* * Anonymous Doc

Thursday, July 21, 2011

One of my attendings wants to be my Facebook friend. For the second time. Last time he was my attending, he friend-requested me. I thought that was a little unusual, but friendly, so I accepted the request of course, and didn't think much about it.

Now it's six months later, and he's my attending again.

And I get a friend request from him.

I didn't de-friend him in between then and now. Which means he must have de-friended me. And now he wants to be friends again.

Is there Facebook etiquette in a case like this? I don't abuse Facebook. I never really post much at all. So it's not like he would have de-friended me for cause. He must have just scrolled through his friends one day and perhaps forgotten who I was, or decided he'd never see me again, so may as well get rid of me. But then why ask me again six months later? Is this just what he does? Does he just want to be Facebook friends with people on his rotation so he can monitor their activities and make sure if we're ten minutes late one morning it's not because we were out with friends the night before, or if we switch shifts with someone else it's not because we wanted to take a secret three-day weekend?

But it's not like I can say no to the request. He's my attending. I have to accept the request. But maybe I'm allowed to accept it and then de-friend him?

Am I overthinking this?

10 comments:

  1. I don't add anyone who can perform any function of being my boss on Facebook such as a nurse manager.

    I'd avoid adding your attending (that's a consultant in English I think).

    Have you considered LinkedIn because that's fully professional and stuff? That way you can separate socialising with friends and acquaintances from professional networking.

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  2. Ignore the request. If he asks, play dumb and say "oh, I very rarely go on Facebook", which is actually true.

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  3. Just use the not now function and go with what Anon0601 said. Saves a lot of hassle and potential problems.

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  4. Don't feel you HAVE to accept his or anyone's request. It is YOUR Facebook and you are within your rights to choose. "If he asks..." The problem there is now that Anondoc knows, he will be expected to go on there and accept the request. Ignore it or accept and then block, but I would choose to ignore and not feel obligated to accept anyone's request I didn't want to.

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  5. Ignore, if he asks you are -in my opinion- in your right to explain that Facebook is private and you don't want/have an of your coworkers on it.

    I must say that I have similar issues with all my facebook friends. Being defriended is just feeding my inability to grasp the idea of social networking sites. What does it all mean?! In normal life you would just not see eachother that often anymore, or you would tell the other what bugs you or you would be told what the other finds annoying in you. On Facebook, you just get defriended, find out ages later and you're just left in a creepy unknown as to why. Thankfully none of the friends I frequently speak and see give me those problems. I decided I just don't get it and I'm not suitable. I need real live (and direct) feedback, not some weird, creepy, vague and illogical... well, whatever it is. I was made for real human contact, I do well with that, the rest is just incomprehensible.

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  6. Options:
    1) Do nothing, if he brings it up say you don't go on facebook often, as anonymous said
    2) Accept his friend request, but put him on "limited profile." This can be configured in privacy settings. That way you will be his 'friend' but he can't really see anything about you. No wall, not who you are friends with, not your pictures, etc.
    3) You could even make a second facebook account, one for just coworkers.

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  7. You should totally ask him for his number.




    And then give it to your pt from the previous post. Problem solved.

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  8. It is a little awkward to decline a friend request from a supervisor, because if you decline, they'll think you're talking about them online.

    I set up "lists" and have one whole group of people who I know well enough that I don't want to offend them by declining a friend request, but I don't want them to see everything I say. They get to see my wall (hence they don't feel insulted), but the security setting on my status updates is such that they don't get to see what I write. Every now and then, I'll change the security on a single post. That way those people occasionally see something from me and don't realize they're blocked from my page.

    Another option (for the future): You can change your FB settings so that people can't find you when they do a FB search on your name, which could prevent a repeat of this situation. Another thought: Sometimes FB does screwy things - including dropping people, so it's possible the guy didn't unfriend you and it was a FB issue.

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  9. I don't intend on adding my coworkers. I didn't add any of my professors during college.

    I did get friended by one of my professors once. I was really uber nervous about not friending her, so I told her that I only add professional contacts to linked in.

    She had used the "find friends by email" function and didn't realize that it was going to add all of the students she e-mailed . . . oops

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  10. Eh FB can be weird. I end up friends with people I never approved. It may not be the case that you were defriended.

    I would just ignore it.

    Although the idea someone suggested of giving his number to that other patient is really tempting.

    M

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