by Maria Miaoulis

Created on: November 04, 2010   Last Updated: November 05, 2010

Unlike most people my age, I swore off all social networking sites for many years. I had no desire to share every detail of my life with people other than my family and close friends. But I eventually gave in and created a Facebook account in order to keep in touch with my cousins overseas. At first I felt like a kid in a candy store when I also reconnected with past classmates and acquaintances. However, I slowly realized the consequences of giving all these people (including co-workers) access to my profile.

I often feel like I’m held hostage on my Facebook account. Before I post anything, I always take a moment to decide who will see it. If I don’t foresee any problems, then I continue, otherwise I don’t. Of course with Facebook’s privacy settings you can control who looks at your profile, but what about mutual friends? What if you block a co-worker from viewing pictures of the club you partied at on Sunday night (which consequently led to your calling out sick Monday morning) but a mutual friend (who doesn’t work with you but was also there) happens to mention something to said person? What if the boss finds out?

You can cover your bases up to a point, but it’s fairly easy for any situation to get out of hand as you can see from above. Adding co-workers as friends on Facebook is certainly not worth the stress and trouble. You can avoid it altogether or at the very least minimize the damage as much as possible. Here are more reasons why it’s not a good idea friend your co-workers on Facebook:

-They’ll know your personal business:

It’s easy to blur the line between staying professional and getting casual. I’m not saying you shouldn’t be friendly and not interact with the people you spend a large part of your day with. Yet in giving your co-workers access to your life outside of work, they may learn things about your past. If you’re trying to turn your life around and are looking for a fresh start, he/she may be judging you by the person you used to be, not by your performance at the office.

-They read into every comment:

Ever have one of those days where nothing’s going right at work or you’re frustrated by an encounter you had with someone in your department. Whatever you do, don’t log on to Facebook and say anything. Co-workers will lose no time in ganging up on said person thereby spreading office gossip or running to management to tattle.

-You can’t lie:

Use common sense. If you call out sick one day, but really want to play hooky, don’t post pictures of where you were instead. If someone asks to hang out after work but you gracefully decline, don’t go online and ask if anyone’s free for the night. Be smart or else it could come back to haunt you.

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