A Fine Line

One fine line I’ve walked over the years is saying too much about where I work and what’s going on there. Maybe because I’ve always known that saying too much was a potential liability. This is long before people were blogging let alone getting in trouble for it. I also just don’t want anyone to get the idea I am speaking for my employer. By going to great lengths to not say where I work, directly or indirectly, I make it fairly clear this is me and my opinion.

One thing that working from home does is that it makes it much harder to seperate work from non-work. Even though I have an office in my house for work, and believe me that helps, it’s not enough. My job demands being on-call 24×7, which means I get my share of calls at awkward times.

Even when I went into the office for work daily–something I haven’t done since 1998–I had a hard time completely disconnecting from work. Maybe it’s because a man’s sense of “who he is” is tied to his job. Seems that way for me anyway.

One thing I learned long ago is my wife isn’t all that interested in the day-to-day happenings at work. So unless it’s something major, I quite simply don’t bring up work in conversation. Since I don’t have a lot of friends outside of work–with two small kids, I hardly have time for it–the only real outlet I have for expressing my feelings about work is blogging.

There have been times where I have wanted to say a lot more than what ultimately got posted in my blog. But being very cautious of that “fine line,” I either don’t post or I spend time wordsmithing a lot to convey my thoughts in a non-specific way.

Some of you out there know where I work. Either because you do or have worked with me as a co-worker, you’re a customer of mine, or you know me personally. I’m glad that those of you who have chosen to comment on my blog have maintained that “fine line” that I walk.
Meanwhile, off to enjoy my weekend.