My boss friend requested me on Facebook. I like to keep my work & personal lives separate, but don't want to upset my boss. What do I do?

I would ignore the request. Adding your boss on facebook can have really bad consequences. You may like your boss and may even consider him / her your friend but you should never forget that he / she is your boss.

Something that you post on facebook may get you in hot water with your boss. Someone who you have not actually added to your facebook profile only has access to certain information about you and you control that access (through the privacy settings of your facebook account). Once you add that person, he / she has access to all of it unless you limit access to that particular user.

However, the person that you have given limited access to may eventually realize that you have limited him / her and may get angry or offended which would put you in an even worse situation. I think your best option is to ignore the request. However, if the person pushes the issue, these are your options 1) Lie.

Tell them that you never received the request (a facebook glitch) 2) Lie. Tell them that you are hardly ever on facebook (they may catch you in this lie as they may hear you talking to your friends about something on facebook or they may hear your friends talking about a post you did on facebook) 3) Tell them the truth. That you prefer to keep your personal life separate from your professional one.

They may not like it but I think they may eventually get over it and may even understand it. I am sure there are things about your boss that he / she would not like you to know. A consequence of adding your boss and forgetting that you added him / her.

See below.

I just ignore the friend request and act like it never happened. My boss tried to add me on Facebook and Google Reader. I just play dumb.

Don't deny the request but don't accept it. If he or she brings it up, just say that you never go on Facebook and you don't check the email address that it is associated with. You can also set up a fake account.

Thats a good way not to hurt feelings.

Set up a professional Facebook site, separate from your personal one. You can use this site to network with your professional contacts, keeping the two aspects of your life separate.

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