Stop Bitching About Work On Social Media

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I’ve talked a lot about why social media is both great and terrible. Mostly, it’s pretty terrible, filled with terrible people, and the results of posting something truly dumb and awful on social media can create national firestorms built on the fault lines of racial tension and ruin your life. Forever. And it’s not just until college ends. To paraphrase the late, great Mrs. Krabappel, what you do on social media “will follow you for the rest of your life and beyond the grave.”

So with that in mind, let me ask this question: If this rule of thumb applies for college, WHY SHOULD IT BE ANY DIFFERENT AFTER YOU GRADUATE AND GET A JOB?

Every day, I see people tweeting and posting Facebook statuses about hating their job, or their boss, or complaining about their gainful employment. “Ugh, my boss put me on the schedule for a double shift, fuck him,” or, “My boss just ignored me and said he was too tired to make a decision so it was up to me. Best boss of the year award goes to…” or, “I FUCKING HATE MY JOB SO MUCH UGHHHH.”

Well, here’s a fun fact. YOUR BOSS CAN PROBABLY SEE WHAT YOU’RE DOING.

“But JayTas, I’m not even friends with my boss on Facebook, stop yelling at me!”

That’s really not a good excuse, Excusey McGoo. For starters, if you’re dumb enough to post negative things on Facebook about work, you probably don’t know much about Facebook privacy settings, either. If your boss wanted, he could probably just log into Facebook and see what your stuff says, even if you’re not friends. But let’s say you have your privacy settings tighter than Jenn Selter’s butt cheeks. You’re probably friends with at least one of your coworkers, right? If you’re an over-sharer, you’re probably an over-friender, too, as in you friend every single person you run into on the street. If one of your coworkers sees you posting that you hate your job, and maybe he or she is gunning for a promotion or a raise, this “friend” will snapshot your post, just to curry favor with your boss. He or she will snapshot your shit. It’s as easy as pushing three buttons on your keyboard on a Mac, and PCs can do it too, I’m sure.

And when your boss sees that, she’ll say, “Oh, you don’t like your job? Then you’re fired.” She will relieve you of all your job responsibilities that you’ve been complaining about for weeks and weeks by straight up getting rid of you. And she’ll be in the right as well, because, well, you shouldn’t have been posting nasty things about your job or your boss.

Also, let me ask you this. What’s the point of posting something like that? Are you trying to draw attention to yourself, or are you seriously trying to start a conversation with people? Like someone’s really going to comment on your status, “OMG gurlll, I hate my job, too, let’s both quit and go smoke cigarettes behind Path-Mark.” No. You’re just making yourself look foolish. Nobody’s going to think you’re “cool” or “bold” for talking smack about your job on Facebook. They’ll think you’re an idiot. Because doing that is, by definition, idiotic.

In closing, if you have a problem with your job or your boss, tell your boss or HR. If you have a REALLY serious problem, such as sexual harassment, threats of violence, or other horrible, terrible things, tell someone IMMEDIATELY. Nobody should feel threatened in the workplace, ever.

But if you have a dumb complaint about hours or something like that, keep it to yourself. Don’t blast it out to the world on social media, because that’s the fastest way to the unemployment line and a bad reputation.

Of course, if you really need to post something, do yourself a favor and learn how to subtweet. Subtweeting never fails.

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