If you are of a certain age, the tweets from your awkward and tormented teen years will almost certainly come back to haunt you in job interviews of the future. Because what’s published on the Internet never dies.
Disclaimer: All tweets in this post were published by real teenagers in the year 2013. Names have been changed.
Interviewer: Thanks again for coming in today, Katie. We really appreciate your time and loved getting the chance to learn more about your potential fit at our bank. You graduate this spring, correct? Good, great. There are just a few things I wanted to discuss with you before you head out. All of your references checked out, even the mother of the children you babysat for five years ago. She said you made wonderful cookies and unloaded the dishwasher without asking, so it’s clear you can go above and beyond what’s asked of you. What I wanted to ask you about were some of your tweets. You know, we do a thorough social media search before we hire any new employees, and I found some tweets that I wanted to discuss with you.
Katie: Sure thing, ma’am. No problem at all.
I: Okay, so the first one here is dated July 15, 2013 …
K: From six years ago?
I: Yes, Katie. They’re published on the Internet. It was pretty easy for someone as computer illiterate as me to find, so who knows what a client could scrounge up? I just need to go over them to get some answers about your personality and, frankly, because of my own personal interest.
K: Oh…okay, then.
I: All right, July 15, 2013. “I will marry the first person who brings me donuts.” This one worries me only because we have donut Wednesdays. Has anyone told you about those? The young boy, and I mean young boy, who brings the donuts can’t be more than 14. He’s a very nice kid, but we really can’t have you marrying him. He hasn’t finished high school yet. He won’t work at the donut shop forever. But maybe one day…
K: Oh, I can assure you that won’t be a problem. I’m actually in a relationship right now and have no interest in–
I: Oh, really? Are you happy? If so, I’d consider it a marked improvement since your April 10, 2013 tweet reading: “What you must understand about me is that I’m a deeply unhappy person.” Even more troubling is that not one of your followers replied to ask if you were all right. It was, however, retweeted fourteen times. Would you say you have an adequate support system in your life?
K: Uh, of course. I mean, there’s my boyfriend and my parents and some friends from college and…some others I’m sure.
I: Good, then maybe you should you refrain from tweeting: “Ok ur rude” or “I’m sorry but you’re crazy.” It might give you even more friends in the future. Just a thought. My mother always said, “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” That reminds me of another thing: you didn’t mention anyone by name in those tweets, but seemed to have someone particular in mind when writing them. Why is that?
K: Oh. It’s called “subtweeting.” Tweeting about people without using their names. Kind of like when you would say, “Someone didn’t go pee in the litter box again” when talking to your cat. Or something like that. Not to assume that you have a cat. You just seem like —
I: Of course I do. Next item on the list: “No pants, no problem.” I realize that wearing pants can be stifling. I prefer skirts myself. It’s more freeing. But I do want to make sure that you do, in fact, plan on wearing bottoms regularly. Skirts and dresses are within our office dress code, but we just can’t allow a panties-only approach to the workplace.
K: No, of course not.
I: Good, good. Moving on. January 6, 2013: “Growing old scares the shit out of me.” Me, too! I just wanted to bring this up to let you know that the fear doesn’t go away. Ever.
K: Oh. Okay. Well, thank you for your —
I: I’m not finished, young lady. March 9, 2013: “For six retweets I will brush my teeth.” This is good to know. Do you respond well to incentives?
I: February 18, 2013: “My hobbies include taking hour-long showers, eating cereal, blogging, and crying over attractive people I can’t have.” This is slightly different from the running, crafting and cooking you told me were your hobbies earlier, but not a deal-breaker. Do you think an old lady can’t handle the truth about how you spend your spare time? I, too, cried when I found out Liam Hemsworth was engaged to Miley Cyrus, and he’s much younger than me.
I: The last one and my personal favorite. “HGTV is my shit.” Mine, too! Would you like to come over and watch House Hunters International? And only International, not the regular House Hunting. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in this life, it’s that if you can’t marry Liam Hemsworth, you can at least live vicariously through rich families and their Swiss cottages while you sit on the couch in your own pants-free zone.
[Image via Flickr]
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Tags: feeling superior to almost-immediate contemporaries, hashtags, job interviews, pants-free zone, twitter, young people
A PANTIES-ONLY APPROACH TO THE WORKPLACE.
This is why writing is the greatest job ever. I can do it from home wearing the same jogging bottoms I slept in.
yeah, I brushed my teeth and put on my first pair of pants of the day approximately 40 minutes ago.
Meh, I almost wore the tshirt I slept in to court today. ALMOST. Might, next time.
I am currently in my (private, closed door) office wearing pajama pants. I’ve definitely considered a panties-only approach, were it not for the custodian that occasionally opens my door to check my wastebasket.
I sincerely hope that no future interviewer ever finds my tumblr
for future reference, hypothetical interviewers, every single social media outlet I possess is, in fact, a very long and protracted experiment for a sociology degree.
I am, in fact, a polite, together, sane and well-balanced young woman who would be a marvellous addition to your workplace.
oh god please fall for that
ha! 🙂
I have a name that is very uncommon in America but kind of like “Mary Smith” in another country, so there are many other women with my name on the internets despite what an American might guess, including award-winning chemists and this one lady with a disgusting potty mouth (literally — so much poop-talk) who tweets from London under our name. I always want to (but don’t) mention that pre-emptively to job interviewers… ugh, really hope interviewers are sensible enough to figure these things out.
It’s only meeeee
just meeeee
I try to keep my things seperate but because I promote my writing (obviously) it’s not as seperate as it could be.
My mother once, in all seriousness, told me I should refrain from using curse words and taking a liberal stance on issues like gay marriage because “you never know whether a potential client might take offense.”
Gee, mom, and I was so looking forward to working with homophobic bigots who don’t think adults should be allowed to say ‘fuck’ in their downtime. How could I have been so blind?
Exactly! If they like you, you know you’ll be happy there!
This is the sole reason my twitter account doesn’t consist of the phrase “I’m a failure” three times a day every day.
At a certain point, I just accepted I could never have a real job again and embraced it, and now sometimes I just think “oh, what if I get way more famous or write something about MRAs and then someone compiles my lowest moments?” and still go ahead and tweet something stupid.
If this ever happens to me I fully intend to stand by each and every one of my weird tweets. “So, you had a lot of tweets in 2013 about how alien sex would work?” the interviewer will ask, and I will reply, “Yes. Yes, I did. Do you never ponder these things, because I do a lot.”
I know this isn’t the point but it’s always deeply, deeply bothered me that hashtags can’t include apostrophes.
This is why I have two twitter accounts. Of course, the one under my real name mostly consists of political commentary and exhorting fellow Metro riders to move to the center of the car, but I feel like that’s a pretty universal experience.
re. Moving to the center of the car: it’s just common sense! Let’s make more room for everyone!
but, but, I might miss my stop. 10 stops from now.
I should probably delete my decade-old livejournal for good, shouldn’t I?
I totally did this, but not before printing off a good number of entries that I couldn’t part with. Sighh.
I haven’t used my Twitter in a long time, so I figured I should check it out. It seemed mostly okay until:
• a reply to a friend’s tweet about anal lube’s sales rank on Amazon
• a tweet about wanting to stab people who use Nextel’s walkie-talkie feature
• a tweet about spilling tomato sauce all over myself and the floor at work
• telling someone I should RT something they said to @ispenis
• an inside joke involving the words “ASS” and “NAD” and food
(details removed to prevent googling since the twitter is in my actual name)
But fortunately for me I’ve got a really common name, so I can always claim it’s someone else.
OH speaking of twitter, I’ve been reading Seinfeld Today all day and it’s cracking me up. I won’t be able to stop until I read them all because they’re so great. https://twitter.com/SeinfeldToday
Those are so exactly what it would be like! Though I’m more of a Seinfeld Current Day lady myself (warning: nonsensical). https://twitter.com/Seinfeld2000
Argh I know it’s probably that way on purpose but I just can’t with the misspellings.
fair enuff. i’m stuck in a weird twitter hole and i can’t get out!
Twitter holes are part of the reason I avoid Twitter. I am very susceptible to internet holes.
My tweets are filled with incoherent mentally-unstable murmerings, yelling about things I can’t afford to buy, feminist and political rantings, plus a whole lot of self-reflection and ALL CAPS question-asking and challenge-posing. I don’t even know, I change my Twitter handle too much for anyone to keep track of it anyway.
Hahaha, it will not be the tweets from my awkward teen years that get me into trouble, nope, not at all. (I tweet inappropriate things like…all the time?)
Hahaha, it will not be the tweets from my awkward teen years that get me into trouble, nope, not at all. (I tweet inappropriate things like…all the time?)
If this ever happens to me I fully intend to stand by each and every one of my weird tweets. "So, you had a lot of tweets in 2013 about how alien sex would work?" the interviewer will ask, and I will reply, "Yes. Yes, I did. Do you never ponder these things, because I do a lot."
ha! 🙂
I have a name that is very uncommon in America but kind of like "Mary Smith" in another country, so there are many other women with my name on the internets despite what an American might guess, including award-winning chemists and this one lady with a disgusting potty mouth (literally — so much poop-talk) who tweets from London under our name. I always want to (but don't) mention that pre-emptively to job interviewers… ugh, really hope interviewers are sensible enough to figure these things out.
It's only meeeee
just meeeee
I try to keep my things seperate but because I promote my writing (obviously) it's not as seperate as it could be.
Ugh, that's one of the many reasons I'm glad I came of age before the internet made it so easy to put stuff out there. When I was 17 I think it was education and government only, and even then I didn't really understand what it was and that it existed outside the movies.
My married name was world unique, which was hard to get used to because my maiden (and now current) name is very common. I didn't use my name on ANYTHING online when I was married.
I hope nobody finds your fanfic! But if they do, I'm sure they will understand that you were young. Because honestly, how often do people write fanfic about shows that have been off the air for years?
My boss follows me on twitter. Hope you enjoyed my recent tweet about discovering I was wearing my underwear inside out, boss!