Since the first few blissful days of our initial meeting, Holly and I have continuously stated that Facebook, does in fact, ruin lives. From this beginning honeymoon stage of our friendship, this statement has affirmed itself time and time again as countless friends have cut their study breaks short because their procrastination habits during study hours led to some sad realization, or often times misinterpretation of something they've spotted on the notorious book. Not to be too redundant, but curiosity did kill the cat. If its one thing people don't learn from, it is their own mistakes, one big one being too much unnecessary time spent facebooking. It all starts with an innocent friend request and then goes exponentially downhill from there. One little picture of a boyfriend with an attractive girl, one misunderstood personal joke, and even an insignificant "like," of a status is no longer taken lightly as a relationship transcends out of the safe friendship zone. Its silly really, until you realize your boyfriend is spending certain nights with that pretty girl he was tagged with.
Regardless, my point is that social media has seriously begun to monopolize our time and energy. For most, there is not a day that goes by without logging onto to facebook, twitter, myspace or some other form of cyber mind fuck. Facebook makes it impossible to hide the fact that you gained 20 pounds in college, or married the guy who works the fryer at the local McDonalds. Furthermore, twitter makes it possible for everyone in your network to know exactly what you are doing at any given time of day. Social media truly makes you think that you know somebody who you actually don't know at all. In our jaded world, nobody even realizes how truly creepy it is that we can pinpoint exactly why John Mayor had a bad experience at Starbucks that day or the fact that J-Lo can no longer fit into those white spandex pants without her spanx.
The relevance of this post to my current job hunt, is the fact that employers do utilize these avenues in discovering more information on prospective employees. One of my buddies was even flat out told that he lost the chance at a summer job because his facebook profile picture consisted of him, beers in hand, groping a girl wearing a 2 piece toga. Of course that girl happend to be me. This leads me to wonder, what can my prospective employers find out about me before an interview? Are they googling my name, trying to determine what sorts of escapades I was involved with in the past? Am I going to sit down for an informational meeting only to find pictures of me in a hot body contest from my freshmen year of college? Hmmm.
The thing is that I always thought this was a little ridiculous. The fact that some of my friends refused to take pictures of themselves holding beers made me roll my eyes. I felt it was just some obscure American stigma about alcohol, opposed to Europeans, who basically pour wine into their toddler's sippy cups. Yet at this point, I feel like the joke is on me.
My first job in politics was working as an intern for a Member of Canada's House of Commons. The first day on the job, my boss told me that survival in the business [politics] depended on how well one could hold their liquor. Of course this was a commentary of how incredibly important social networking is to a job as a public representative. While eventually I found that this was the case, after all nobody likes to be the drunk asshole at the fancy gala, I also found that it is slightly inconvenient that I chose to live by this motto way too early in life. In High School, I drank because I thought it was cool. Yet now, it would be more cool if I didn't have to worry about some fancy executive thinking that a party girl may not be the best candidate for the job. After all, it is way more of a liability to hire someone who may sleep through an important board meeting because they were overserved the night before, no matter how fun it is to hang out with them.
At this point there is no changing the past, only changing my attitude about it. Yes, I started to party at an early age but I have always been responsible about every professional committment I have ever had. Well... except for the day after my 21st birthday when I had to call off of my internship due to the fact that driving would have been a worse idea then getting fired at that point. This may not even count however because my boss not only happily gave me the day off but the following Monday commended me on a 21st birthday well done. They should really make a card for that...
Ultimately I am nervous about the internet because it is worse at keeping secrets then a middle school girl. While one can analyze for days why their significant other "liked," a status about some pulp topic, it is way more uncomfortable to be left unemployed because an employer did not appreciate the fact that I spent more time partying on the oval freshmen year then going to my classes. (note to possible future employers: this is only a mere example.) As Holly and I continue our trek into finding that ideal entry level gig, it is important to remember that as adults, our actions do have consequences. And while I would love for everyone to know exactly why I woke up wearing roller blades after one too many happy hours, perhaps this information should be kept out of the world wide web. So be nice to your respective forms of social media everyone, you never know when one can vindictively screw you out of a relationship, and more importantly, out of a job.
Meem
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