I work part-time in a call centre and recently we were all called into a large meeting.
The topic of discussion: Facebook, that gleefully addicting social networking site.
It seemed there were some issues with people posting about work. It wasn’t that they were complaining about their job, it was that in doing so, they’d violated the non-disclosure agreement we all had to sign when we started by posting confidential client information.
I realize this younger generation (I can’t believe things change so fast now that at 24, I’m an old man complaining about the youth today) doesn’t believe in the concept of privacy, but when you get your first job in high school, make sure to ask mommy and daddy what an NDA is.
Another bit of advice about social networking sites: When you’re writing posts that can get you fired, it’s generally a bad idea to add your boss to your friends list.
Of course, I do wonder about some of the stuff people are willing to put online for the entire connected world to see. In a manner of seconds, I can be looking at co-worker’s MySpace profiles, which contain embarrassing and/or revealing photos, like a former manager whose main picture is of himself at a urinal or a female co-worker whose not wearing much in the photos on her page.
Some days I wonder how these people would feel if these pictures were posted on the company bulletin board. Would it be embarrassing? I sincerely hope not, because the Internet is that, but a whole lot bigger.
