WHEN Erica and Rob found out they were expecting, they were anxious to let the world know. So Rob opted to spread the word in an increasingly common way – he posted an announcement on his Facebook page.
The trouble was, Erica hadn’t told anyone at work yet – and Rob counted several of her colleagues among his “friends.”
“Needless to say, it would have been awkward if her boss had found out from her co-workers via his Facebook status,” notes Beth Murillo, an administrator in Erica’s Midtown office, who recounted the story about the pair (whose real names aren’t Erica and Rob).
Luckily for the parents to be, they wised up and took down the item before it hit the office grapevine. But they’d confronted a lesson many workers are learning as Facebook’s popularity booms. The social networking site can blur the line between one’s personal and professional lives in ways that present the occasional workplace dilemma, from coping with friend requests from a boss to having weekend party photos make the office rounds.
“Facebook is bringing a cultural clash between personal space and the work place,” says Diane Crompton, co-author of “Seven Days To Online Networking.”
“It’s sending a mixed signal – it’s definitely a public space serving as a private space.”
For Ellen Gerstein, that message hit home when she friended a higher-up in her company, and found it complicated her visits to the site during office hours.
“Since it puts the date and time next to your activities, I realized that if I spent time on there during her weekly phone meeting, she’d know I wasn’t paying attention,” says Gerstein, who works for a publishing company. “She’s talking about P/L reports, and you’re throwing sheep at your college roommate.”
Then there’s the privacy factor. Just as you may not want your colleagues knowing you’re joining fan groups for obscure metal bands during working hours, you might not be anxious for them to get a window into what you’re doing after you leave.
One intern at the US headquarters of Anglo Irish Bank learned this the hard way when he told his boss he’d be away from work for a few days due to a family emergency. When the boss discovered a Facebook photo revealing the intern had been at a Halloween party – dressed as a fairy, no less, with wand in hand – he attached the photo to his reply and copied colleagues; it ended up making the rounds on the Web.
For Maria, a 25-year-old strategist in Gramercy, the issue has surfaced in smaller ways – like when she RSVPs to a social event, and worries that co-workers who see it will get offended that she didn’t invite them.
“You can’t really hide anything,” she says.
Of course, you could just deny friend requests when they come from work colleagues. But it can be awkward, which points to another can of worms – the issue of whom to friend.
One 29-year-old manager says she felt obliged to accept when colleagues and clients started sending friend requests, even though she didn’t want to.
“I didn’t want work to cross over into my personal life. But how do you say no?”
And when the potential friend is the one who signs your paychecks, the issue can be particularly loaded.
“It definitely weirded me out,” says Rachel, 23, about the request she fielded from her 50-something boss.
“Here’s a woman I respect as my supervisor, and she’s scrounging for Facebook friends,” says Rachel, who works for a nonprofit. “Act your age.”
For Michelle, a Lower East Sider who works in television production, a bigger issue was giving her superiors a window into what’s she’s doing outside of work.
“I don’t need them seeing pictures of me getting sloshed on the weekends,” she says.
An even bigger concern is the way she uses the site to indulge in an age-old pastime: bitching about her job.
“Like, right now my status says ‘I’m bored, entertain me,'” she said on a recent workday. “That’s not something I really want my boss to see.”
For reasons like these, Kirsti Scott, owner of Scott Design Inc., makes a policy of not friending her employees.
“It feels weird,” she says. “It’s like being around when staffers plan a lunch out. They feel awkward asking you to join but don’t want to be rude, so they ask you, and then they’re stifled because you’re there.”
She recommends ignoring requests from your boss and if asked, just say, “I really prefer to keep my work and private lives separate.”
A general rule is that the online world should mirror the real world, says social media expert Dan Greenfield, of Bernaise Source Media. In other words, friending a boss “doesn’t work, and there has to be a certain line drawn.”
For Andrew Der, director of the research and consulting firm futurethink, the solution is to “compartmentalize people online as you would offline.”
He keeps Facebook for personal friends, while relying on LinkedIn to connect with colleagues. When someone he met at a conference recently tried to add him on Facebook, “I declined, but then I sent them a request through LinkedIn.”
Such issues aside, Facebook advocates note that it can offer advantages in the workplace as well as pitfalls. Sharon Nunes, vice president of IBM’s Big Green Innovations, says the site helps her stay connected with colleagues in India. Entertainment publicist Patrick Confrey calls it a valuable way to network and stay abreast of his industry, even if using it as a work tool means being diligent about managing his profile.
And it can have a positive effect on workplace interactions, says Liz Kupcha, a marketing director at an engineering firm. She says her relationship with a co-worker improved after they friended each other (“she was able to see my sonogram photos”), and notes that having insight into colleagues’ personal lives can be an icebreaker.
“Instead of asking, ‘How was your weekend?’ you could say, ‘How was the Yankee game?'”
And what about broadcasting to the office that you were involved in less wholesome pursuits?
“I follow the rule of not posting anything that I don’t want my mom or my boss to know.”
“It definitely weirded
me out”