Facebook is Not My Resume or Reference

By Lisa Fary

When it comes to drawing a line between work life and social media life, most employees aren’t the ones with the problem. It’s their employers who can’t handle it.

We had a short session on social media etiquette at a work conference recently, during which it was suggested that, if we use social media, we ought to remove friends that we don’t know personally and change our privacy (and search privacy) settings to Friends Only. Photos shouldn’t include cigarettes, alcohol, or suggestive poses. The last thing said on the topic was pretty much, “If you fear the boss seeing something, you shouldn’t be posting it.”

Now, sometimes the people we serve at my job can get curious about us and will search for us on Google, Facebook, MySpace, etc. I’m sure that these suggestions are to prevent them from finding objectionable teacher info. The fact that it was brought up at all indicates there had been at least one problem with it.

This kind of official/unofficial workplace suggestion isn’t uncommon, though. Some places have draconian policies on the topic and take action against violators. For instance, the Associated Press wants its employees to monitor their Facebook profiles to make sure material posted by others doesn’t violate AP standards. If it does, they’re supposed to remove it from their profiles.

And who could forget the Bozeman, Montana fiasco wherein applicants for city positions were asked to provide not only their usernames around the interwebs, but also their passwords.

Their PASSWORDS.

That’s like an employer asking for the keys to your house so he can bang your spouse. In front of you. While doing your annual performance review.

There was also the student teacher who was denied her degree and teaching license because of a picture on her MySpace page labeled “Drunken Pirate”. The pic was a head shot, wherein she was wearing a pirate hat and drinking from an opaque plastic cup. The rationalization was that the pic, taken in her mid-twenties, could encourage underage drinking.

It’s no secret that companies are screening job candidates’ personal profiles while making a decision. They’re also increasingly screening current employees and terminating them for unprofessional conduct in their private time. Before the internet, what we did off the job was none of our employer’s business. But, now that we live our private lives online, companies think it’s all their business.

Even that picture of you doing body shots at that party ten years ago. You know, the one your sophomore year roommate posted and tagged. That’s totally company business.

When it comes to guidelines, some things are pretty obvious for the average worker. Don’t friend your boss (and if he sends you a friend request, be suspicious). Don’t friend people in your office who you don’t trust. Don’t friend clients. If you’re a teacher, for god’s sake, don’t friend students or their families. Don’t engage in work-related social media unless it’s approved and you’re getting paid. Don’t use your personal profile for your job stuff. Don’t do personal stuff at work.

I think anyone who has a clue knows and abides by similar guidelines for social media, blogs, whatever; it’s not that hard. As much as I love Pink Raygun, I don’t blab about it to my co-workers or my students. It has nothing to do with my job, so I don’t bring it up, even if the person in question would be interested. In turn, I don’t identify my employer on any of my profiles or PRG. It saves them from being directly associated with the TV Boyfriend Petting Zoo and Chest Hair Rehabilitation Ranch (and the Geek Survey Diary and my frequent usage of the words “poop” and “boob”).

Seriously, only a moron friends their boss, then posts a Facebook update describing how much he sucks. That person deserves to get fired.

However, I do have a problem with receiving guidelines from a job regarding the content of personal content on a personal profile. I also have a problem with employers snooping around my personal profile to see what I’m doing off the job.

Of course, the knee-jerk response to that is, “If you don’t want your employer nosing around your personal life, don’t use social media.” I’d guess the person with that view is middle-management, really hoping for that next promotion. Or old. Or just unlikely to understand how these things work. Regardless, I shouldn’t have to choose between my social life and my job.

The whole point of social media is to connect with people. I’ve met a lot of awesome people I wouldn’t have met otherwise. I shouldn’t have to refrain from living my online life because an employer doesn’t know where his control over me ends. Just because the curtains are open, doesn’t mean it’s OK to peek in my windows.

No one wants to be on call all the time. No one wants to engage in work appropriate behavior and conversation all the time. We shouldn’t have to find a balance between being social and censoring ourselves. Companies and clients simply have to stop getting their collective panties in a bunch because employees – gasp! – have personal lives that have nothing NOTHING! to do with work.

As traditional print media is so fond of pointing out, the internet is not a newspaper. For most employees, social media usage isn’t going to see a lot of eyes – just because it’s out there for the whole world to see doesn’t mean the whole world is looking at it.

Also, if an employer sees something objectionable on Facebook, that means they’re outright searching for it. Consider the virtual size of the internet – the odds of an employer, client, whoever just happening to stumble upon an employee’s personal profile are. . . well, I don’t know the numbers. But, it’s incredibly bloody unlikely.  If your employer saw that picture from the bachelorette party, then your employer was looking for it. Which begs the question:

Why are our employers stalking us?

They can say what they want about putting a bad face on the company, giving clients the wrong impression, or in the case of teachers, corrupting the young. But, in reality, these things are inconsequential. Social media is a new layer in the way we live our private lives and we shouldn’t have to hide from nosy employers. Let me live my life.

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Lisa Fary is probably pinned down by her cat right now. She (Lisa, not the cat) is finishing her first novel, planning her second, and has too many comics to write. She enjoys correcting poorly written signs and tracking chest hair growth on TV.

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