I’ve looked up my coworkers’ names to find their resume or projects that they have uploaded, and I would look up job applicants to see if they really did the things they claimed to have done. If I went further than that and, for example, searched for their usernames or email addresses to see if they reused those anywhere spicy then I would be rude and creepy but the fact of the matter is that your name is not a secret. People can easily see anything associated with it online so if you’re doing something you wouldn’t do in public then you should use a pseudonym. (That’s why I think laws that threaten online anonymity are so problematic.)
It’s not that I think online stuff isn’t public or isn’t that easy to find, is more that it feels like a different context than the context of one’s job, for most jobs anyway, and so to me at least, even if one sees it, if feels unprofessional to me to care about finding something as mundane as sexual stuff. Isn’t like it’s a sign of hurting people or something. I do prefer to use a pseudonym, sure, but for reasons unrelated to professionalism. Granted, my line of work isn’t one where an individual’s personal projects would be very relevant, so perhaps the idea of searching up one’s coworkers feels more strange to me than it would for someone in like software or something.
I’ve looked up my coworkers’ names to find their resume or projects that they have uploaded, and I would look up job applicants to see if they really did the things they claimed to have done. If I went further than that and, for example, searched for their usernames or email addresses to see if they reused those anywhere spicy then I would be rude and creepy but the fact of the matter is that your name is not a secret. People can easily see anything associated with it online so if you’re doing something you wouldn’t do in public then you should use a pseudonym. (That’s why I think laws that threaten online anonymity are so problematic.)
It’s not that I think online stuff isn’t public or isn’t that easy to find, is more that it feels like a different context than the context of one’s job, for most jobs anyway, and so to me at least, even if one sees it, if feels unprofessional to me to care about finding something as mundane as sexual stuff. Isn’t like it’s a sign of hurting people or something. I do prefer to use a pseudonym, sure, but for reasons unrelated to professionalism. Granted, my line of work isn’t one where an individual’s personal projects would be very relevant, so perhaps the idea of searching up one’s coworkers feels more strange to me than it would for someone in like software or something.