The personal and professional and other false dichotomies

The "We googled you" reading does a nice job of highlighting a couple of my own pretty routine internal debates. First, I struggle with the division of what happens in a person's personal and professional life. Often times I would like to think that those are two separate categories but I am generally more apt to believe that the division is artificial; much of what I do in either area of my life impacts or is impacted by the other area. If in my personal life I do something that demonstrates that I make ethically and morally bankrupt choices I am not sure that I should have a job teaching college students. Although I can easily understand that not all choices indicate a lack of ability to do one's job. Second, I think many people have a difficult time dealing with the changing dimensions of what is public and what is private. It seems that less and less is actually private information anymore - for better or worse cameras, recording devices, satellites, the internet, etc. have all impacted what is considered public. When I hear someone say that their private information was taken from facebook or the University directory I am inclined to respond that when that information was put on a website it was no longer private. I think it would be interesting to hear how Mimi responds to this scenario. So, would I hire her? Probably. Anyone I hire is going to have some dirt on them - it is only a matter of time and searching ability before it is found. When we did the searches the first day of class the person searching me kept saying how professional I was and how there was no good dirt on me and anyone that knows me very well at all would probably assure you that they didn't find anything good due to lack of searching not due to the lack of existence.