Online doesn't mean forever

Make sure you have access to any information you'll need

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning,
This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
tip is that online doesn't mean forever. So if there
is content online that you will need in the future,

(00:23):
save it somewhere you are sure you will be able
to access it. So I know a lot of young
people are warned that online is forever. That mildly obscene
comment you left on a social media post as a
teenager could be found by a potential employer when you
are job hunting at thirty. It is a sobering realization.

(00:49):
But unfortunately, if embarrassing things last, sometimes useful stuff disappears.
For various reasons. It turns out that online isn't forever
for every thing. For instance, I keep reading stories of
people who got fired or laid off from their jobs
and can't access stuff on their work server or in

(01:10):
their work email that is actually personal. Obviously, it is
awful to lose a job. It adds to the awfulness
if you can't access your eyeglasses prescription, or your finance spreadsheet,
or your Christmas card list, or the presentation you are
giving at that industry conference or that wonderful recommendation letter

(01:31):
your mintor wrote for you, but you are just keeping
as an attachment to the work email where he sent it. Yikes.
One can debate the merits of homing from work, as
the saying goes, but a lot of information workers do
personal things on their lunch breaks, with the result that
the info is on the work computer. Being fired or

(01:55):
laid off may not be avoidable, but losing access to
your personal files is. Even if you don't have a
personal computer and use your work computer for everything, it
is wise to save your files in a place you
will always have access to them. One simple option is
Google Drive, with a drive attached to your personal email,

(02:15):
of course, and not your work email. It's pretty easy
to get a personal email account these days. If you
don't have one, you can do this. That brings me
to a related point. Some people use their work email
address for everything. There are plenty of reasons not to
do that, but I realize a lot of people do.
If you are one of them, be sure there aren't

(02:37):
any personal messages you may need access to in the
future that you can only access through your work email account.
One option is just to see your personal email on
messages you send and forward messages you receive to your
personal account. That way, even if you primarily send and
receive messages from your work account, you will have them

(02:57):
available in your personal email account too. Now, to be clear,
I'm talking about making sure you have personal access to
personal content. I am not suggesting that you save work
documents to your personal server or forward work emails to
your personal account, especially if there are any security issues involved.
But that note from your mentor needs to be available

(03:18):
if you are suddenly escorted out of your office and
you want to use that note to help you land
another job. Not only do you want to be prepared
if you lose access to work servers or email to
ensure you can still get access to your personal things,
it's also wise to be prepared if important web content
gets taken down. For instance, if you apply for a job,

(03:41):
save the job description. You don't want to find yourself
preparing for an interview but unable to review the job
description because it's no longer posted. If you cite an
internet source and a work document or even on your
personal blog, capture it somehow, even as a screen shot
or something like that, so if you or someone else

(04:01):
needs to refer to the source in the future, you can.
It is convenient to keep links on file for pages
you'll want to return to, but don't count on a
weblink working for you forever. It might go behind a paywall,
or the site will get acquired and the new owners
will take it in a different direction. In other words,

(04:22):
it is wise not to count on online being forever.
If you'll need something, save it somewhere you'll be able
to get to it. Then that will be one last
thing to worry about. In the meantime, this is Laura.
Thanks for listening, and here's to making the most of

(04:44):
our time. Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast. If you've
got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach me at
Laura at Laura VANDERCAMD. Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia.

(05:09):
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