That’s one of the things you say when you talk to the public through a new technology.

I don’t remember if my blog started that way. But it may well have.

The point is, my blog started. And it continued to address the world for years.

Until 2010.

The blog didn’t stop in 2010, but my employer began to stalk it and behave in threatening ways until I felt the best way to keep my job was to shut down my blog.

It was against company policy for them to threaten me in that way.

When I said Hello World, the world got to respond.

It responded with power. My employer, or people my employer employed, abused their power and used it to bully me into silence.

I have always been careful about what I say on my blog. I would not talk about my work in a way that would damage it.

However.

There are times when anything you say can and will be used against you.

At that time, when an anonymous person from my employer was looking at my blog every day, in addition to how I was treated on the job, I knew they were looking for a way to torture me. Ironic, because they had every legal right to fire me. Anytime they wanted. That’s how employment works.

But I think the people who were in power didn’t have *quite* that much power.

That’s also how employment works.

So, one or more people were working to build a case to…damage me.

Like a cat toying with a mouse.

I hated how they were bullying me at work. But I most hated that they were taking away my speech.

I know how free speech works.

They were not taking it away. They were breathing their hot halitosis breath down my back to say they could use it against me.

I could have kept saying whatever i wanted.

I did talk to a lawyer.

In the end, I decided my free speech was worth less than my job.

I rolled up like an armadillo. I went underground.

The world is a big place. There are a lot of ways to say hello.