AIBU to not discuss my life story at work?

[HangryBerd]

My work is conducting training which tells us that we need to share our life stories, disclose what makes us "us", be vulnerable, share our emotions. If we don't, we are told that we're being anti-inclusion. My colleagues and manager are therefore having a go at me for being too private.

I'm finding this really upsetting as I'll chat to anyone about many things but there are aspects that are very difficult to talk about. They're nothing to do with work and quite frankly nobody else's business.

AIBU to stand my ground?

Seriously, what are they doing to do if you just refuse?

No one can force you to do anything. They can’t sack you for refusing to speak about anything non job related.

I would argue that sharing your personal life is unprofessional.

The whole thing is nuts.

If it were me I would refuse to participate, ask for their business case for how this supports inclusion, ask to see the risk assessment with particular focus mental health, and ask how this fits with data protection and right to privacy at work.

^^ THIS. OP, have you asked your employer WHY they think this so-called "training" is necessary? What exactly is it "training" you for?

I think you could argue that it is indirect discrimination and fails any Equalities Act test.

Invoke the bullying policy or harassment one if they persist. Or even say what you think should not be disclosed, perhaps with examples that haven't happened to you.

Tell them you’re a werewolf, you got bitten by an American tourist in the 80s your vulnerabilities include silver bullets and full moons.

if they don’t like it tell them they are not being inclusive of people who suffer from lycanthropy. Tell them you’re glad they are being so inclusive it’s such a relief and assume they will not have an issue if you take off every full moon as a reasonable adjustment to deal with your excess hair and for the safety of your colleagues.

I refused to do this. My line manager respected my decision. It's all very well to be ABLE to bring your whole self to work if it's something you feel the great desire to do, but you cannot force others to want to do the same.

I would not answer. No-one wants their employee's whole self at work, they want their best productive selves. If you reveal your whole self, especially in relation to things that could impact on productivity, you leave yourself massively open to real capacity, sick leave and other problems further down the line. If you mention menopause, brain fog, Long Covid, mental health problems, large life problems briefly it might be fine, but if it looks like it will translate into long-term health problems and impact sick leave or productivity, you will be vulnerable if there are capability procedures or redundancies they can use against you. I was honest about one of these and have had no end of trouble with HR since then, and I have now taken to denying all problems and presenting the best possible face to HR, otherwise, I risk performance capability proceedings, this is not in my imagination, this happened!

Do not tell the truth, your employer does not have your best interests at heart. They want some lovely tiny non-problematic problem revealed that won't impact the bottom line. I am not in the private sector by the way, but public and I thought the protections would be much better but they are not.

Recently I was asked to join a diversity workshop. Everyone else was a diversity specialist or a member of one of the company's people networks - so someone invested in D&I bollocks.

We were asked to share why D&I matters to us, why we are passionate etc.

I was honest - it's not an area of expertise for me but I appreciate learning more about the experiences of others.

If I was due to be leaving an organisation I think I would lie, but stun them into silence. For example, my parents were both highly abusive and my first memory is of attending sex parties with their friends, etc etc. If they want personal, I would give them made up personal and it would be the worse scenario they could imagine. And then finish with - thank you for creating an open and safe space where I could share that. I trust you will all continue to respect this safe space and not share my private information outside of it. I would then have to take the afternoon off for my mental health as a result of the sharing. And if anyone ever shared any of it I would sue the company, fuck em.

Bollocks. I let them think I'm just a boring middle aged woman, they have absolutely NO idea what an outrageous life I've led. They will never find out either.
Naturally because I'm 60 that's exactly what they do think the ageist bastards. If only they knew.😂

Absolutely all of this.

That's my idea of hell. I am a private person and don't discuss anything personal with random colleagues.

My work think I am a very private person and boring. I am not. I am just not stupid enough to share private struggles at work.

I wonder whether whoever has come up with this is very young (and has had a fairly easy life). Do they really want to hear about past relationships, gynaecological issues, family problems? Most people are quite dull (including me) - listening to a bunch of colleagues over share is going to be tedious at best and horrific at worst.

I don’t much like the suggestion that you make something up. Apart from anything else, it puts pressure on others to perform.

The grown up thing would be to say that you are uncomfortable certain things and that you really value your privacy. You were tempted to make something up but think it’s probably better to be honest.

Blimey! Not only is this appalling, surely it is discriminatory? People with poor mental health or who have suffered tragedies are being put under pressure that others are not. It singles out ill and disabled people and you could make a case for sex and race discrimination too

I like cats....is all they get from me.

If they insisted I would monologue for 10 mins on something niche until their eyes all glazed over. That will teach them!!!

The thing is though most people have endured awful things past or present, even people with fairly humdrum lives. A massive proportion of women have been sexually assaulted and many raped, or abused as a child, and so have some men. Most people will have suffered bereavements, some incredibly traumatic. People have, or have had, awful health issues, injuries, phobias and painful addictions. As a PP said, it's a private life for a reason - most of us have things we don't want everyone to know or that it would simply be very upsetting to have to recount.

That's why this kind of thing makes me so cross - ANYONE could tell them it's a really bad idea. I just do not get who laps up this stuff and thinks ooh yes great idea! - and why?

@SillySausage81

In the past I had a job working in insurance doing medical interviews for life/income protection. There are A LOT of questions to go through - about 60. Some interviews can be very time consuming so it's great when you get someone answering No to all the questions. One person was answering No all along - no heart problems, no blood pressure problems etc and I was picking up speed whizzing through the list until I got to "have you had time off work for stress/depression ?" and he replied "I had a year off after my family were killed in a car crash" - wife and children. That rendered me speechless and took the wind out of my sails.
You just don't know what is going on in people's lives and it's really not appropriate for employers to expose people to these sorts of scenarios.

Also agree with everything @Terzani said.

I find the idea of people with the power of hire and fire, who could potentially be in charge of issuing redundancies forcing employees to confess "serious mental health conditions and our relationship histories." utterly intrusive and troubling.

I'd want to know a hell of a lot more about the purpose, the qualifications of the person conducting this research/training or whatever it was and what they were going to do with this information and I'd probably contact a union.

PPs are right when they ask if your employer has thought about the issue of having plans to deal with stirring up trauma with this exercise.
On a training course years ago, over a dozen of us had to stand in a circle and talk about the last time we were really sad and how we overcame it. It was very "self Confessing" style. I'd had a recent bereavement but couldn't/didn't want to mention it and asked to be excused. They kept pressing so I left the room. I probably should have made up some story but I couldn't think straight as I was just getting through it day by day at the time. Why should you be forced share personal vulnerabilities with colleagues? Trusted friends yes, but in the workplace? Surely you should have a right privacy? It sounds like poking a hornets nest.

I find the idea of people with the power of hire and fire, who could potentially be in charge of issuing redundancies forcing employees to confess "serious mental health conditions and our relationship histories." utterly intrusive and troubling

In exjob I had managers I didn't trust as far as I could see them. No way I would hand them vulnerabilities they could exploit, personally or professionally (learned that one the hard way).

For someone unwell this sort of intrusive pressure could trigger them.

I find it chilling.

On whose orders and with what qualifications are they doing this.

I think a call to ACAS is warranted.

To be forced, coerced, into spilling your guts in front of people you may not know nor like, could well trigger someone very seriously.

I think someone ringing out sick with stress because of this could have the basis of a case for constructive dismissal.

Hard to believe no one has challenged this.

Yes, I've had group therapy, run by NHS staff trained in psychotherapy. At one session, a young woman talked about how she'd been absent from the group the previous week because she'd been having her third abortion. She talked about how difficult this was for her but that it wasn't the right time in her life to be pregnant. Unbeknownst to her, the week that she was away, another woman on the group had spoken about her recent miscarriage and how she thought her fertility issues might bring about the end of her marriage. She was sitting in the room whilst this other woman was talking about abortion. The rest of us sat there knowing what she was going through, listening to this. Somehow, I don't think Barry from HR, with his 2:2 in media studies and three years HR experience is going to be qualified or able to deal with the fallout from that one.

And group therapy feels like a safe space because you know people have been referred there. So you know that whatever they've got going on is similar to you, in some way. And you know you can walk out of the room and not see them again. You don't really want to be bumping into Brenda from accounts after you've just confessed that you don't really care if your dad lives or dies because he is, in all honesty, quite the arsehole. This is a shit idea for all concerned.

I have only once been asked to share things. It was on a course about working with children and we had to share a time when an adult upset us (it was to talk about power relationships) and the trainer made a very big deal that we should not share things that were very upsetting but more minor everyday things. One person actually said they could only think of major things and nothing minor and the trainer said that's fine lets move to the next person.

I think people who suggest in work exercises like the OP is being asked to take part in are either pretty young with an easy life so far, or have led a very charmed life and think that is the norm.

I am older and many people I know have had major difficulties at some point in their lives and it is rarely apparent. Women in happy marriages who tell you they were in a very abusive relationship with an ex. Woman whose sister was murdered. Woman whose dad was an alcoholic and regularly beat her mother. This stuff is not unusual. And there is a reason most people do not know this kind of stuff about work colleagues.

Yes, I'm wondering whether they have counsellors on hand for those whose childhood abuse is brought up by another colleague's description.
Not to mention, of course, the colleague who would use DARVO to tell everyone how his ex-wife forced him to hit her and then had the temerity to call the police, or to share their fetishes.

That's the point, when everyone shares something it opens up a space

I don't understand what 'opens up a space' means.

Tell them you've had the Severance procedure

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2022/feb/18/severance-review-ben-stillers-workplace-fantasy-might-make-your-mind-explode?CMP=ShareiOSAppp_Other