Trash Talking the Boss

by Lawyer Working Girl

The past few weeks at work have been long and stressful. One week I worked Monday through the next Sunday. I was getting very little sleep and it was taking a toll on my mood. Yes, Working Girls, I was moody, but I can tell you that I was not the only one. I've been feeling the stress level rise around the office for the last few weeks. Smiles have worn off people's faces, colleagues are getting confrontational with each other, and employees are snapping at their superiors.

I have a couple of colleagues with whom I can bad talk the job or the people we work with only because I truly trust them and they trust me enough to be honest about how they are feeling on the job. I know some of you think that's probably a bad move--trash talking with coworkers--but I think some trash talk is expected at work amongst employees, right?

I also find myself tweeting my feelings some days. I'm never specific, never name names, and I've never tweeted the name of my company. It's usually something very generic like, "My patience is wearing thin" on a day when someone was trying to tell me how to do my job. If my boss read my tweets, I don't think he or she would find anything pointing to him or her or the company, but I have wondered if anyone monitors our personal online activities.

I recently read an article that discusses this very thing. There was a case in Connecticut where the National Labor Relations Board ruled that a company cannot fire its employees for complaining about their bosses on Facebook. I'm kind of for this ruling and against this ruling (just like a lawyer, huh?).

On one hand, I believe that employees should be allowed to live their personal lives without the company butting in; but on the other hand, if someone is out there bashing the company's image or disrespecting the boss, I don't think that should be tolerated. I mean, it's one thing to talk about your boss (which I never do because I actually like my boss a lot) or company or colleagues amongst your colleagues, but when you start bad-mouthing to the outside world that's different. You're possibly damaging your company's image. I think of it as most people think of their families--it's ok for you to talk about your family members, but as soon as someone outside of the family says something, it's not ok.

Working Girls, what are your thoughts on this? Do you find yourself venting through social media? How do you ensure that it doesn't affect your career?

Working Girl One and Intern are Not Friends

When my first boss asked me to her Facebook friend, I kind of freaked out.

As an employee, a young one who remembers a Facebook that was just for select colleges and universities, being virtual friends with a boss or any coworker for that matter is still a tad bit weird. It used to be just your peers. Now, everytime I add a photo or my Dad post's another video of me as a baby (yes, he figured out how to do this) I think so-and-so is going to see this.

I've grown used to that mentality and live my Facebook life accordingly. It doesn't hurt I'm comfortable with all of coworkers, they know the real me and not just the work me. They know that I love karaoke and am a total light-weight (post-college of course, I used to be a champ). I'm comfortable with them seeing my Facebook page.

When one of my new interns asked me to be her Facebook friend I didn't feel so comfortable. For the past year or so most of my interns have been my age or even older than me and it led me to feel like their peer in the workplace. This summer, all of my interns are four years younger than me so I finally feel like I'm a little bit of a boss.

Of course I was very intrigued and wanted to check out her profile but I wasn't about to accept her friendship and see mine. First, I don't think my intern needs to see photos me singing Ace of Base at a dive bar. I'm not comfortable with her getting to know the out-of-office me yet and probably not ever.

Second, I found it so odd that she would ask me to be her Facebook friend to begin with. I almost want to accept her friendship just to see her full profile and see if she puts me on any privacy settings.

Is it just kids these days? Are they so surrounded with all this technology and social networking that it doesn't even phase them that it would be odd to ask your internship supervisor to be Facebook friends?

I haven't accepted her friendship but her request is still sitting there...

WG1 is drained by coworkers. 23 minutes ago.

Recently, a magazine at my company folded. We had an internal meeting at which we were given the news, told that a majority of the staff would soon be informed that they were losing thier jobs and told that a press release would go out that afternoon. To most of us, that meant not to say anything to anyone yet.

Moments after the meeting my coworker, Promo Girl, went on her computer and, out of boredom, checked Facebook. First thing on her Facebook news feed:

Business Boy can't believe that Magazine folded...thoughts and prayers are with those who lost their jobs. 2 minutes ago.

Seriously?! I should mention that Business Boy is Facebook friends with a overwhelming number of people throughout the company. People who had not yet heard the news, people who were possibly losing their jobs. Promo Girl called him immediately and told him to take it down. He protested for a moment before taking down the status.

Business Boy is very protected of his Facebook. After the crazy after-party during our business trip, Business Boy posted inappropriate photos of Michael Scott and the rest of us drinking and looking wasteface. Some were just flat out unflattering photos of yours truly and others, as one of my coworkers put it "the kind of pictures that could get someone fired."

Any rational employee would not have posted photos like this of their boss and coworkers. A rational employee would not have put the magazine's name in each photo caption and photo album title.

I told Business Boy that they was a lot of discussion going on about the album and that maybe he should edit them down. I didn't want to tell him what to do with his photos on his Facebook profile but someone had to tell him. He replied by telling me that, yes, they were his photos and htat he didn't tag anyone so it didn't matter.

Didn't matter? This is the internet we're talking about. It took several more conversations from several more coworkers to convince Business Boy that they pictures were not ok to post on the internet.

Two other coworkers changed their Facebook status to a comment about the folding Magazine. With social networking sites, like Facebook and Twitter, personal information the line between personal life and work life are thing. Work is a huge part of our lives. I spend more time at work than I do at home and more time with my coworkers than with my family or friends. But there is a line that just shouldn't be crossed when it comes to business information entering your personal life.

Drama, Drama, Drama

Today was one of those days. You know what I mean. The day when before you even walk in the front door you have a feeling that you should turn around and never come back. Yea, one of those. 

Turns out I was right. I spent my entire day burning DVD's with photos from our past event in Aspen for all our sponsors, exhibitors, and partners. This project required me to turn off all my other programs (aka I could not check my fave blogs or chat on Gmail). Leading me to a boring and also unproductive day. 

All together this week has been pretty insane. I got back from a glorious Labor Day weekend and found out two of my co-workers had gotten engaged over the weekend. Now the crazy part of this story isn't that two people got engaged. It's that one of the girls who got engaged over the holiday has only been dating her boyfriend (now fiancee) for four months. Yes, you heard me right. And her rock is ginormous (I can't even use a real adjective to describe this ring because it's that large). And get this...they met on Facebook. I don't even have a comment for this. 

The drama only begins there. Then today I find out that one of the managers at work is leaving the company. Amy is the Vice President of Online Marketing and also my idol. She is in her late 30s, successful, has a graduate degree from Stanford, and has worked at some major awesome companies (aka eBay). She also is from the Midwest, loves rare meat, and is huge into traveling. In short, we're alike and I love her. And I'm super, super, super upset that she is leaving. 

Now on to the big juice. My new roommate Natalie had confided in me when I first moved in that she was dating Drew. Drew just happens to be her boss. He also happens just to have gotten a separation from his wife. And his now ex-wife is also best friends with The CEO's daughter. Talk about drama. This secret has been so hard for me to keep. It's juicy and I want to scream it from the mountaintops. But Natalie asked me to keep it mum. So I haven't said anything. But I think my co-worker Small Fry is catching on, which makes me a Nervous Nelly. I would rather be left out of the drama surrounding my roommate's scandalous love affair. 

The Boss has also been a huge pain in my ass lately. Our marketing department keeps taking on more and more projects. Have I mentioned that our marketing department is 2 people? Yep. Just me and the VP of Marketing. So it's been a challenge. We have another event coming up in October that is sure to be a disaster. And it has just involved so much planning and I feel like I don't have enough time in the day to get it all done. But The Boss thinks I could use a few more projects to keep me busy. Thanks. Once again, I am feeling under-appreciated and under-paid. 

My big personal news of the week. I found out that I got wait-listed for the grad school of my dreams. And while I'm still a tiny bit hopeful that I'll make it through, I'm not banking on it. So I have a new plan in the works. 

All these changes in the atmosphere at work are making me think it's time for a move. More updates on my new job search are to come. 

Working Girl One and Boss are now friends.

"So, Working Girl One, I just asked you to be my Facebook friend," my boss nonchalantly said as she walked by my desk. "It's my new thing, it's so fun."

Cue Outlook to display a new e-mail in pop-up form. "Boss added you as a friend on Facebook..." it read.

Accept? Reject? I can't reject, can I? No, this isn't some sketchy person from the bar this is my boss and she told me, verbally, that she asked me to be her Facebook friend. Doesn't she know that this generation doesn't do the whole verbal communication thing all that well?

I had no choice but to accept. So I did.

Then I began to wonder: is she going to look at my pictures? My wall posts? What is she going to think of me? Will her opinion of me change? As these thoughts raced through my mind, I began to look through the 600 some-odd tagged photos of me. I don't know how I missed them, but quite a few were just bad photos. Bad in that I looked absolutely tragic, not bad in that I was doing anything inappropriate. Don't worry, I untagged those pictures of my friends and I dancing in a cage in Italy down a long time ago. Oh, and the keg race pictures too.

My boss went on to ask me over to her desk to explain Facebook.

"You have more than 300 friends!" she said as she looked at my profile. Uh yeah, and those are just my college friends. I showed her how to view a list of all her friends and see updates on her Facebook News Feed.

"This is so fun," she said. "I love finding people I know!"

Since the beginning of Facebook, I've been told to be careful. Mostly by my grandmother, who watches far too much 20/20 and 60 Minutes. My profile is set to private, I don't accept friendship from people I don't know, and before I started interviewing for jobs I untagged the previously mentioned photos. However, I was thisclose to accepting friendship from a guy who poked me because we both like Jamba Juice (and who doesn't). At work, I'm Facebook friends with the other assistants, they all graduated within a year of me, if not the same year. They get it. My boss's Facebook picture is a photo of her with her one-year-old son. Not so sure if she gets it.

My boss has a family and a demanding job, so I'm sure she's not sitting at her home computer at night looking through my pictures or reading wall posts of inside jokes when she's bored. In the beginning, the beauty of Facebook was that it was strictly for college students. Now, that it's open to anyone, I have to wonder if this is going to become a normality. When I'm a boss one day, will I Facebook friend my assistant? Will I create albums of my children and I? I love spending my share of time on Facebook just as much as the next Working Girl (this is if she is allowed to access it at the office), but this might just be too much.