There was a time when maybe the only thing you had to worry about when it came to socializing with your boss was getting an invitation to a barbecue at his house.
These days, with the popularity of social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook, the biog question is whether or not to allow your boss to be a "buddy", something that is discussed in this article from the Boston Globe.
According to the author of the article, Johnny Diaz, making your boss a buddy on Facebook "can be an awkward intersection for people who try to keep their personal space and their workplace separate. But as professional and personal worlds increasingly collide online, it's becoming harder to escape the boss's reach after hours."
The problem is that these sites have become a common place for employers, colleges, professors and other individuals to check up on people. So, having your boss as a friend could make him or her privy to information you may not want them to know about.
Facebook has instituted increased privacy rules in recent years to help with that, but some still complain that their information is too exposed.
According to one expert, cited in the article, "create two online pages - one for socializing, the other for professional purposes." It may be best to keep your online life separated into one for work and one for socializing with friends. Otherwise, you may end up committing the Facebook equivalent of getting drunk at your bosses house and throwing up on his wife.
A key thing to remember, regardless of which social network you use, is that once you put it on the internet, it is now in the public. No matter how private you think things may be, people can access that information. So, don't put anything out there that you wouldn't want your boss to know about.