I would just ask first. How to check in on your employees without being a snoop - Fast Company In the internet age, real privacy where no one can find out personally things about you even if they really, really try is an illusion unless youre willing to sacrifice participation in a lot of society, and even then maybe not. I would feel quite violated if random Jane/John looked me up on Google, made an assumption, probably thought it *wasnt* me, but still has that awkward look when Im around, iykwim? I looked up his AIM screen name because I didnt know what it meant and if it was a reference to something I wanted to know what it was so he would think I was cool. And another example where if they were going to do the creepy thing they should at least have kept it to themselves, mentioning it to you makes it so much creepier. See the links below. I mean, as an analogy, if youre at the supermarket, youre publicly visible and out among other people, but itd still be creepy if someone followed you all through your grocery shopping trip. should I even consider interviewing somewhere else if Im happy with my job. Its one thing for law enforcement to take that deep dive because its their job its another kettle of fish entirely for a random coworker to take that deep dive because theyre nosy. To use your example, I assume at least one of my acquaintances has scrolled back through Facebook a few years. Its not necessarily that strange. We too enjoy food and coffee and going to the gym and all that! Or the arrest record of the LW from the other day. This is my hill! Is this OT? The internet is a mixed bag and even professional intentions you could stumble on personal information. Even in the early days of the internet, it was the Worldwide Web. My old manager told a reference checker what my salary was. Never have, never will. You know, on the whole googling coworkers thing, it seems like there are two main opinions. I mean, no ones going to argue with free Grubhub or a gift card occasionally and, trust me, its really awesome that youre thinking of them but most of them have probably weighed the perks of being in the office against the perks of being remote and know that sometimes, theyll miss out on the fun stuff of being in the office. OP#1, I have always been of the opinion that unless someone elses immediate physical well-being in threatened, its always best to mind your own business. Looking at a coworkers LinkedIn is not snooping. You could argue that its illogical of them, but I assume you dont want to make your coworkers uncomfortable, so even if you are totally okay with looking up the last ten years of someones social media presence, probably best to keep that under wraps. I dont know, I think that there can be times when youre a normal level of curious about another person but there isnt a good time/reason to ask them to go into it. Hi, OP what youre describing here is pretty typical, and could be one of the few good things LinkedIn can do. Browsers didnt even exist back then, so there was no vision of what the internet would look like 25 years in the future. it still sucks to hear almost every week theres free food in the office and I cant have any :( So an occasional small gift card for free food is always a nice touch! But the phone book example is a good one. I would cringe so hard at telling someone that wed reimburse them for lunch as a perk but I see the thought behind it at least. The information contained herein is the property of CVS Health and subject to non-disclosure, security and . No, I dont think performing a background check is a violation. I would think a huge perk is never needing to remember your lunch and packing it to go! Its a little like if a coworker saw a garment I was wearing slip and reveal more skin than normal before I corrected it- its not their fault they saw a little more than I would have chosen to show, but it harms that valuable illusion of privacy and turns pretty creepy if they keep bringing it up. The vibe you want to aim for is I dont want to bore you with details you already know instead of Prove your knowledge to me. That doesnt mean you are, but you shouldnt write that off solely because youre been managing for 20 years. Yeah, thats real. That instantly cured me of Googling people out of idle curiosity, especially coworkers that I have to see every day. If you do a google search on a coworker and see the things theyve created intentionally for the wider public to see, like their LinkedIn or a public Twitter or Facebook profile. I guess it depends on how deep and far you search. So I agree to ask at least. Im actually going to refine my answer on this one. Were a Venmo-friendly office, so. She didnt write on her blog that shed gotten arrested. Practically everything on social media is posted with express permission from the user. I do get creeped out when I see someone liked one of them from five years ago. Its a deep and complex history, but the short of it is that the Director has been here for 2 years upon my hire, the Directors employee who hired me has been here for over 20 years. I do think, however, that references should have some idea of the positions/levels you are applying for, though I doubt that would have helped in this case. Unfortunately, there are some shady companies who think its ok to lowball you because youre out of work. Its naive to think no one will find it. If I saw someone wearing a cow costume under their clothes I would certainly try to get a closer look, is it just a cow top, are they wearing a full body cow costume, I would wonder are they going to a costume party today, do they work for some kind of dairy farm. However, I would be creeped out if a professional contact brought up that article in a conversation. Id feel weird telling them what I saw on a Facebook post from 2 years ago. Me neither. Even if you have five pizza parties and only send out one card, at least youre admitting the home gang exists. I dont think that coworkers are googling me because I am not that interesting and they have more important things to do, but if I found out that a coworker had googled me or run a background check just out of sheer curiosity I would not be surprised. This sounds like the episode of Seinfeld where Elaine had to pretend to live across the street to get an order of Supreme Flounder delivered. Or if the boss wants to be nice ask them what they would like a slice of. I think Alison is 100% correct. Its not foolproof (for all I know, you have very loose boundaries around this stuff), but mentally putting yourself in their shoes is generally a good proxy for figuring out the boundary between ok and too far. Ive never been bothered by this. It even applies to the IT support division I work in, even though we almost entirely support internal teams. Its okay for me to discover that SoAndSo on AAM is the same SoAndSo on Twitter, and if the profile for SoAndSo on Twitter also mentions that youre John Smith from Phoenix, Arizona and youre a game designer who used to work at EA, with a link to your LinkedIn profile and your online portfolio, and your online portfolio has a link to your resume that also includes your phone number and home addressthats on you. Im not saying a basic Google search rises to that level just that its publicly available information is not a carte blanche pass. I think the person with the dog walked into the house by themselves out of curiosity. victory over evil bible verses. Learning later that the HR rep and my director were tight, I feared the worst.

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