Yesterday, I got an invitation from the editor of a literary magazine to join her network on Facebook. I was happy to get back in touch with that other side of my life and accepted her invitation.

As residents of this city know, New York is a village, so it was no surprise that I ran into Joanna later on yesterday evening.

"I accepted your Facebook invitation," I said cheerily, realizing that she would have already known that. It was just something to say to break the ice, and I hoped it didn't make me seem too silly.

But her response really put me off stride.

"What? What Facebook?" she asked.

Joanna is a little older than the typical Facebook demographic, but she's not that much older. Plus, isn't Facebook making inroads everywhere? Isn't that why Microsoft is rumored to be in talks to acquire a hefty chunk of its stock?

"Facebook," I said. "It's a social network."

"I know what Facebook is," she snapped.

"Well?" I said, flushing with embarrassment.

She muttered something about an intern, which in my utter confusion I misunderstood even more.

"You're an intern?" I said. "I thought ..."

"No, we have an intern working at the magazine," she said, equally flustered and confused.

What happened is that an intern working at her magazine got a Facebook account in the magazine's name and then proceeded to invite contributors on Joanna's behalf.

The trouble is, she hadn't bothered telling Joanna about it. And I'm not so sure Joanna thought it was such a good idea. But maybe Joanna was more upset at her intern for doing something like that without letting her know, much less asking permission.

This must be what consultants mean when they predict that the next generation of employees is going to bring new social networking tools into the enterprise, whether or not their employers approve.

Maybe Joanna will fire her intern over it, but I doubt it. If anything, she'll probably realize that creating a community among her magazine's contributors will only help to drive conversation and creativity and, as a consequence, greater readership. She's probably much more likely to congratulate her intern for having had a good idea, and ask her to just check with her next time before putting another unexpected collaborative tool in place.