Cameron Barrett

Cameron Barrett makes his living on the Internet, but his hobby is writing fiction, which he publishes on his personal website, maintained on his own time, with his own hardware and software, and hosted by a commercial ISP. While he was working at a marketing firm, he mentioned his website to co-workers. They read his fiction. They complained about it. Barrett was fired. The firing was legal.

He quickly found another Internet job, but his firing is a cautionary tale for anyone with a personal website. Barrett believes technology played a role in his firing, and that his fiction would not have been an issue had his colleagues found it in a magazine. Paul Schindler spoke to Barrett and asked him how fiction cost him his job -- as well as what advice he had for others.

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Job
Interactive designer. By agreement, cannot reveal the name of his present employer.

Home
Ann Arbor, Mich.

Family
Single

Education
BA in Visual Communication from Northwestern Michigan University. Studied creative writing and telecommunications management at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Mich.

First Computer
Either an Apple IIe or a Commodore PET was the first one I used. It was one of those old ones you had to program with BASIC. The first one I owned was an IBM 8080 with a 40-megabyte hard drive.

Optimistic Statement About The Internet
I believe the Internet will be the future of communications. It is going to be what television was to the 50s.

Pessimistic Statement About The Internet
I am one of the first people to run across this social phenomenon [being fired for personal writing published on the Web]. I handled it OK, I just want to put it behind me. There are going to be isolated cases the media will take and turn into this big sensationalistic piece of crap.