With the economy how it is and more people having to be in the work force for longer hours it can seem like work is all that you are about. You might have other interests but you spend so much time at work that you do not have time to do them! All you can do is go to work, watch a little bit of TV when you get home, and then go to sleep to get ready for work the next day. With this kind of schedule it is understandable that so many people can only think about work related topics when they are with their friends. Since it is the thing that takes up most of your life you are most likely going to want to talk shop with other people.

A good amount of the time the friends that you do have come from within your own organisation or at least the same industry sector. You guys will associate with each other while you are on the clock and then when it is time to get off for the day, you once again find each other and go out somewhere. And when you get to the destination point the most likely thing that you are going to talk about is stuff that happened at work. It is your common connection and the one thing that binds all of you together. But you might also find yourself talking to strangers about work as well. While you might not work at the same job as them, it is a big part of who you are, so it is most likely going to come up.

It is when you talk about your work with strangers that something can go wrong. If you do not know the person who you are talking to very well then you do not know what they are thinking at any given moment. You do not know what they are going to do with the information that you have given them. That is why you have to be aware when you are talking about your work with someone that you do not know. What may seem like harmless information to you can turn around and be a gold nugget to another person. That little bit of information that you gave them might be the thing that turns around and ruins your company one day.

Of course the impact of what you say all depends on what you really know. And you are less likely going to be able to cause the destruction of the company when you are on the lower rungs of it. But if you are someone who works in upper management at the company then that means you might have a lot of information that could potentially bring it harm. So that means you really have to be careful when it comes to what you are saying to strangers. If you are at the top of the food chain at the company then there is a good chance that you know sensitive details that you would not want any other company to know unless you would be giving up a competitive advantage.

And do not forget that if your company is high profile enough then you might have someone try to get close to you on purpose so that they can find out secrets of the company. Do not think that this is something that happens only in movies. If your company is making enough money and the person thinks that you know something valuable then it can happen to you as well.

So, when you are meeting strangers for the first time, it is natural to want to talk about your job. You just want to be sure that you are careful when it comes to the information that you divulge.