Confidentiality Erosion

Confidentiality seems to be eroding with all the different services encouraging people to remain in constant communication. Work/home lines are blurred as people have devices with them and are in steady communication, whether by text, twitter or social networking site, paying no attention as they leave home or work to whether their subject matter also transitions.

I'm not in a situation in which I have a texting device, and in fact, for all my phone envy, I use it as an actual phone only. I hope to keep my phone going for another year or so, failing that, will hope that my backup phone will work for me for a good, long time.

Because I don't text, I don't twitter. I also don't myspace, facebook or yaari, though I'm on Linked In. I have job description and accomplishments in my profile and post generally what I'm doing, but don't think I cross the confidentiality line by any stretch of the imagination.

I'll never be the one to get busted on You Tube; partly because I don't commit crimes, film myself or be filmed acting stupidly; these days, the newest category of which I've heard is medical school applicants whose Facebook photos are to their detriment.

My project periodically hammers home the idea of confidentiality to the utmost degree, which is fine as I've never considered mentioning more than just generally the type of law covered in the case. And patent law covers a lot of ground so no way of knowing the real subject.

Confidentiality

On the current review, they're very concerned about confidentiality. So much so that even after three months in they bring it up frequently. We know we're supposed to maintain confidentiality. We know that we can't talk to anyone in the other group or other firm employees about this project. We don't want to.

The project isn't that interesting that I'd have anyone who would bother listening to me blather on about it. I don't have a sufficient understanding of some of the material that it makes sense for me to talk about it; in any case, I wouldn't!

My objective is to get through each day without lapsing into a coma. I'm not always convinced I'm successful.

Chinese Walls! With Embroidered Dragons!

I'm lying about the dragons but the effort to retain confidentiality within each document review currently taking place on the floor is there. As previously mentioned, there is more than one group here. We're on the other side of the elevator bank and have a kitchenette to ourselves; we recently met the hospitality person who provides our supplies and she decided to give her phone number to each separate review group, and designate us by number so we may contact her directly when we're low on supplies. Otherwise it goes through a whole chain of people. Our group number is associated with the name of our minder so products are charged to the right group.

There's one restroom on each side of the elevator bank, and I lucked out in being on the same side as the restroom I use; those who need to travel to the other side must go through the elevator banks, which means carrying your key. One of the groups expanded last week, and as I see people walking around instead of going through, the new people must not have gotten that memo.

There are two groups on the other side, and when we started, we used their kitchenette and were told that we weren't allowed to talk to those people except in the kitchenette. They also pointed out tape lines on the floor indicating where you could get safe passage. If any of you shared a room with a sibling when you were younger, this might sound familiar. At one point I shared a room my sister and when we fought we divided the floor. Of course one of us got the door and the other was stuck by the window.

I feel fortunate not to have to follow the electrical tape to make way to my designated area. It's much better than needing to watch it, though I doubt people would wander to talk to others; we have to whisper when we talk and don't talk much.