Be Aware of What You Share.

I had a really creepy thing happen to me last week at work. It gave me the strangest feeling and made me super uncomfortable, so much so, that I came close to deleting my Facebook account.

As most of you probably know, I work at a real estate firm. One day last week, right before I left for the evening, my boss asked me to email some pictures of a listing to a couple of clients. I do stuff like this all the time, and had emailed these particular clients before, so what I thought were the correct email addresses were saved in the "To" field.

The next morning I came into work and opened my email as usual. I saw that one of the clients had replied to my email, so I opened it to find I had the wrong email address. What's creepy is what the reply said...

"Hi Jamie. I think you have the wrong email address. I don't know a Karl with a 'K'. Did you really enjoy reading "An Inconvenient Book" I can't imagine liking anything written by a man like Glenn Beck. Say "Hi" to Tim for me."

Creepy right? Whoever this man is took the time to look  me up on Facebook. Before this incident I had my profile set to the most private you can make it non-friends. But did you know that any page you "like" in the interest part of the profile, like your favorite books, music and movies can ALWAYS be viewed by anyone with a Facebook account? There is no way to make that information private. So, I deleted all of that from my profile. And double checked that everything was set to "friends only," instead of deleting my account.

I don't really blame Facebook for this, as some people would, it's my own fault for not knowing what information I was sharing publicly. I urge everyone to be aware of what you're putting out there for the world to see. Especially, since now days employers, ex's and creeps have such easy access to information about you. What if the man who emailed me back, had been a potential employer, who is ultra liberal, would saying that I liked a book written by Glenn Beck have cost be the job? It's possible.

Not only could it hurt your chances of getting a job, attract creepers, but let's be honest, no one really cares to know you are doing every second of the day, or that you have a headaches. I'm not saying I'm not guilty of the occasional update like that, but at least I know no one really cares. No one is that interesting.

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Now I feel the need to defend myself for liking "An Inconvenient Book." I read it a few years ago, and I really feel that Beck makes some great points in it. However, I agree that since then he has well for the lack of a better term, became a wacko.