Desensitivity training

[Steve Fouts <stefou -at- ESKIMO -dot- COM>]

Wow! Did I miss something here?

"Hamilton, Susan" <shamilton -at- metasolv -dot- com> wrote:
>
> One day last week, I posted a response to "'Splain me something...",
> and I included a reference to someone who sent a resume via email.
[snip]
> I ... returned to a mailbox of flames of people accusing
> me of being sexist and having something against heterosexuals, among
> other things.

I read this and started thinking, "That must have been some post." So
I jump to the TECHWR-L archives and read the post and it seems to me
that Ms. Hamilton's opinion was completely valid. See for yourself:

> I once got a resume sent by email. The
> automatic signature line had a link to the person's web site. Naturally,
> I went to look. The web site was full of the person's [sexual]
> adventures...
[snip]
> And there were plenty of pictures to prove it. Needless to
> say, that person doesn't work here.

If you send email to a prospective employer with an URL in it, it
is reasonable for that prospective employer to assume this is a pointer
to some of your work. I might write bawdy novels in my spare time.
This shouldn't be any concern of my employer, but if I include a
juicy chapter or two in my portfolio I shouldn't be too surprised
if I don't get many second interviews. It's not the fact that I write
bawdy novels that offends here, it is my appalling lack of judgement.

And for this Susan returned to a mailbox full of flames accusing her
of being sexist or heterophobic [gasp!]? I searched the TECWR-L archives
to see if any of Susan's past posts might have set some one off. No such
luck. There were a total of four. They were topical, well written, and
almost painfully polite.

I can only conclude that some of our gentle readers need to take some
desensitivity training. As writers we should be able to tell the
difference between constructive criticism and full frontal attack.
Geeze!

Steve [A straight white male that doesn't know whether he's more
appalled by all the male bashing or the fact that so much of it
is so richly deserved] Fouts


    _______________   _____
   /  ___  __/__\  \ /  / _\    Steve Fouts stefou -at- eskimo -dot- com
  /___ \|  |  ___\  |  /  __\   "There are too many flames, and too much
 /   /  \  |      \   /      \   to burn, and life's only made of paper."
/_______/__|_______\_/________\                   -- Ronald Padivona

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