[randomequine]

Here's a question for you all...I prefer to keep my work and my personal life very separate. However, I have the feeling that my clients and potentially my boss (I'm a barn manager) will try to friend me. How does one delicately extricate themselves from this without being rude? I like them all a lot and like my job, but I feel like FB is really for close friends/family only - not coworkers/clients/bosses.

At my last job, my boss' teenager and teenage boarder tried to friend me and actually pestered me about it for a long time (irritating!). With adults the being offended part is going to be a little harder to deal with. Before the last job, all of my coworkers and supervisors were my friend on FB as well and it made things really awkward. I felt like they knew more about my life than I did half the time! There was no separation of work and personal life, hence my current stance.

You can create different lists and set specifically what each list can see -- you can pick and choose what you want specific lists to see or not see

[ddashaq]

I generally only friend/accept requests from people I know (or wish to know), however I am "friends" with a few top riders that I happen to admire and like following. I do have a tendency to block people I am friends with- nothing is more irritating than the person who posts 15 times an hour ALL DAY LONG.

[Dazednconfused]

You can create different lists and set specifically what each list can see -- you can pick and choose what you want specific lists to see or not see

Oh I am very tech savvy and can do that. Too much work, honestly. Plus, every time FB changes their privacy settings, things have to once again be wrangled. I really just don't want them to be my friends at all. We have a strictly business relationship and I want to keep it that way.

[danceronice]

There are plenty of people (especially relating to ballroom or steampunk) where I don't know them or know them tangentaly, but a look at our 'connections' would tell them (or me) how we know each other. With the ballroom, it's nice to have judges friended. The more they see my name, the better. Steampunk, it's usually friends of friends or people I met at events I worked, so we're not close friends in most cases--usually con-goers or other vendors--but it never hurts to make connections. And I'm FB friends with some people I know mostly/only from other online venues.

Noting that I don't post much in the way of pictures and very few "ZOMG Im @Sbux" kinds of inanities and my reaction to "I got in trouble for posting pictures of the drunken party I had when I called in sick to work" is "Why did you post that in the first place, idiot?" so I do not tend to have much I'd worry about coming back to haunt me.

[furlong47]

Oh I am very tech savvy and can do that. Too much work, honestly. Plus, every time FB changes their privacy settings, things have to once again be wrangled. I really just don't want them to be my friends at all. We have a strictly business relationship and I want to keep it that way.

I am friends with many people from work, but there are others who simply say that they are not willing to friend anybody they know in a work related capacity. That's enough explanation for me. Some of these people did open themselves up for friend requests after they left the job, so they could then keep in touch with former co-workers for friendship or networking reasons.

[GotGait]

Yes, but almost always other horse or dog people. I like looking at all the pictures.

[KateMcCall]

I do.... I'm friends with a lot of 4* eventers, and a few COTH members. I study Russian so I make Russian friends through penpal websites and then friend them on Facebook too. if they come off as creepy at all I delete them. I don't accept random friend requests unless I have a mutual friend with the person.

[KateMcCall]

You can create different lists and set specifically what each list can see -- you can pick and choose what you want specific lists to see or not see

I need to find out how to do this.... lol!

[quietann]

Friends of friends, if I have a sense of who they are. Unfortunately this has led me into some strange encounters with very very right-wing sorts, usually in the horse world. In one case I had to block the woman because she insisted on sneering and insulting anyone whose political views were not the same as hers.

Please note I DO have right-wingish friends IRL and on FB but they aren't the sort who are always looking for a fight.

I do not "friend" anyone I know from work. My FB presence is pretty innocuous, but theirs may not be.

[IronwoodFarm]

I only talk about horses on FB. Not work, not anything else. I do accept friend requests from strangers if I can see that they are horse people. If they have a Norwegian Fjord as part of their FB picture, then I am likely to say yes. I see it as networking, pure and simple.

I also use FB sparingly. I don't live my every waking moment on it like some people do.

[kcmel]

Just some of the UL event riders who don't have fan pages. Other than that, I'm pretty restrictive. I only have 75 friends.

[Adamantane]

Depends upon the context. Am far more likely to FB friend a horse person I don't know than others.

[Alagirl]

I had for a while only people I didn't know on my friends list.
Because I was hiding out and playing games. And sadly you can't really play them without 'friends'
I have not unfriended them, since they are in the Philipines, Australia, London UK, and I found them to be pleasant people.

On the other hand, I ahve only friended a handful of people that I do know, one I ought to ditch, but you do need to keep your enemies closest...

[clanter]

not on facebook, or in real life

[spacytracy]

I have a few online buddies that I've friended on fb. People who are verifiable. Sometimes I wonder if I should defriend anyone I don't know IRL, but the ones I am fb friends with, I really enjoy reading their posts, finding out how they are doing outside of horse forums.

My boss and my coworkers are also my friends.

It doesn't bother me. Why? Because I NEVER bitch about work on Facebook. I NEVER bitch about my husband or family on Facebook. Unless its something funny that happened or a cute story.

My Facebook is not my soapbox, my venting place. I use it to communicate with people, to share what's going on in our lives, and catch up with people. I'm friends with my mom. I think "how would my mom resect to this?" when I post. That keeps me out of trouble.

[ACMEeventing]

I don't Facebook at all (and I don't miss figuring out how to politely turn down a friend request )

[jen-s]

The majority are friends IRL, but I've friended a number of people (COTHers and other horse peeps) whom I've never met for networking and general pony fun purposes.

[pony4me]

I typically come back from a horse show, or other horse-related event and have a few friend requests, which I usually accept. These folks are casual acquaintances, but I like hearing from them, and will probably see them at future shows. As for sending a friend request to someone I totally don't know, I am trying to find the previous owner of a horse I bought in 1976. I found a person with the same name, and sent her a friend request explaining the situation. She was not the correct person, but accepted the friend request anyway. I quietly unfriended her a couple of months later. She was nice, but so are millions of other people in the world. I have told people at work that my work life and private life are totally separate, and I don't accept friend requests from anyone currently employed by the company. If someone leaves the company and I want to stay in touch with them, I will accept a friend request if they send one.

[arabracer]

I have a friend from college that is posting some crazy stuff on my wall-political views,gun control,blah blah blah. If I unfriendly or block someone -will they know about it? How can I block them in a friendly way?

[ybiaw]

Oh I am very tech savvy and can do that. Too much work, honestly. Plus, every time FB changes their privacy settings, things have to once again be wrangled. I really just don't want them to be my friends at all. We have a strictly business relationship and I want to keep it that way.

Make a 2nd page for your business. Only accept clients on that page. You don't have to have a lot on it or update it often at all.

FB is a great networking tool, though, so don't pooh-pooh connecting with clients on there - but do keep work and personal separate.

I personally don't have any CURRENT coworkers or clients as friends on my page, but I do connect with them on other networking sites like LinkedIn. I left a job over the summer, though, and "friended" a couple old coworkers who I wanted to be sure to stay in touch with.