talbotlucas.org: a word to the wise is sufficient

I used to think (and sometimes still do) that my ideal job would be truth-teller. The person who, when the author screams about how every person in the publishing house is an idiot because their book didn't make the best-seller list, sits down with the author and says no, we actually did things right this time. Your work didn't find an audience, and might not have an audience beyond those 300/3,000/30,000 people who bought the book. And here's why. Or the shoe could be on the other foot: the company screwed up, and here's how. No drama, just a clear assessment of what actually happened, unhampered by excuses and whining and finger-pointing.

So it was with some delight that I came across Vent: The Portal of Truth. In some of the posts, and more generally, some of the categories, there's a lot of drama, but that's expected when people are venting about marriages/relationships/friendships gone sour, or deep disappointment. Or not so deep, like the person who felt the need to vent their frustration over a classmate who might not be familiar with the practice of tooth-brushing. Eeew.

Some of the posts aren't pleasant, but I have to wonder if venting--even if it's on an anonymous web site--is better than carrying around all that bile. It reminds me a little of the Personals ads in the Chicago Reader long, long ago, where you'd find similar entries, published because the submitter felt compelled to say something, somewhere, to someone. If memory serves, the ads were free, so the only investment was your time and the cost of an index card on which you submitted your ad. (I just realized the Reader's Personals ads are now online. Great! I can get my Straight Dope and a little walk down memory lane...sometimes, the Web is grand.)

Back to (real) work...