The Gulp Factor

The Cranky Product Manager has had writer's block for the past two weeks. Please excuse her lack of posts. But she has a really good reason... swear!

Here's the scoop... While the Cranky Product Manager is on the one hand totally delighted by the massive increase in visitors to this site (largely thanks to the shout-out from the FeaturePlan Product Management View blog), on the other hand SHE'S COMPLETELY FREAKED OUT.  And this has caused writer's block -- BIG TIME!

Being an undeniable egomaniacal narcissist, the Cranky Product Manager was at first elated by the traffic spike. "I am just SO fantastic," she muttered to herself at all hours of the day and night. "By Golly, this proves once and for all that I am the shizzle... That's right, the SHIZZLE, hot damn!"

No denying, it was a fun time.

But, as the saying goes, it's all fun until someone loses an eye. Or a job. Or a career. Or has some creepy dude cyberstalking her.

The first "gulp" moment was when someone in the Cranky Product Manager's "real life" unknowingly urged The Cranky PM to visit her own site.

The second gulp was when she finally read the 30 or so emails from blog readers and realized a few of these poor souls took her posts quite literally.  Naive, young pups. They actually believed she once threatened to apply a can opener to the torso of a development manager. But perhaps more dangerously, many of these folks had the impression her real-life company was overrun with incompetents, which -- for the record -- is patently false. The Cranky Product Manager's real-life company is a fantabulous place to work with Mensa geniuses in all departments and products that are masterworks of art, by God.

And finally, the third gulp was from reading the small fraction of emails that were just downright freaky or perverted.

As expected, there were immature comments about the Cranky Product Manager's posterior photo. Whatever. Working in a 90% male nerd-dominated environment for 10-20 years trains one to ignore such tripe.

More disturbing, though, were the emails from Creepy Dude. He began by asking the Cranky Product Manager is she is staying in <Insert City Here> because Creepy Dude has a extra bed in his hotel room that was guaranteed bed bug free. Ha, ha. How inappropriately "funny." But then it got really icky when Creepy Dude asked far too many identifying questions and then became downright hostile and making freakin' scary threats when the Cranky Product Manager refused to answer.

Without a doubt, the Cranky Product Manager is partially to blame for this uptick in creepiness -- after all, her post on technology analysts is a top match for Google searches on streetwalkers and their ilk. But still. Kinda unsettling.

So, to sum up, three gulps is WAY too many. They've stopped the Cranky Product Manager in her blogular tracks. Every time she started a post, she'd freeze with worry of being discovered by a colleague, that her stories would reflect poorly on her as a professional and would drag down her real-world reputation forever, or that she'd reveal personal details that might give some unbalanced John Karr-type entree into her real-world life.

All legit fears. But she thinks she's found a solution that entails some changes to this here blog. You'll see.

The Cranky Product Manager will provide more details in a few days, so stay tuned...