The opinions expressed on this site do not represent those of my employer, family, friends, coworkers, or even myself.
Names have been changed to cover my butt.
Places and other entities have been pseudononymized to kick a little more dirt over my tracks. Some connections are pretty easy to make, others are not.
The events depicted, unless obviously surreal, are as real as I can make them while maintaining my privacy.
If I could, I would be as open as I possibly can. Once upon a time on a blog far, far away I got burned for it. A few select details can go along way towards giving out too much information.
When I decided to start Hit Coffee, I decided that it wasn’t going to happen again. Also, since I intended to post about work, that created a whole bunch of other issues and potential (reasonable) objections from any employer. I not only have myself to think about, but a significant other as well in a very privacy-centric occupation.
Eventually I decided that I was just going to fictionalize everything except the stories that I am telling. That way I wouldn’t have to worry about someone piecing together a kid from (to pull a random example) Tampa, Florida to Orem, Utah, working in a company with between 100-200 employees creating reports and legal documents.
It’s a bit extreme, but I’m paranoid. I’m less worried about people figuring out where I am now as I am about where I’m from. We’re moving to another town in about forteen months for post-residency fellowship, then after a year we’ll be settling down in a small town somewhere so that she can start a practice. If I continue doing this, every move is another indication. Even if I left it as Florida, Utah, add two more states to that and the puzzle has that many more pieces.
When I was writing my previous project and more and more people I knew had stumbled across the site, I had less and less to write about without worrying
about offending anybody. Eventually I was just taking quizzes and linking to what other people were saying and I stopped having fun.
Ironically, the fictionalization of my life allows me to be a heck of a lot more honest about it. I have gone to great lengths to make sure that every fictionalization is essentially true enough to tell my life as I have experienced it. If I wanted to write fiction, I’d write fiction.
My advice is to go with the flow. Accept my fictional locations as though they were real rather than trying to parse every comment to figure out which city Colosse is and whatnot. Stick around, comment awhile, get to know me, gain some trust and I may come clean with you about some of the details. But if you can look past Dixona and Deseret, Colosse and Gazelem, you’ll actually get a close look at me than do most people.