Jon Levin's Best Blog Entry Ever!
Okay, so you know how my last blog entry was a self-mocking rant about my attitudes toward the class system, written on a break during a recent freelance job that was lucrative enough to inflame guilt-feelings on my part which I should really try to let go of, hence the inspiration for said self-mocking class rant as some perverse form of confessional therapy?

If not, you can scroll down and read it now. The rest of this entry will be way funnier if you do.

Okay? Okay…

A couple days after writing it, I was talking on the phone to the producer who hired me for that job -- a veteran of TV and genuinely nice guy. We discussed a few little creative points for the project, and then he said words to this effect: "While I've got you on the phone, here's a little lesson, perhaps, which has just come out of this project -- nothing too bad -- but word to the wise: in the future, you might want to wait a couple weeks until after a particular job is finished until you decide to blog about it."

Ho.
Lee.
Cah.
RAP.

Um… apparently, someone in the Publicity Department of the client company (every reference to which I have since removed from the previous entry, leaving the rest intact) GOOGLED me, discovered my blog and read it. Then s/he sent a polite little email to the Producer, the guy who they hired, and who in turn hired me, to let him know what was up. There were four other names on the email distribution list. From what I understand, the client's reaction contained a phrase like, "… perhaps [what Jon wrote] could be considered complimentary?"

Egads.

The producer obviously then came to this blog, read it for himself, and called me.

Fortunately, I didn't say anything too crazy. But still, I was a bit mortified for a while. I immediately went back and read the thing, and while there wasn't anything that should upset a client, particularly, there definitely were plenty of things you'd never want a client to read. Just completely embarrassing stuff. And if someone who didn't really get my weirdly ironic sense of humor read the thing, they might not understand that I was actually quite happy to have the gig, making fun only of myself, and merely lamenting having to work within a consistently disappointing and dehumanizing system -- something which you'd think I would've learned to accept by now.

The producer was a total mensch about it. He was glad that I managed to remain just on this side of the line. So was I. Not so much for my sake, but more for how this whole thing could've affected HIS relationship with his client. Fortunately, he wasn't worried about it. He was totally cool about everything. Still, I felt bad for subjecting him to even the slightest professional awkwardness. Work is stressful enough as it is.

Ultimately, it didn't matter. The client was apparently very pleased with the product we delivered to them, everybody got paid, and they will probably be happy to hire the producer again, though they clearly won't be hiring ME again. Not that they have much call for video shooter/editors, but still. Work is work. Of course, I may have inadvertently squandered what probably would've been a great business contact in the person of the producer, who might not want to hire me for even completely unrelated gigs in the future. At least, not as long as this blog still exists.

So THAT'S why people adopt assumed names on the internet.

Everybody over the age of 30 who I told about this was like: "What the fuck are they googling YOU for? And why on God's green earth would they care one iota about what you wrote in your blog which nobody but two of your friends even reads anyway?! I mean, you were already working on the project and doing a perfectly fine job, so what could possibly make them want to delve into your goofy internet reamblings? Don't they have anything more important to do?!"

Everybody UNDER the age of 30 was like: "What are you, a freakin' IDIOT?!? Of COURSE they googled you! That's just standard fucking operating procedure nowadays dumbass! What millennium are you living in? You're lucky they didn't FIRE you! You mentioned their company BY NAME, and you make absolutely no effort to conceal your identity whatsoever! Are you trying to sabotage your career?!?"

Well… my parents definitely think I have a fear of success. And if I think about it, this isn't the first time that I've burned a bridge. It isn't even the first time I've burned a bridge I was standing on. (Will it be the last…?)

I would normally take this opportunity to include a hilarious run-down of all the total bonehead maneuvers I've pulled over the 22 years I've been in the workforce, but I'm actually in the running for a couple of jobs which I REALLY NEED, because I've just had some unexpected technology break-downs which are interfering with my ability to work and could be costly to rectify. The last thing I want is a prospective employer reading a list of everything I ever did to ruin relationships with previous employers.

My pal Sanford would normally have fallen into the aforementioned "over-30" category, save for his knowledge of something that took place at his company: a guy came in and interviewed for a job. He seemed like a very good candidate, so the HR department decided to look at him more closely. They googled him, found his blog and read the part he had just entered about what a bunch of douche-bags they were and how he had totally kicked ass on his interview because he got them to believe all of his bullshit. Oof!

So, it would seem there are even bigger idiots than me.

Another pal, Rich, the guy who originally gave me the contact info of the producer mentioned throughout above, said that for a little while I should only blog about my favorite color, my shoe size, things like that. He makes a good point. Freedom of Speech in the age of google-powered corporate hegemony may be a sick, ugly, anemic little baby bird.  So... um...

Blow job!