A few days ago, I was sitting with my daughter at the school district office and we were filling out forms on the computer. This is going to be her first time in a public school as I have been homeschooling my three kids. We just wanted to give them the opportunity, or maybe better to say experience, to be in a US public school. Tons of paperwork and most of it seemed unneeded. I was getting tired of answering questions. I have three kids so I knew that everything would need to be done three times. Tiring.
We came across questions about what kind of work I do and where I work. It asked for work and daytime phone numbers in the emergency contact information. I thought it was just a bit intrusive to be asking for parent employers among other information in an area that had nothing to do with emergency contacts. I was just shaking my head.
It seems like government offices, and even private businesses, ask for information that they seemingly have no reason to be asking. It serves no legitimate purpose but they ask for it and store it in their databases anyways. It feels very intrusive and most people just answer it anyways because that’s what the forms ask.
It’s like the receipt checkers at the Walmart door. People happily show their receipts, often without the receipt checker even asking them. Never mind that the receipt checker only has legal authority to demand a receipt when they have reasonable suspicion that a person has stolen merchandise (Shopkeeper’s Privilege). People just show them anyways. People have gotten to where they accept the intrusion as normal and don’t want to be the person who doesn’t go along like everyone else.
I’m a bit different. I’m the guy who walks through without offering my receipt. I’m very rarely asked and when I am asked, I politely ask, “Hmm, do you think I stole something?”
100% of the time they say no. And I carry on my way. No stress and no getting upset.
Which brings us back to the forms. I like teaching my kids that they don’t have to always comply but they also need to always be polite and considerate of others. I decided that I would just write “Prefer Not To Divulge” on anything I didn’t feel like disclosing or didn’t feel like they had a legitimate need for. Simple. It’s polite and considerate and I am not saying no. I am just saying that I prefer not to. If they can articulate a good reason why they need it then I have no problem providing it. And a good reason isn’t: It’s on the form.
It really sums up an important element of my life and what I’m trying to do so when it came time to relaunch some blogs and get back into blogging, I felt PNTD was a great acronym describing what I am doing as a lost and peripatetic American.
This described why PNTD but why use a .ch domain? Well, PNTD.com is taken. All 4 letter domains in .com were taken years ago. The .org and .net domains were available but they aren’t very interesting and as a peripatetic, I don’t know where I’ll be one or two or three years from now. I started looking at top level domains and disregarded the ones that were designed to make money. I looked at several different top level domains but .ch for Switzerland hit me. Yes it’s Europe, but it’s got an international and privacy reputation that goes well with Prefer Not To Divulge.
So there you have it. That’s why the site is named as it is.
And the photo on this post? Just a random photo of a train station in Switzerland that I found on Wikipedia.