Dan Grabauskas Has Accepted Your Friend Request

Social networking sites used to be the haunt of cyber-stalking significant others and tech-savvy teenagers, but now everyone from young folks devoted to local media personalities to city councilors are getting in on the action.

The one group of people we didn’t expect to see hopping on the Facebook bandwagon was anyone affiliated with the MBTA. But as a Boston Daily tipster points out, MBTA General Manager Dan Grabuaskas now has a presence on the site.

According to his “About Me” section, he’s doing it to hear from the average T rider.

I am genuinely interested in your feedback and opinions of MBTA services and stations. Please feel free to write back with comments and constructive criticisms on your experiences riding with us. We value your contributions and as always, thank you for riding the “T.”

After a weekend of subway fires and shuttle buses, you’d expect to see several profanity-laced tirades on Grabauskas’ wall. Instead, it seems that some MBTA employees are using the page to get the boss’ ear.

One of his so-called friends writes:

i work for the mbta as a construction temp anything you can do to make me a long term guy would be nice

A bus driver takes the opportunity to ask the GM to pay attention to his employees’ needs.

HILLARIOUS! Obviously, this is not Dan Grabauskas.. Seriously, he never even showed up at any of the trainings when I first started the T.. […] Being a full time bus operator I must agree with the long breaks.. I mean we are away from home for like 12 hours and only paid for 8.. Customer satisfaction.. What about us, the EMPLOYEES!?!?!?!

Jeesh. What happened to writing a simple “Thanks for the add!” on a new friend’s wall? You’ve got to build up to openly begging for a promotion or longer breaks.

But as any cyber-bullying teenager worth her salt can attest, it’s remarkably easy to pretend to be someone else on Facebook. We emailed MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo to confirm that Grabuaskas actually set up the page himself. He didn’t seem to think the page really belongs to the GM, but promised to check with the boss and let us know.

Update: T spokesman Joe Pesaturo tells us “[Grabauskas] was quite surprised to see it. [H]e did not create it or authorize it.” He also says he’s going to contact Facebook and have the fraudulent page taken down. Better luck next time, promotion-hungry T employees.