I Shouldnt Have Said That
A long time ago in a land far away I used to go to church with my family and like many kids in our church I used to sit in the pews towards the back of the atrium with my little group of friends. I must admit we giggled too much, squirmed, and passed notes more often than not. Once after getting caught passing notes (which were promptly read and shared with other parents) my mother told me “Don’t write anything down that you wouldn’t ever want someone else to see”. That one piece of warning or advice was seared into my brain like with a branding iron.
Years later I’m now being reminded of this little piece of advice but this time it’s in relation to communicating online over the internet. We all know that if we want to be appreciated as a professional we can’t always say out loud what we think.
The other night I made a snarky remark on Twitter after interacting with two of the building’s night maintenance crew. I was frustrated and before thinking it through I complained and called them “tards.” The next day when the day maintenance people came to fix what the night guys couldn’t one of them mentioned how his uncle had pointed out my tweets to him from the night before. Holy Kaw, I had no idea there were people living in my building who knew who I was on Twitter. (Not that it would have been right for me to say even had I known people knew who was complaining.) Then I found out not only had I been a bit too snarky publicly out there had been some big hulabaloo because the politician Sarah Palin had called someone retarded and people went crazy over it.
There was no making what I said look any better. I said something I shouldn’t have said. I said what I was thinking and I shouldn’t have. It was a real life lesson to not write down (or even say out loud) something I don’t want someone to read. It’s still good advice.
P.S. Now I know of three people living in my building who know who tweetpea is on Twitter. Found the third person after complaining about my Internet access not working and customer service not giving a rats butt. I was being tactful this time but its too bad it wasn’t the ISP listening online instead of my neighbor.
Photo credit: Stacy =)
Tammi – we’ve all done it..whether we got busted for it or not. But I must say – when I called someone an old hag on Twitter the other night, I was fairly sure 1) she wasn’t on Twitter 2) because she was dead. =)
Hang in there! Its OK to be human now and then.