Get it together people

Stop doing stupid stuff. First of all, if you have a myspace or facebook page with pictures of you binge drinking and getting naked for friends, you will not get a job. I shouldn’t have to elaborate on this. It is the information age. Everyone goes online for everything. Do not be fooled. If you are a candidate for a position at any agency or a potential graduate applicant, the folks in charge are potentially going to Google your name in all variations: first and last, with quotations, middle initials, and aliases to determine what type of person they’re inviting into their team.

Secondly, stop videotaping yourself doing stupid stuff. Videotapes are, by far, the most reliable forms of evidence that exist in the criminal justice system. If you are caught on video exploiting yourself, I can almost guarantee that someone else has a copy. And now, with convenient information portals such as YouTube, your videos can be viewed, in rotation, nationwide.

Third, stop letting your boyfriends/girlfriends take inappropriate pictures of you for their “own person use.” Digital cameras are the norm, which means that those pictures are backed up on other files, and computer ready. As soon as you make your boyfriend/girlfriend angry or the two of you break up, inappropriate pictures are no longer sacred. Here’s a natural fact: you never know the negative potential of a significant other until the breakup. He/she may have said that he/she would never disrespect you, but during breakups, the gloves are off, and all is fair.

Forth, stop stealing from work. You will lose your job. You think it’s ok to use the company credit card for extraneous purchases now, but your supervisors are not stupid. You may think that random thefts from your office are untraceable, but when things come up missing and you were the only one there, 2 and 2 still make 4. Now is not a time to be unemployed. People are losing their jobs left and right and if you lose yours because of something stupid, that’s just stupid.

Due to the intuitive nature of these issues, it would seem that I would not have to dedicate an entire blog to advising people not to do stupid stuff. But from adolescent girls videotaping themselves committing battery, to reputations being destroyed over sex tapes/nude photos, to politicians getting fired over sex scandals, to giant corporations going bankrupt and CEOs committing suicide because they chose to rob the public, there is clear evidence of a need to remind people to stop doing stupid stuff. You will get caught. You will suffer the consequences. Get it together people.