Home Business Psychology: Conspiracy Theories

(This is Jack, expressing his serious reservations about a Jolly Jumper. He was right to be concerned — they were recalled about a week after this photograph was taken. See? Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not after you.)

Moving on.

Working from home makes you crazy. If you have a blog with subscribers, you’ll know that this weekend, Feedburner messed up. It looks like they stopped aggregating Google feed readers, meaning that everyone’s subscriber count went down 30-70%. Darren at Problogger had a drop from 30,000 to 14,000. Crazy things, people.

Of course, much of the blogosphere was abuzz about this. (Hey! Spell check didn’t catch “abuzz”! Is that a real word?) Personally, my subscribers dropped 64%. What follows would make a good Moral Of The Story post, but I just did one. You should check it out. You’ll laugh. You’ll cry. (Okay, you’ll laugh. I’ll cry.)

Anyway, back to Feedburner.

If you’ve been paying attention, which I don’t recommend, you’ll know that the Great Subscriber Crash of ’07 took place about eight hours after I first used the word “slut” on my blog. Imagine what went through my head. No, don’t bother. I’ll tell you.

“Do you think it’s because I said ‘slut’? Are people really that conservative? Maybe I should tone it down a bit. But if I tone it down a bit, I won’t be being myself. I don’t want subscribers who don’t like me for who I am. Then again, I want to write a book. I want people to buy it. I don’t care who they are. Am I pissing off the Bible belters? Should I blog about this? It would be a cool story. But do I really want people to know I lost all those subscribers? What if it’s like the Broken Window Syndrome? What if the rest of them find out the first crop left and then they leave too?”

Actually, to be honest, that didn’t go through my head. It went through my mouth, into my poor husband’s ears. And of course, today everything is fine.

Here’s my theory.

When you work in an office or a hospital or on a construction site, you are surrounded by other people who give you perspective. If you’re freaking out about something, chances are someone has been there, done that. There’s always going to be a full spectrum of people with various theories and points of view. You can hang out and gossip until you know the facts.

(This is a bonus, barely relevant picture of my oldest son, Michael. We don’t put a lot of pictures of him up because of the whole pedophile thing. Anyway, here he is pointing out the ass end of a hedgehog. You may want to rethink your big plan of homeschooling. That makes you crazy, too.)

When you have a home business, there’s no-one to gossip with. There’s no-one to bounce your ideas off. There’s no-one to calm you down. All you’ve got is you and your paranoid delusional stream of consciousness.

So what’s the solution, Miss Whiny Pants?

Get a life, even if it’s just a virtual one. Find people to hang out with, even if it’s just over email. Shane IMed me yesterday about the subscriber issue and I’d already heard about it. I told him what was going on and all was well. Shane is smarter than I am. He got off his ass instead of sitting around freaking like a spaz. I’m sure his wife, Julie, is happier with him than Jamie is with me right now.

Bonus Moral of the Story: It’s Not All About You. Or Me.

The whole internet isn’t going to crash just because I said “slut”. Oh, and by the way? Slut slut slut slut slut slut slut slut slut.

Slut.

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By Naomi Dunford