The Lemon Life | online magazine offering a fresh perspective on post-grad life.

Words By: Sam Clemens 

Image By: ClickFlashPhotos

I work at a small company.  There are six of us.  Three young people and three senior people.  We engage in the usual office pleasantries or un-pleasantries, as the case may be.  As work relationships go they’re all pretty solid, but they are exactly that, work relationships.  I’ve never been for a beer with any of them or engaged in any kind of social activity beyond discussing the previous nights television shows while I wait for my tea to steep.

So by what logic would one of these senior people feel compelled to add me as a ‘friend’ on Facebook?  Last I checked Facebook was a social network and our relationship is exclusively professional.  The fact of the matter is, we are not friends.  When the request appeared on my homepage  I couldn’t help but feel like digital prey.  With the click of a mouse this social predator had completely disrupted my work/life equilibrium and I had nowhere to hide.

To not accept the friend request would be construed as a personal slight, a bad move for a young employee looking to shine in the workplace.  But accepting the friendship would mean revealing elements of my life that I am justnot comfortable sharing. And what is the fascination anyway?  Is is a matter of upping ones friend count?  Or simple curiosity?  Will seeing a few pictures of me in non-work attire sharing drinks with friends satisfy some desire to ‘know me better’?  Doesn’t it stand to reason that engaging me in a conversation about non-work related things might actually be a better approach to nurturing a friendship?

Adjusting to changing social norms is one thing, but embracing a reality in which the lines between personal and professional lives are blurred beyond recognition is quite another.  I can’t help but pine for the days of Don Draper, the mysterious Creative Director at Sterling Cooper, a fictional 1960’s advertising agency brought to life on AMC’s Mad Men.  While I am far too young to remember such a time, watching the show conjures a sense of professional nostalgia.  It depicts the kind of balance I long for, where work lives and personal lives are completely autonomous and drinking is acceptable in both.  

When I discuss this problem with my actual friends, they suggest things like having a separate Facebook profile for professional relationships, which to me seems totally absurd.  Facebook already makes me feel like a creep most of the time and having two profiles throws up too many psychological red flags for me to even consider it a viable option.  Others suggest a mature approach, saying I should offer up LinkedIn as a solution, but I’m already connected to this person on LinkedIn. There was of course a discussion of privacy settings, but I guess I’m just old school because ultimately, I always arrive at the same conclusion.  If I’m not friends with this person in real life, why should I be friends with them online?

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