The Facebook incident

Hello again, everyone. Okay, Drew pointed something out from my post the other day. He said it was a cheap trick to mention this big Facebook episode and then not explain it. So today I’m going to explain, for the first time, why, exactly, I quit Facebook. And, no, it has nothing to do with them stealing all our data. Though that probably should have been a good enough reason on its own, the more I read about it.

No, the real reason was all about something that happened at work. And I’m going to change names here, and it probably won’t even help, because if one of my fine colleagues somehow finds this blog, they’ll more than likely rehash it all again just because they feed on drama. But, whatever; life’s full of risks, right? I could get shit on by a seagull just walking to the bus stop, but I can't just stay in my apartment all day.

What happened was my boss started this name game thing on the white board in the alcove off the kitchenette. She does these things that are supposed to be motivational team builders, but two-thirds of them devolve into sniping and negativity. She should have learned before now that most of my co-workers just like to bitch about stuff. If you offered everyone there a 10 percent raise with the stipulation they could never complain about anything ever again, they’d rather take the 1.7 percent raise we all got last spring and maintain the right to whinge nonstop. Anyway, the name game thing was just meant to be fun and spark some creative thinking. She kicked it off with Pete Moss and Sandy Beach, and other people added their own. There were a few decent ones, like Rick O’Shea and Noah Fence. Then we worked our way down to the tier C stuff, like Sue Mee and June Bugg.

I stayed out of it, because I don’t usually participate in most motivational activities on principle. But some intellectually lazy slob wrote down Haywood Jablomey and Ben Dover, which on top of being tired, worn-out, silly name clichés, are also not all that appropriate for an office. I think I know who wrote it, too, because I said something about how lame it was and this guy Brian goes, “Well, where’s yours if you think you’re so clever?” I happened to get in early the next morning, because the bus was on time for once, and I thought, fine, I’ll add a couple. I wrote Mike Raphone and Lou Kemia. Well, Mike Raphone was a hit, no doubt. I kind of hung back by the coffee pot when I saw a couple people reading the board, just to see their reactions. They liked Mike. Lou, on the other hand, holy crap, you’d have thought I had written down, “P. Niss” or “I hope you all get cancer” or something. This one woman, Helen Figgins-Crabbe, just wouldn’t shut up about it. Like “Lou Kemia” is the most offensive joke anyone could ever tell in an office. Okay, it wasn’t a home run, but it wasn’t Ben Dover, either.

Someone posted something about it on Facebook that night. (Against my better judgment, I was Facebook friends with a bunch of people from the office. People with whom I’d never, ever hang out outside of work. But they send friend requests and you feel like a dick if you ignore it, so you just accept it so no one thinks you’re an asshole.) The original post wasn’t really a big deal. It was just something like, “How do you know when the name game has run its course? When Al Bukirkee makes his appearance.” No one had actually used that name, so she wasn’t picking on anyone. I then, for some stupid reason, decided to add a comment. I said, “When Lou Kemia arrives, you’ll know the fat lady is tuning up.” I meant the “fat lady” as in the old saying, “it ain’t over ‘til the fat lady sings,” which everyone in the world has heard of a million times. Yet stupid Helen Figgins-Crabbe jumped all over it, like it was some slanderous reference against her appearance. Yeah, she’s a bit on the plump side, but that had nothing at all to do with my comment. And if she wasn’t trying to act offended, she would never draw such a conclusion. But she was and she did. And not only did she make a comment on my comment (I wasn’t friends with her, but we were both friends with the original poster), she printed the whole string out and gave it to my boss the next day. I got called in, and even though my boss seemed to accept my explanation (because she’s not a complete moron), she still called a staff meeting to talk about appropriate communication inside and outside the workplace.

Everyone knew about the comments and counter-comments, even though they weren’t directly referenced in the meeting. I just sat there and didn’t say anything the whole time. I was too busy wishing Helen would get hit by a delivery droid or a falling star or something else spectacularly painful. And that night when I got home from work, I deleted my account. First I was just going to unfriend everyone I work with, but then I figured that would somehow spark some new controversy, so I just killed the entire thing. I only wish I could have gone back in time and uninvented Facebook in the first place. We’d all be better off.