Another thought for “Online and in public?” — having a public online journal means accepting the possibility of
anybody reading it.There’s no such thing as security out of
politeness, and security through obscurity (i.e. not telling people) only
works if you’re willing to accept a few cases of failure.

However, there are journal sites and free blogging software available
out there that will not only give you nice, pretty easy ways of
recording your thoughts, but will also let you customize the security
features to lock out everybody but specific users.The only one I’m
familiar with is Live Journal, but I’m sure there are more.
It does mean her reader list would have to get a little more
formalized, but she can still have a large audience, the
exhibitionistic feelings of an anonymous public journal, and the
security so her boss can’t pry.

don’t want my parents reading

Dear Don’t,

Good idea.Everyone who publishes online has to decide at some point where they draw those lines; before she makes any big changes, she should figure out where she’s going to put hers.

Dear Sars,

This is in response to the response to another letter that was the first entry in today’s Vine. The part where this person said something about “the myth that children are healthiest if they’re raised in two-parent families is, well, a myth.”

Uh, no it’s not. The fact that this person (or any number of other persons) have a personal experience of their upbringing wherein they may (or may not) have been better off without one troublemaking parental unit around has nothing to do with the fact (notice that I said “fact,” as in the opposite of “myth”) that two-parent households are better for kids than single-parent households, all other things being equal.

Yeah, of course it’s better to be with one well-adjusted parent than two crack smoking, violent, crap-bags or one well-adjusted parent and one alcoholic, emotionally abusive crap-bag, but assuming that the parents are normal (or a reasonable facsimile therof), two parents ARE better than one.

The problem with people calling this a myth is the fact (there’s that damn judgmental definitive word again) that this is taken as gospel by people who need to justify their selfishness. How so, you say? If you really can’t make a marriage work, if one party is violent or otherwise destructive to your life and that of your children, then by all means divorce the bastard (or bitch, as the case may be). But don’t listen to someone spouting opinion as fact about the valuelessness of two-parent homes when you’re deciding whether to work on the marriage or bail out.

Am I a bit of a hard-ass? Yeah, but I’m still right. Most divorces (and the uni-parented child units that result) are the result of people who can’t figure out how to be nice to one another, or how to forgive, or how to keep their respective genitalia to themselves, not violent, drug-addicted disasters. Don’t use a bogus cop-out attitude about one-parent households being just fine and dandy to convince yourself to do something harmful to the kids by not working on a marriage. Children of one-parent households can and do turn out just fine, which is great news for those who find themselves raising a rug rat alone, whether they wanted to or not. But overall, those kids are more likely to end up on drugs, in jail or therapy, make less money, not be good parents themselves, et cetera than kids in two-parent households. The statistics are incontrovertible.

That having been said, bravo and cool beans for every single parent out there who is doing a good job, and working their asses off to make the world a better place for their kids. But bravo, too, to those who avoided divorce, and worked their problems out, for the children.

Toodles,
Irritated Parent in Texas

Dear Irritating,

Congratulations on missing the point entirely.The parent in question is getting yelled at and struck by a violent, abusive “crap-bag.”There’s nothing to “work on” here.This isn’t a difference of opinion over whether to leave the toilet seat down.The guy hits her, and her son sees that.She needs to leave.End of story.

Whether or not statistics prove that a two-parent household serves a child better in the long run, I won’t argue the point with you, not because I don’t believe you but because it’s completely irrelevant here.Instead of lecturing me and my readers, why not think about why you seized on one sentence tangential to the original scenario, and used it as an excuse to get defensive and judgmental?

Dear Sars,

I was just recently officially hired at a place I’d contracted at for seven
months. My position in the office is a new one, and is pretty fuzzy regarding
just what I’m responsible for and how I’m going to get stuff done. When I
asked for a job description, they basically wrote down what I had been doing and
said that as the job progresses, if it turns into anything else, just add it
onto the official document. I have a sort-of manager, but 1) she’s a bitch
and 2) I rarely see her because she just doen’t have anything to do with
what I do on a daily basis. Needless to say, I’m a bit concerned about who’s
measuring me and to what standards.

Okay, all that was background. It sets the
stage for my problem — new job, unclear place in the structure of things,
and feeling anxious to do a good job…oh, and I should mention that this is
my first “job” job in seven years, as I’ve been freelancing and contracting.
Yet another reason to feel the pressure to make everything work out.

The problem is, I have been having major health issues lately. Right as I
was changing anti-anxiety medications, I got a diagnosis of diabetes
and high cholesterol, and a couple of other things which led to a massive
medicine deluge. For the past month, I have been going on medications, having
bad reactions, going on more medications, having different, yet still worse,
reactions, and feeling completely out of sorts. I’m off the anti-anxiety meds so
that everything else can be figured out first, and gee, that sure is fun.
I’ve been unable to concentrate, have experienced the truly horrific mood
swings, and haven’t really told anyone, just tried to keep it to myself and
carry on.

I’m afraid of them letting me go (technically, I’m still on a six-month probation period) if I confess I haven’t been up to par and that it
may be a while before I am. On the other hand, I don’t want them thinking
I’m being a slacker on the job. My doctor appointments/times when I just
couldn’t face being in there have made my working hours erratic. Since I
pretty much write my own ticket, though, I have no clear person I feel close
enough to to talk to about what’s going on. If I confide in Bitchy, I think
she’ll use it as a tool to get a tighter rein on me and my job. HR would
tell me to talk to Bitchy.

I don’t know what to do. The administrative
assistant who I finally did confide in suggested that I just keep it to myself,
but do you think it would be best to have some record somewhere that I’m
having actual medical problems that are cutting into my efficiency, as
opposed to my efficiency mysteriously going down with no explanation? Is it
too late to bring it up at all since it’s been a month?

Sincerely confused and afraid I’m blowing it out of proportion,
Anxious

Dear Anxious,

Has anyone noticed your productivity falling off?Has it really fallen off, or do you just feel like it has because it worries you?Can you look at your work and point to specific things that you’ve slacked on?Because if you’ve actually managed to hold it together — and good for you if you have — and nobody’s seen anything amiss, maybe you should just keep your own counsel rather than give HR or Bitchy an excuse to put a negative note in your file.If it’s really not affecting your efficiency, maybe you should just try to gut it out.

On the other hand, if it is making a noticeable difference in your output, you should go on record with human resources as having documented health problems that you need to deal with.You can assure whomever you speak to that, once your meds get untangled, you don’t anticipate as many scheduling problems and/or sick days, but that for right now, you want it on file that you’ve got health issues and that it’s not just a matter of laziness or what have you.

It’s usually better to have things like this on record, I think; it gives a better appearance of propriety, if that makes any sense.It does sound like you have enough flexibility in your job and your hours to work around your medical stuff without anyone noticing, but if it does start to interfere markedly with your work in the future, you should have a note placed in your personnel file now…and take it to the personnel department first, not to Bitchy.They’ll advise you to speak with Bitchy, I’d imagine, but you can also ask them how to handle Bitchy’s reaction to it and how to protect yourself in the event that Bitchy views it as an invitation to start bossing you more.

[9/13/02]

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