Yesterday, we commented on how unfazed we were by the privacy-diminishing actions of Facebook. Today, though, we had our own moment of internet-induced privacy-paranoia.
As regular followers know, YNSHC teaches at a community college. Community as in "public." Tosay, we discovered that this idea of "public" extends to areas we hadn't thought about-- specifically, our salary. We suppose that, if we had thought about it, we would have realized that employee salaries at public institutions are as much a matter of public record as any other budgetary line item. Still, we were shocked to open our e-mail this morning and find a letter from a colleague, addressed to the whole college community, and containing a link to a county-budget webpage. There, in descending order by total compensation, was a list of every single county employee! Including, of course, us.
Are we hypocritical in feeling somewhat violated by this posting of what is, after all, public information about our private life, even while we critique others for privacy concerns? Do we contradict ourselves? Very well, we contradict ourselves.
It's just that salary seems an inappropriately intimate topic to be spied upon by strangers--or, even worse, by people who are not quite strangers, but not quite close companions either. It's like seeing people you have a passing relationship with in their underwear, only not as much fun.
All we can say is, we're glad this list came out at the end of the year, when everyone is packing up and scattering for the summer. And we would like to be given the option next year of posing in our underwear rather than having our most intimate secrets revealed.
I sympathize, O Hypocritical One! Didn't you know that it's okay to be hypocritical? How many of us post our income online? Well, other than whining about how little income we have. All I ask is that you try to avoid the pitfall of many young, aspiring teachers and NOT do the underwear thing!
ReplyDeleteIt is of continuing fascination to me that, as a society, we have grown (shrunk?) to where we have no qualms about discussing our sex lives, our diseases, our bodily functions, yet we sti maintain our unease at discussing money in genera and salaries specifically. Rumour has it (and she'd best get rid of it) that the MPAA will soon add a new rating. In addition to an "R" for "Smoking", there will be an NC17 for "mentions earning capacity"... but that may be just a rumour.
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