Right now, I’m guessing 95 percent of the readers of this post have no idea what the headline is referring to.

A paint party? Really?

A DayGlow event? You mean like DayGlo paint?

Pretty much.  The organizers bill it as the “World’s Largest Paint Party”, but let’s just say that you’re not painting houses. (I’m assuming many of you are still in the dark though you can check out the video below to see if it what you imagine it might be is right.)

Essentially, its a DJ-driven party where people wear white shirts, listen to music, dance, and get drenched in paint.

Needless to say, I haven’t bought tickets.

And yet, I can tell you that these types of events are HUGE.  So much so that a DayGlow event just sold out at the XL Center in Hartford in a matter of days and a second show was added by demand.

In fact, right now, it is one of the more popular events touring around and, if you’re in Connecticut, I’m guessing that more than a few of your younger employees (and college kids) have bought tickets to this event.  Sounds a little crazy, right? Perhaps even a little silly and maybe stupid?  I mean, you’re getting drenched in PAINT.

So, what steps should you be taking as an employer to find out if your employees are going?

Nothing.

That’s right.  Nothing.

And that’s exactly the point.  With social media and technology, we continue to blur the lines between work life and personal life so much that employers start to feel empowered to act on anything that their employees do.  Post a picture? Gotcha. Tweet something a little outside the mainstream? You’re fired.

But an event like this — in “real” life, as we have started saying — illustrates that there are boundaries that are still worth being drawn.  DayGlow is a party.  Not one that most of us would go to anymore, but a party.

I’m sure that there are a few of us that probably went to something kind of new that our parents wouldn’t have approved of.  (And let’s not even get started on the people who went to Woodstock, ok?) Should we be punished for that too?  No, because we have long since held the belief that things that happen after work with no connection to work, are not in the purview of the employer.

Why do some employers treat Facebook so differently? Perhaps because it’s new and perhaps because it’s easier to monitor. But the DayGlow party and other events like this show that there are lines that still can be drawn.

(Now, of course, you as an employer can judge whether you want to hire or retain an employee that poses on videos like the one below, but that’s another post.)

So, the next time you hear of an employee doing something after hours that has nothing to do with work — whether he or she posts it on Facebook or not — take a deep breath and consider whether this is truly the type of thing the employer should be concerned about.