Minding your P's and Q's

When we consider that a large number of employers are now checking social networking sites to see what potential employees are up to, and this activity has cost employees jobs. "Yes Ms Jones, your interview was fabulous, your references all spoke very highly of you, and your CV was flawless." ..."Then why....?" "Well you see, your guestbook/wall/whatever indicated that you regularly participate in recreational drug usage."

While drug addiction is in the DSM, and is therefore a mental disease or defect, and cannot be used as grounds to dismiss someone once they have already been hired. (As per a recent lawsuit that I couldn't cite if my life depended on it, I was just looking up mental illness and human rights law in Alberta a month or so ago) The same cannot be said for refusing to hire someone if you know they have an addiction.

On a similar note: On many social networking sites, every new application you install defaults to "Tell everyone in the world everything I do!" So if you choose to install 'whip me beat me' and are looking for a job, don't be too terribly surprised if it takes a while. Unless of course you're looking for a job in a XXX toy and video store.

If you choose to announce on your profile at a social networking site that you are seeking "men, women, whatever" for "fun/sex/casual play" but you also state that you're married. You open yourself up for the kinds of questions that will be asked at the next family reunion when your husband's cousin asks him if the two of you are just staying together for the children.

So, whose fault is it that you have chosen to discuss your boss in a derogatory manner in a public place and the office suck-up has seen it? Is it his? Somehow I doubt it. So instead of blaming the office brown-nose for opening her big mouth, or your boss for firing you, or your brother in law for being offended because you bad-mouthed the political party for which he is running next spring, or your best friend whose 'ghastly' dress you insulted, and now she won't speak to you.

Maybe a more accurate name for this capsule would have been re-evaluating relationships, but the point is, in light of all of the above, and in light of the fact that the new year is approaching, if you're looking for a new job, or looking for a job at all. Or even if you're not, maybe now is the time to think about re-evaluating your relationships, weeding out that list of 500 'friends', of whom 80 percent you don't even speak to, and 10 percent you can't stand. Do you *want* to associate with someone who is going to report back to your boss that at the end of a bad day you called him a four (or more) letter word? Do you want to associate with someone who is going to intentionally take something you said, and repeat it to someone else, completely out of context months from now?