"bring your whole self to work" and other wanky work phrases

[CrabbitBastard]

I really loathe that expression "bring your whole self to work". Its so wanky and also inaccurate - no one ever brings their whole self to work. We all want to keep our work and private lives separate don't we?

dont think my colleagues would appreciate me bringing my sweary, slobby, cheesy music loving side to work. What about those individuals who might be having relationship, infertility, health problems and not be comfortable sharing this with others? Therefore, they won't be bringing their 'whole selves' to work.
I also hate "we are like a family here" My real life dad wouldn't question why I needed time off work to see my doctor or anything like that!
Its great that companies are friendly or inclusive, but all those wank phrases really grind my teeth.
What other phrases do MNetters hate?

Agree! Went to an interview with very well known trendy tech company that bangs in about inclusivity. I got the strong impression that as long as you were the right kind of inclusivity you’d be included. I.e. under 30, thin and good looking and trendy. Not a single short plump dirndle skirt wearing person in the building.

I am a lesbian. I can assure you that all the inclusive LGBT rainbow bollocks is not aimed at us, neither do most of us want any of it. When we said we wanted to be allowed to be ourselves, we just meant we didn’t want to get sacked or beaten up, we didn’t mean we want LGBT rainbow bullshit rammed down everybody’s throats so everyone is giving us the side eye.

don’t blame us for all this crap, it’s effort free, capitalistic, virtue signalling, box ticking wank. If I told my company that I as a lesbian don’t consider men can ever be women and that to suggest a man can be a lesbian is homophobic, I’d probably get the sack. Taking my whole self to work is likely to result in disciplinary action and to lose me my job

Team work makes the dream work.

When colleagues post on linked in and start their posts with "delighted to have been", "excited to share that", etc. Why do they all drop the "I" or "we" beforehand 🤷‍♀️. It wouldn't sound so wanky if they write "I was delighted to ... " or "I'm so excited to share that ..." - or is it just me?! Makes me roll my eyes every time.

I agree OP. I don't put my whole self in at work, it's not the effing hokey cokey.
And some of the most dysfunctional work environments I have ever had the misfortune to be in described themselves as being like a family.

Surely the expression just means that you should be able to be honest about yourself at work

That would be being your true self. Not bringing your whole self.

No one needs to see your whole self at work.

You bring your whole self in, your whole self out, in out in out you shake it all about!

I hate 'moving forward' well you don't wann be moving backwards do ya??!!!
My husband had started saying this at home ffs its so bloody annoying!

The word 'piece' meaning subject or concept. All the freaking time. And now I'm doing it.

My boss is always asking me to reach out to people, I always reply, yes I'll ask them .

Good point actually, I thought we were meant to be all about the pronouns these days!

This. Please, enough with the 'bring your whole self to work' already. Some of yourself belongs in private, behind closed doors with consenting adults only.

When I worked in an office in the 1990s the pathetic phrase used by all the yuppies was “touch base.”
I hated it.

That's so sad to hear @HariboReckoning 😢 - but I sadly can see why. I think we've gone backwards. It seems things were more progressive in the 90s.

I don’t think there’s really any such thing as inclusivity, if you include certain religions, behaviour etc. you automatically exclude others or certainly make them feel excluded.

People are always reaching out to me at work or asking me to reach out, can’t stand that phrase and also when people say they need me to ‘jump on a call’, find that really irritating too. Join the call, make a call, I don’t want to jump.

“Don’t leave until you leave” said to me by my boss when I was 8 months pregnant, meaning he expects 100% of my focus until my last day. I had DD’s toes exploring and tickling my ribs at the time. 100% focus not available, sorry. A baby isn’t a bun that sits in an oven, it’s a child playing.

Agree everyone masks at work. My generation called it being professional. Now there’s a lot of weird exemptions like mask your personal life unless you’re trans, in which case it’s ok to force your colleagues to listen to every detail of your sex life when they’re supposed to be working.

Why can’t sex lives stay private?! Mine is!

Oh and the constant emails headed “Celebrating John Smith” the purpose of which is to say John is leaving the company but wasn’t he fab. When everyone knows John got fired for not bringing in enough new clients.

I got the strong impression that as long as you were the right kind of inclusivity you’d be included. I.e. under 30, thin and good looking and trendy. Not a single short plump dirndle skirt wearing person in the building.

^^

This all over.

There isn't one person overweight where I work. Not even slightly plump. It's fatist, basically

But they're all so DE&I

"Happy Days!" said with a weird exuberant "AAAAAAAAAYYYYYYY" northern inflexion makes me want to spew 😤

This is so true! I once had a very odd conversation with my boss…

Him: I’m so proud that we’re such a diverse team. We’re doing so well on diversity in this department.

Me: “But… This department is 90% women. Between the ages of 25-30. And er we’re all white?”

Boss stares at me blankly while thinking “good god I hired a whole bunch of women how is that not diverse.”

Old boss used to say ‘ get it Nike-ied’ as in just do it 🤮🤢ffs

This is probably very specific to my industry, I work with a lot of ex millitary types. Usually fairly senior. They have kept the wanky, old boys club nicknames they got in the forces and insist that we all use these instead of their given names. They sign off emails with them, which is very confusing when you get an email from Matthew.Smith@companyname and the email is signed off with "Chippers", "Whiskers" or some such nonsense.

Any time someone says "can we circle back to that" or "let's take this offline"

I sat in a DEI meeting in my previous role. The CEO said he wanted to "move the conversation away from gender" and that he wanted to us to focus on "diversity of thought". He looked so smug, really pleased. Everyone nodding. I asked how we would get diveristy of thought without diversity of people. Fools

" I need to drop"
"I've taken the liberty of cc'ing (every man and his dog)
"well, at least we won't be bored"

so I realise i sound so miserable but all the "celebrating".
celebrate IWD, BHM,Pride. Celebrate what?!?! That you are still discriminating against them?

Ffs, that's so bad but I laughed. Sounds really fintechy

I am so sorry. Ita just so shit💔