Watch What You Say Around Your Colleagues
Highly Effective Work Habits: Watch What You Say Around Your Colleagues
Many people make friends on the job. There is nothing wrong with this at all. It makes coming to work more enjoyable and helps with team collaboration. However, you need to continuously sensor yourself and watch what you say, especially if one of your friends is your boss.
It is very easy to get into the gossiping habit with your friends and forget who you are talking to. You never know who is listening and you never know when your colleague might take something the wrong way. For example, if you are making fun of another employee to your friend, he or she may let it slip to that person or may actually be friends with that individual, unbeknownst to you. This gets more complicated with a boss-employee relationship. For instance, I’m on pretty good terms with my boss and I feel more open to discuss things with her that I might otherwise not. I always make it a point not to talk about others behind their backs or ramble on about someone or something I’m disgruntled about. Your reputation could be at stake here. You certainly don’t want your boss thinking less of you because of something you said, even if it was in confidence.
Along these same lines, NEVER add coworkers to your favorite social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, etc, unless it has a business focus. If you have personal accounts, coworkers have no business being on there. It opens you up to be scrutinized for how you behave outside of work. Once your colleagues know what you are really like (assuming you have some behaviors you don’t want known on the job), your career could be at risk or, at a minimum, folks may not react to you in the same way anymore. This is exactly why you don’t want your social profile open up to the world. If you are looking for a job, believe me, recruiters are searching for you on the Internet to dig up any dirt on you. So, don’t give them any ammunition to keep you from getting a job.
So, the moral is definitely make friends on the job, just don’t be too open with them. 
