Leaping ahead

Approximately none were kept on the edge of their seat wondering where the internship was and now I’ll say here in not so dramatic fashion that it’s Intel, and I did find out on Thursday that I got a summer internship that will start promptly after spring term (at least I think so, the only official bits I’ve got so far are an offer e-mail; still waiting for terms and things to sign and cups to pee in) and go till the beginning of fall term.

I’m a bit reticent to post a lot of real life bits here because I’m never sure who could be reading, both now and in the future. This website doesn’t show up in first few pages of Google results for a query on my name but it may some day, especially with a distinctive name that eliminates a lot of ambiguity. It be all except that my dad has the same first and last names and uses the Internet too, not that there’s anything of his that would cast a bad light on me, but we are two different people.

It’s not like I’m having wild adventures that I’m not posting here but it’s hard to figure out what could damage you some day. Articles like this one go over all the ways you could be hurting the future you:

But Googling people is also becoming a way for bosses and headhunters to do continuous and stealthy background checks on employees, no disclosure required. Google is an end run around discrimination laws, inasmuch as employers can find out all manner of information — some of it for a nominal fee — that is legally off limits in interviews: your age, your martial status, the value of your house (along with an aerial photograph of it), the average net worth of your neighbors, fraternity pranks, stuff you wrote in college, liens, bankruptcies, political affiliations, and the names and ages of your children. Former Delta Air Lines (dal.) flight attendant Ellen Simonetti lost her job because she posted suggestive pictures of herself in uniform on her “Queen of Sky” blog — even though she didn’t mention the airline by name. “We need Sarbanes and Oxley to come up with a Fair Google Reporting Act,” says Brian Sullivan, CEO of recruitment firm Christian & Timbers. “I mean, what the hell do you do if there is stuff out there on Google that is unflattering or, God forbid, incorrect?”

At least I came after the MySpace generation so I didn’t have as much of an opportunity to throw future prospects into question. The tech industry is more likely to be savvy about this stuff though so there’s still a potential to be boned.