I have the same problem - my Facebook friends are also my colleagues, and my team leader is on my list as well. I don't have my blog URL anywhere on my FB profile, so that's "private", but I do post stuff in FB that's on occasion pretty personal.

I think the older generation sees the private and professional life -division as more important, whereas for the generation Xers and those who come after us it's just the same. We're just people after all, including the bosses. I've this gut feeling that there's a shift in attitude, one of accepting that we can't be strictly business everywhere all the time. And it's not a bad thing to acknowledge that as human beings we tend to be playful, insecure, weird, strange and all that.

Uhh, sorry for the incomprehensible wall of text. Shouldn't multitask. Back to work ;)

--Eve, 15-Jun-2009

On the other hand, it also means that the business part slips into our non-business life as well... ...

--JanneJalkanen, 17-Jun-2009

True. As someone somewhere said (I wasn't able to find the link, it's somewhere on my other computer), work is nowadays more a verb than a place you go to. It's a double-edged sword for sure, and can cause more problems than solve. But there are times I wish I just could stay and work from home, instead of dragging my behind into the cubicle halfway across the town - that work would be something I did, and not a place where I spent X amount of hours of my day. But the working world doesn't see it that way, and I doubt it ever will in Finland. After all, this is the promised land of Lutheran work ethics where appearances tend to be more important than what you actually achieve.

I'm stuck in pondering whether or not it is necessary to have the division between the business and non-business lives. I used to have an online and "non-line" separation too, but the difference is smaller and smaller. Maybe transparency could bring something useful to the working life...?

--Eve, 17-Jun-2009

Well, my experience is that it does depend on the workplace culture. I know quite a few people who "telecommute", and only come to the office whenever it's more efficient to have a face-to-face meeting. But you're right in that it's not the majority.

In the office I've tried to be as transparent as possible, for good or for worse. I like to say "any notoriety is good notoriety", and so far it tends to work. But it probably wouldn't work for everyone.

--JanneJalkanen, 18-Jun-2009

Cool weblog! come and see mine: http://aenglishl.blogspot.com/

--Mahdi, 13-Jul-2009


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"Main_comments_150609_1" last changed on 13-Jul-2009 20:46:49 EEST by Mahdi.