Friday, October 1, 2010

It’s Been a While, Working Girls

A long long while.

This post has been sitting in the back of my head for months and months. There were a few attempts to type it out and few moments that I thought were right to share it. But they never were. Now, is the right moment for me. I am no longer working at the company I blogged about on an almost daily basis (no, I am not sharing that story), so I feel like it’s time to share why I stopped blogging almost a year ago.

Let me begin with why WG2 and I started Working Girl. In college, we had a dream to start our own magazine. We had a name, a concept and even a sales pitch. Well, at least we thought it was a sales pitch at the time. Having worked in sales and marketing, I now know it was not. It was more like two giddy girls blabbing about their dream to anyone who would listen. Once we graduated and started working, WG2 and I were completely lost. We didn’t know how to find an apartment, how to handle co-workers and bosses, we didn’t know much about the working world.

So, Working Girl was born. Our intention with Working Girl were to take our experiences and create informative posts that would be helpful to other Working Girls out there. We always knew we’d take an anecdotal approach because it’s fun to read and easy to relate to. But at some point, most of our posts became the story of our day-to-day lives at work. This was all fine and good, when NO ONE read our blog.

Then we became a Blogger Blog of Note and things got crazy, people all over were reading Working Girl but still its was only about 2,000 hits a day. There is no way someone would read a post and know it was one of us, we thought.

Well, we thought WRONG!

We never posted the names of the companies for which we worked or the names of our coworkers. But we always truthfully shared our point of view of our lives. Which got this Working Girl in trouble. One day, this girl wrote about how someone left the company and then she was promoted.

I’m not sure exactly how it happened I believe it went something like this: someone read the posts and thought something like “that sounds like my friend who left that company,” told that friend. That friend read the blog put a lot of pieces together and discovered that she knew Working Girl One. She told someone in the office who told someone else in the office and before I knew it, my entire department knew about Working Girl and that I was Working Girl One. Yeah, everyone.

For days and weeks, I thought I was going to be confronted about it. But I never was. I tried to keep blogging, without all my anecdotes, but it never felt right. I always felt like I was being watched or judged by what I wrote and while I wasn’t ashamed (ok fine, I did delete a few posts that I regretted posting on the information super highway), it didn’t feel right.

Finally, I just gave up. I stopped blogging, I stopped tweeting. And it broke my heart. In the short time we had been blogging, it became a HUGE part of who we were. It was something we discussed everyday, thought about everyday and did everyday. When I stopped blogging, I felt a little lost.

In the last year, there have been so many things I’ve wanted to share. Everything from reviews of The Rachel Zoe Project and The City to things I’ve learned and experiences I’ve gone through. And I think I’m ready to start sharing again, but perhaps with a little more caution this time. :-)

I don’t know that I’m back for good, but I’m back for a little while and I feel like I’ve gotten a little piece of myself back.

14 comments:

Katie said...

You've definitely been missed!!! So hope you're back for good ~ and never stop sharing your stories. They were relatable because they were real. But, maybe delaying them a week or three might help to ward off the office stalkers ;)

Anonymous said...

WELCOME BACK, Working Girl One! I started reading Working Girl because of the personal day-to-day stories. It was like reading a reality TV show! I can only imagine how difficult it must have been for you to step away from WG for so long, but we truly hope that you're back for good. I feel like good things are in the future for Working Girl and I'm excited to read what's in store.

Arielle said...

Oh man, as someone who has also dealt with blog posts causing more trouble than you originally intended, I totally feel you on how much it sucks to go away from blogging and to learn to restrain yourself in your writing. But I got back on the horse and clearly so are you, so..good for you =)

Anonymous said...

Well I'm glad you're back. Whatever happens, I'll keep reading!

MARY IN SCOTLAND said...

SOOOOO glad that you are back!!

I wanna know what happened at the company, but I totally understand you not saying on the blog.

I love Working Girl! I felt like part of the working girl community and didn't have to wonder if I was going through the same things that other working girls were!!

Can't wait for more posts!

Jess P said...

I was just wondering what had happened to you! I'm glad you're ok but sucks about everyone at your job finding out who you are. Hope we can hear more from you.

Luna said...

glad you're back. i always love reading anything thats posted on here. whether informative, fun, or just tidbits of this and that. i relate to it b/c i'm a working girl too. hope you're back for good.

Rebekah said...

SO glad you're back! You and WG2 are my favorites because the blog was yours.

Anonymous said...

Thank goodness, you are back!! I believe I can echo everyone's thoughts (or comments) regarding your blog. You and working girl 2 made this blog. It has kind of lacked since you two have handed it over. And again, as everyone said, we liked the realness of it because it is reality. It is work! ANyway, look forward to more of your posts!

Amy said...

I'm glad you're back too :)

B said...

I was just thinking (reading the 2 posts from today) about how the blog has evolved. I found you when you were the blog of note and loved the concept (as I had just entered the working girl world, myself :).
By adding more perspective, you can really see how much those of us in our twenties (and everyone, really) have to consider when it comes to our profession - how we choose to spend the majority of our time. What's good one year is not good enough or not what we want the next.

I had been gone from reading my blogs for a few months when I came back and found MORE working girls. I liked the addition, but there was that bit of shock - who ARE these girls?! I don't know them. Not that I knew (and still don't "know" you and WG2) but we got a sense of who you are.

I've also struggled with what to share online and who sees it. My Twitter account has gone public/private a million times and back. I've slowly started letting REAL people (ie people I know-know) read Finding Bliss. But what do I share. What's the line? At some point, what you share should be about who you are. And the more you're comfortable with that, the easier it is to share who you are (even if it's silly and not 100% work-friendly).
At least, I think so. And I'm still working on it!

B said...

Whoops. Sorry for the novel.

Working Girl One said...

Thanks for all the love! I'm so excited to be back!

Marie said...

This is a very timely post because I have been seriously considering starting a blog, but am concerned about privacy issues. I was thinking trying to be somewhat anonymous (like WG1) would be a good move, but it seems like that might not even be enough! How does everyone decide what to write/not write about? Thanks for your advice.