimes work is not. Sometimes it's better to keep your mouth shut, particularly when your observations may bother other people. The blog forum may have freed me to the point that I forgot this basic rule of coworkerdom. Just because something is not going as I see best does not mean I need to note that verbally, a painful rule for me to accept, though a pretty normal one for civilized society, all the same. I don't think anything I said was harmful, per se, but perhaps unnecessary to my particular role in the company. I said what I said in the spirit of improvement, but again, not in an area that was my job to improve.
Self-censorship. God, I hate it.
When I told my beloved what happened, he said, "I know this is going to be hard for you, because you like to participate, but you should probably just be quiet." An interesting point,that I like to participate. I do. I was that annoying kid in class that couldn't shut up during class discussion. I remember making rules for myself in college, that I would only speak three times in class. I didn't want the other kids to think I was a dork (which they probably did anyway). Some writers are very quiet in person. Not me. My shut-off valve for observation doesn't seem to work very well, and I'm like a slow-draining bathtub in that once I see something, it's hard for me to just let it be sucked down the tubes.
Blogging has made me a better writer, but also probably a more difficult person. The forum has released me to be honest about a lot of things I used to keep inside or only discuss with my closest friends and family members. In that way, I HAVE been able to let a lot of insecurities and drivel just slide away down the tubes. It's been a wonderful release. Unfortunately, though, the side effect is that I want that release in my offline world, and sometimes it's just not appropriate. All the world is not a blog.
