The Perils of Facebook

I'm going to steal a page out of Scissor Girl's blog because I need to vent. I have sort of a love/hate relationship with Facebook. It's fun to keep up with friends who live out of town, people I've met in other countries and well, colleagues who work in the other building. It's not so fun to read the updates from my ex-boyfriend's sister because I'm too much of a wuss to unfriend her. But it's always kinda balanced out.

But now I've been friended by several people in Upper Management. And I feel like I had to accept the request. Just to be clear, these are not people I've worked closely with and developed a great relationship with. These are people who don't really know me unless my name happened to be mentioned as an option during our layoff seasons.

Which makes this all a little bit creepy -- it feels like Facebook is starting to become Big Brother. It's not like I'm posting racy photos of myself (a. because there are none. and b. because that's something I wouldn't subject my worst enemy too -- I believe it's considered an act of terrorism in some countries). I also don't update my status that often and when I do, it's usually something pretty benign. The few times I've vented about work, I tried to make it so cryptic that one could tell I was frustrated, but couldn't really understand about what.

But now I feel like I have to be extra careful -- not just of what I write about myself, but also when I comment on my friends' status. I realize that I'm much more paranoid and neurotic than your average bear, but I like my privacy very much, thank you. It's sort of the same issue I have with drug testing. I don't do any, so it's not like I have to worry about that, but I don't like the idea that someone is using a bodily fluid to determine if I'm employable. And I don't like the fact that if I'm feeling a little bit snarky, I have to tone it down for fear that it will come back to haunt me the next time layoffs roll around.

But I guess this is the social part of social networking.