Today Indranil posted a somewhat strange message on Facebook.

Social Networking as a HR PsyOps tool. Disgruntled / ex-employees (now with rival co) and FB - i was told about this by a colleague at work (at who's company this was happening) 

Methodology - Change companies and move into rival ones, then start adding ex-colleagues to your friend list. Freak the ex-company's HR out with possible hint of personnel / project poaching through tweets, status updates and comments.

To me nothing could be more stupid. And, I've seen shades,degrees and variants of stupid that defy categorization. There's this tendency specific to employees of companies in India to make their separation as full of ill wind as possible. I find it suitably ridiculous because unless you are changing your field of expertise/employment completely, you'll end up encountering characters from your previous places of employment or, have to place yourself in situations where you transact with them. Pissing off people or, just being a notorious nasty isn't appreciated by companies any more. Even if you are 'rock-star' material.

It doesn't take too much to be graceful. Even under pressure. Sadly, grace is something that most employees tend to leave at their homes when playing out their notice period. Among the various things that make employees "unemployable", this lack of grace and more importantly, this lack of common-sense to understand real life considerations comes near about the top of the list.

That and the blurring of lines between social networks and professional networks.