“Friends Forever”
The Business of Furniture - 7/27/16 Edition
Stephen Says Column
Dear Stephen,
I am Facebook friends with a lot of people at work. It's a big company, but I still have pretty close relationships with a num-ber of my co-workers. I consider them friends, even though most are really no more than work friends. Out of the office many of us have very different lives, and as much as I love my col-leagues I'm not sure we would ever be friends if we didn't work together.
Over the past year, I have no-ticed some of my co-workers I am very close to, people I consider friends, are now shar-ing every single facet of their personal lives on Facebook and other forms of social media. Of course, I choose to be "friends" with these people on Facebook, so I don't really feel entitled to criticize their postings. But still, much of what I see is so overtly narcissistic it can feel like these people are trying to produce their own version of the Kardashians on their Facebook walls. Do they really think peo-ple care what they have to eat at every meal? I have now seen every guy I work with shirtless at his beach house floating in a pool. I woke up to "Happy Sat-urday" last week, from another friend (like we were all waiting to for that!). And now that we are in the heat of the election, some of my Facebook friends are posting incessantly about how one or the other candidate means utter catastrophe for the republic. My personal politics aside, this just seems like too much.
My problem is I am beginning to dislike some people who I used to love working with because of what they post on Facebook. A picture - or a meme - really does seem to be worth a thousand words be-cause in some cases my mind changes overnight. How can I un-see some of this? I still have to work on projects with them. I manage some of these people and others manage me. I know deleting my Facebook probably makes the most sense, but I use it to keep in touch with family and friends who live far away, and I can't unfriend any of my work friends at this point be-cause I'm scared they'll notice. What choice do I have?
- Fed Up with Facebook
"Be very careful about what you post if you're friends with people from your work."
Fed Up with Facebook
I get this question more than you might think. First, we need to acknowledge that all social media - Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, Vine, Peach, whatever else in essence, has the same goal. Each is a way to share bits of our lives with people who show their interest by choos-ing to follow us. It seems like a fairly straightforward con-tract, but it can very easily get corrupted. You see, some of my colleagues are real bores or far worse on social media as it sounds like many of yours are. They have nothing interesting to share, and they either want to appear smarter or more interesting than they are by constantly posting their politi-cal views, or, they don't even try to hide how boring they are and resort to throwing ano-dyne garbage into the limitless ether that is the Internet.
Reading these posts is a car wreck, yet I slow down to read them anyway. Without fail, I come away amazed by the breadth and depth of my co-workers' (and friends, I must admit) stupidity - it's not just the substance of the posts that are astonishing, but the very fact they decide to post this nonsense in the first place. None of this is new. People for generations have slowly come to the realization they don't like people who they thought they knew. It is just that so-cial media has brought it to us faster than ever before. One post on a Thursday evening is all it takes.
My main piece of advice to ev-eryone although I know it's not quite responsive to your question is to be very careful about what you post if you're friends with people from your work. I am very careful not to over-post or post things that will make people uncomfortable on my public Facebook page, and everyone needs to be careful about this, too, because everyone can see what you're saying. As someone who makes a living on TV and has a public profile, I have two versions of all the social media that I use. My personal Instagram, Snap chat and Facebook profiles are private and only for my friends and family. Based on the num-ber of questions I get on this topic, it is obvious to me that I don't want my employees or co-workers to have access to my personal Facebook. I know not everyone is willing to invest in having multiple social media accounts on multiple platforms, but it's the only surefire way to ensure people aren't seeing what you don't want them to see.
Now, to directly answer your question: The easiest answer is to mute or unfriend your coworkers. If you're worried they'll know you unfriended them, don't be; they won't find out. And worst-case scenario, you explain you don't know how it happened, that it was a mistake, then you friend them again, wait a couple of days and unfriend them. The best way to handle this situation, however, is to start up another Facebook account without friending any of your co-workers. This way they won't see what you post either and truth be told, that's for the best. None of us are as self-aware as we should be. For all you know your co-workers can't stand your social media presence either.
Stephen
You can send your workplace questions to Stephen at: StephenSays@bellow.press
Questions selected to be answered, will appear in this column. Please use the Subject: Stephen Says for all emails.
Stephen Viscusi is a bestselling author, television personality, and CEO of The Viscusi Group,
global executive recruiters located in New York.
Follow Stephen on Twitter @stephenviscusi, Like Stephen on Facebook; and follow him on LinkedIn.
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