Facebook Faux-Pas Results in Firing

Speaking of being careful on social networking sites...

A woman in Britain recently committed a major faux-pas when she complained about her boss publicly on Facebook — forgetting that she had added that manager as one of her "friends" on that site. Apparently she also forgot that she was close to the end of her six-month trial period on the job.

Needless to say, the boss shot back an angry reply within hours, basically telling the woman not to bother to come in to work the next day, as she would be getting her pink slip in the mail.

While most of us would like to think we're smarter than that, other disastrous scenarios could easily arise if we're not careful. For instance, if you're job-searching while still employed, one of your friends could easily write, "How's that job search going?" on your wall, exposing your activities to the rest of your network.

So what's the solution? Some people think you shouldn't even add your boss or certain colleagues as friends on social networking sites (unless they're professional ones like LinkedIn). But if you do feel obligated to add your managers as friends, make sure to tell anyone else who knows anything about what's going on in your life — anything that you don't want your boss to find out — to avoid mentioning that aspect of your life in the public online realm.