With a heated political season underway in the US and so many social issues at the forefront of people’s minds, many of us are eager to express opinions and share our passionate points of view on the topics at hand.

So it’s worth a reminder:

What you say online can and will reflect on your employer, whether you like it or not.

You don’t have to like it or think it’s fair. It’s just reality.

If you use your social channels for a combination of work and personal stuff like I do, there’s likely a built-in association between you and the company you work for, at least in a tangential way. 

So if I were to go out and post something racist or bigoted online, that could very likely reflect poorly on Sysomos, and some people would indeed have their perception of the company impacted by my association and employment there.

It doesn’t have to be that extreme either; have you ever seen someone just being crass or tasteless or rude to someone online and thought quietly to yourself “Gee, I wonder what XYZ company thinks about having that person represent them?”

Those associations stick.

The personal and professional lines on the web are blurrier than they’ve ever been. It’s just part of the price of playing the game, so it’s worth paying attention.

But Amber! People should be able to have opinions! Our employers don’t own us!

Yep, won’t argue with you there. People should be able to have opinions that are completely independent of their work and professional presence, and we should be able to separate those things in our mind.

But humans aren’t rational creatures, and that’s just not the way things work when it comes to perception.

No, your employer doesn’t own you, nor do they own your thoughts and opinions, and you shouldn’t just be a homogenized version of a filtered corporate message. You have every right to express yourself as you please.

But.

It’s naive to think that you can go online and switch personas cleanly and without any kind of impressions rubbing off one direction or the other, for better or for worse.

The bottom line is you don’t have to like it, but you should be aware of the risks and the possibilities of consequences and make your choices accordingly.

I take this risk every day.

I take my work as an executive at Sysomos very seriously. I take great pride in my work, I like my company and colleagues, I’m passionate about my space and technology, and I care very much about putting my best foot forward on behalf of my company.

I’ve made the deliberate, conscious choice to use my online presence both for professional purposes and personal ones, so for me, it’s impossible to keep the two from touching each other and reflecting back and forth.

And yes, it’s a choice.

I have a couple of friends who keep their employer completely out of the field of view of their online bios. They’re never mentioned. They don’t conduct any business on their personal social channels whatsoever. They keep the separation of church and state very clear, and so their risk of cross-contamination is very limited.

Then there are the folks who do the opposite; they’re all business online, and don’t share anything personal. That works too. If your persona is all work all the time, then its unlikely that your individual opinions and beliefs will reflect on that professional persona in an unflattering way.

Most of us, I think, live somewhere in between. Personally, it’s important to me to be as human and real as possible in my life and work, so I choose to weigh the risks and post things with those implications in mind.

Yes, sometimes that means I edit what I share. I always think before I post (and I’ve screwed it up once or twice when I get really passionate about something). And I always know that I carry a certain amount of responsibility for my professional role when I choose to share personal things, which I do often.

I have a fantastic, progressive employer and I use a lot of common sense and judgment from experience, so I feel comfortable with the balance I’ve found and free to be myself 99% of the time.

You need to find your balance, too.

Just remember the disclaimer is for them, not you.

People get really mad when they feel like they’re being censored or edited. I understand.

But here’s one last reality check for you.

The “these posts/tweets/comments are my own” disclaimers don’t mean much of anything. If they do anything meaningful, they allow your employer to gracefully disavow your content as anything endorsed or otherwise supported by the company just in case you go off the rails.

But that disclaimer does not protect you from experiencing any of the consequences that may occur as a result of the things you choose to post, including being terminated from your job if you’re in violation of a code of conduct that you agreed to (or in the case of at-will employment situations, for no reason at all).

Is it fair? Not always. Do I agree that a teacher should get fired because she did a lingerie photo shoot as a model years ago that later surfaced online? No, personally I think that sucks.

But private employment isn’t the same as government oppression of free speech.

That’s why it’s a choice, and a decision in today’s connected world that we all have to make carefully.

The beauty and the mess of the internet is that information flows around pretty freely.

If you’re a professional on the web, you’re going to be judged based on how you conduct yourself online, and people are not going to draw hard lines between the Work You and the Not Work You.

Like I said, you don’t have to like it, but you do need to be aware of it. Being an adult is all about making choices, and sometimes it’s a choice we don’t always like.

The internet can be an unforgiving place, and it’s really difficult to take words back once they’ve been archived in the Library of Congress.

Be mindful, be deliberate, and know that we’re all balancing the same things you are.

Good luck! It’s a jungle out there.