So recently I have been reading about how peoples blogs and Facebook accounts and the like have and/or can impact their work life. Recently a woman lost her job because she was seen logged into Facebook when she was home sick claiming to be too ill to sit in front of a computer. Where am I going with this you ask well…After starting this blog like within 24 hours I received a new policy at work explaining appropriate use of social media and what you should and should not say on a blog or in Facebook. The general rules I have followed is that my personal life is not my work life so I avoid blogging about work.
The question I have recently been pondering is what defines the line between work and personal contacts. My example is when there is a major event in your life some times you can not freely post it for fear of one group or another reacting in a bad way. If there is an issue with say home life do you really want your coworker friends to see it and the inverse is also true. I really do not have any idea where that line is and also can’t help but wonder what self sensoring must occur for many people for the aforementioned reasons.
So, back to the previous focus, why is social media and your personal life so important to employers people are people and we act one way when working and another when we are off the clock. also the larger question is why do people feel the need to post their deepest innermost thoughts for the public to see only to feel betrayed when someone finds what they have disclosed and it impacts their life.
I guess I will never really find the answers to these questions but I thought I would put this out there and see what other people thought.
At first, I found myself struggling with this sort of thing as well. However, I’ve found that work and non-work life should be different spheres and that if a business decides to “check up” on me outside of business, then their the ones crossing that line. I won’t change my interests or whatnot because I don’t represent the company I work for while not at work. However, if I do choose to post about stuff online regarding work, I tend to change names or whatnot. And, if I have friends that are also coworkers, I feel that I need to trust them in their dealings with things they may see on my blog.