Blankbaby on the front page of the Inquirer

I can finally talk about the big news I hinted at early in the week.

If you are in the Philly area, or someplace where you can buy the Philadelphia Inquirer, I suggest you pick up today's (Sunday August 21st) issue. Why would I suggest that? Mostly because I'm on the front page.

Below the fold, sure, but on the front page nonetheless. Now, I tend not to blog about work, but you will notice the article is entitled 'Your blog may get you recruited - or terminated,' and it is all about how Blankbaby, in part, was responsible for me getting my current job (which I detail here).

How did the Inquirer find me? Well, I would like to say that Stacey Burling found Blankbaby on her own, but Karl pointed her to me (thanks, Karl!). She called me and we chatted for about 20 minutes about my blog, my job, and how they intersect. I got the feeling that she really wanted to write about people losing their jobs because of their blogs, not getting ahead, so I figured they wouldn't use my story.

Stacey emailed me the next day and asked if she could talk to my boss and if I would be willing to get my picture taken. Terry said he would talk to my 'reporter lady friend,' as he called her and I agreed to have my picture taken.

Monday night I came home to a message from the photographer. He called to confirm the time of the 'shoot' as well as ask me to wear a suit or a tie. Normally I wear Hawaiian shirts and shorts to work, so I didn't really want to get my picture taken in a photo which would imply that I wore a suit to work everyday, plus I didn't have any clean dress shirts (they're all dry clean only). I called the Jonathan back and told him that I didn't have any clean shirts and he asked, "Well, what were you planning on wearing?" to which I replied, "A Hawaiian shirt."

He said, "I guessed you might say that."

We agreed that I could wear what I wanted, Jonathan then said, "Ok, so you wear glasses and you're kinda stout, right?"

I'm not stout (I am fat, of course, but I'm also tall so stout it out as a descriptive for me), but for some reason I agreed with him and that was the end of that conversation.

The next day I went to the Inquirer building, which is a maze, and met with Jonathan and Stacey. Jonathan took a bunch of pictures of me standing in front of a wall with Blankbaby projected on it (if you want to see it check out page A15 of today's Inquirer. Tomorrow I will get a picture of it up here) and then I went home.

Stacey emailed me a few followup questions and told me that the article would be on the front page of the Business section this Sunday (most likely). As I sat here at around 1:30am I thought to myself, "I wonder if Wawa has Sunday's Inquirer and if I am in it." So I donned my shoes and walked to Wawa. Lo and behold they had the early edition of the Inquirer, so I paged to the business section where, sadly, I was no where to be found. I did buy the paper though since I had walked all the way over there to look at it. Good thing I did, since as I mentioned, my story wasn't on the front page of the Business Section at all, but rather on the front page of the paper (below the fold on the right had side), a fact I soon discovered as I sat down to read what I though was a Blankbaby-free paper.

It is late, so I will leave my reaction to the actual article for tomorrow, and hopefully by that time the article will be online so I can link to it.

Comments

[Jessica]

Congrats on making the front page of a major Philly paper! Sounds like a cute story.

[tangognat]

Wow, Congrats!

[Frank]

Scott, I was delighted to grab my Inquirer from the driveway this morning and see an article about...YOU! How cool. It's my brush with celebrity today...and living in the burbs, that's worth something. Seriously, it's a very good article and you sounded like you in the piece, which is good, because sometimes silly quotes get used rather than the good ones. Congrats, amigo. You are the king of all media today.

[Mark]

The picture is great, and it's funny, because that's how I like to read my Blankbaby - projected onto a wall at like 100:1 scale.

I propose that getting a job because of your blog from now on be refered to as being Blankbabied. It would be the opposite of being Dooced, "you hear the news about Joe? He got Blankbabied because of his blog."

Congrats.

[Terrence Ryan]

It's a good article, I don't think that we'll ironically get fired for it.

[C.K. Sample, III]

I just posted about this on STW, but the bastardly trackback didn't work properly. Anyway, congrats and good for you!

[Frat Boy "A"]

This is great! Congratulations. Unfortunately for us out-of-towners, the online version of the story does not include pictures.

[Thad]

Awesome!

I'm running into Frat Boy "A"'s problem as well. Luckily, I have a Philly-area relative who I'm sure will save the front page and page A15 for me.

Still, I'm a little bitter that the article didn't mention what a great influence I've been on you and Blankbaby, Scotty! *humph* Journalism today!

[Thad]

I can't believe nobody's mentioned this yet: I would say this secures your spot as Philadelphia's Most Influential Blogger!

[Dave]

Congrats! I put up a crappy camera phone picture of your picture for those without a copy of the paper.

[Nick]

Congrats! Philly's most influential blogger by far.

[Jason]

Congrats! I read it there, online, before hearing about it here, even though I am a past visitor.

One step closer to a movie about blogging, like "You've Got Mail"...

[howard]

Way to go, bro! I was disappointed to see that the online version has no photo, but the article's pretty solid, nonetheless.

Looks like I'm going to have to trudge out and pick up the paper from the driveway after all ...

[Sarcasmo]

I fully support the proliferation of "Blankbabied" as the antonymn to "dooced".

Grats, Scott.

[Becky]

Scott, I haven't bought the Sunday Inquirer for years, and for some reason I had an urge to pick up today's edition. And there you were on the front page! How cool! Congrats!

[Matt]

No less than three members of my family told me about this article today, Scott. Great stuff. Congrats!

[Karl]

Don't thank me man :) Thank you. Kick ass and an informative article to boot.

[patricia]

This is freakin' fabulous news. Congratulations!!!

And I wanna be 'Blankbabied'!!!

[albert]

congrats scott! but no link from the online article? boo.