Friday, July 4, 2008

Back on the Net, Minus 'Matters of Official Concern'

I took a hiatus from blogging this past week after deciding that it is impractical to continue posting or commenting upon matters that are of official concern to my employer. The regulations that apply to private writings by employees state that we worker bees may comment freely about matters that are clearly not of official concern - such as, your plans for the 4th of July weekend - but must obtain several levels of review and clearance before writing about matters of official concern. 'Matters of official concern' evidently encompass something less than 100% of all official matters, but it is not clear to me where the line is drawn between permissible and impermissible official matters. Since it would hardly be practical to ask for a review before posting anything that so much as mentions the [REDACTED] [the foreign affairs department of the Washington DC area's largest employer], I've decided to err on the side of caution and restrict myself to writing solely about matters that are clearly not of official concern.

That restriction will not be very limiting, since it still allows me to write about the other departments of the [REDACTED] [the Washington DC area's largest employer], as well as about everything else under the sun. But, by avoiding 'matters of official concern' I will also avoid causing trouble for my supervisors and co-workers, some of whom have been mistaken for me to their discomfort.

p.s. - This 4th of July weekend I plan to emulate George Washington, who kicked off the original Independence Day celebration by ordering that his Continental Army receive a double ration of rum, followed by an artillery salute. The rum part will be easy, but the artillery salute will be only a pale imitation of the original, thanks to the worrywarts who now run George Washington's old stomping grounds of Northern Virginia.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

hi first, really enjoying your blog, though i havent read much yet, i just happened on it while searching for posts about the show "Locked Up Abroad" -- for some reason I cant find your comments about that show i'd love to see what you say about it. ps, before i moved to nyc to go to columbia jschool, i lived in arlington and fairfax and went to UVA! also, forever ago, did an internship at AID.

TSB said...

Sorry, but I just removed the post and comments about "Locked Up Abroad" when I purged all my job-related material.


I assume you're the Irina from Geek Entertainment TV? Wow, a celebrity!