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?

Social Media and the Job Hunt

by Social Media Working Girl

When I was a senior in college, I sent my resume everywhere. The last thing I wanted was to graduate and be jobless--and the idea of living at home was not an option. Thankfully, I had some PR contacts from my interning days and was able to use them to network and connect with others in the industry. But my personal experience was much different than today's job search.

In fact, with the advent of so many exciting social media tools, there are a variety of resources available online to take advantage of and using these sites throughout your job search can help you tremendously along the way. Two sites that I find particularly helpful are LinkedIn and Twitter. And here's why.

LinkedIn

We've all heard the spiel. LinkedIn is the "professional" social media outlet. Consider it your "online resume," if you will. And believe it or not, this is absolutely true.

By posting your resume on LinkedIn, prospective employers and contacts can search your qualifications, background, skill sets and knowledge base, and garner a basic understanding of who you are as a professional working woman. You can join discussion groups, network with professional associations and view job listings. It's a great resource for your career--before and after the job hunt.

Twitter

In addition to LinkedIn group discussions, there are a number of chats that occur regularly on Twitter. These are hosted by various moderators and are open for anyone to join. By participating in these online chats, you begin to engage a niche audience that will quickly recognize who you are and become familiar with what it is you are looking for and interested in. Check out the many great Twitter chats available.

Additionally, by actively participating on Twitter by posting relevant and interesting content--via chats or simply by tweeting regularly--you will most likely gain a following of some sort. Continue the conversation further and use these followers as potential resources on your job search.

A couple notes...

Maintaining professionalism while also staying personal is what makes for an effective social media experience. Sure, these tools are entertaining and can oftentimes be an outlet from our working girl lives, but it's important to think carefully about how you market yourself.

What kind of personal brand are you creating? How do you want to be perceived? What do you want people to know (or not know) about you? Remember to be mindful of how you want to be heard.

Lastly, I advise you to embrace these tools on your job search. The career world and business arena as we know it have drastically changed. And this is only the beginning.

Have you used social media tools to land a job? What was your experience?

Tweet Tweet

Oh, Twitter, such a love/hate relationship I have with you.

I despise Twitter like I despise cleaning out my cat's litter box or any household chore for that matter. It's always hard to come up with something worthwhile to say. At the same time, though, I'm proud of my Twitter and proud to have it on my resume which just basically shows that I've made an investment in my "personal branding" and that I'm "savvy" (about what, though, I'm not quite sure yet).

For those of you not too familiar with Twitter, in a nutshell, it's a somewhat useful tool that enables you to connect with strangers, corporations and otherwise important figures--either work-related or maybe someone famous, like Ellen--who would probably never, ever communicate with you otherwise. Oh, and because it's in real time and totally public, Twitter makes for a good news feed. It's actually kind of amazing how Twitter's changed the definition of news ... which is something only a PR geek like me would care about!

I attempt to tweet regularly about my clients (mostly any newsworthy stuff) and about PR. Every now and then I'll throw in something personal. My hope is that people who find my clients interesting, PR interesting or me interesting, will follow my tweets, maybe feel prompted to ask me a question or comment/reply, and what would be really awesome, feel inspired in some small teeny tiny way. That last bit might be too much to ask, but why not?

I do have one piece of advice, though: Don't jump on the Twitter bandwagon if you think it's just like updating your status on Facebook. It's not, and no one will care because you're not tweeting to friends, you're tweeting to a curious world. In my opinion, you must tweet with a purpose.

By the way, you can always follow Working Girl on Twitter here.

Love to Hear the WGs go Tweet Tweet Tweet

We know you've been sitting at your desk everyday thinking "When are those fabulous ladies at Working Girl ever going to join Twitter!?"

No? You haven't? You've been doing your job and being completely productive? Oh. Well, get excited because we're finally tweeting. And guess what? It's work related. Kind of.

You can follow me (Working Girl One) here and Working Girl Two here (or follow the links to the right).

We're new to Twitter so we're just a eager as you are to see how we'll be using it. Any suggestions of what you'd like to see from us are more than welcome!

(Editor's Note: I apologize for getting "Rockin' Robin" stuck in your head.)