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?

Exactly what I did on one of these crap work exercise things. Apparently I was totally convincing.

Oh thank goodness

I'm not alone

Well they aren’t being very inclusive are they? They’re failing to include you, someone who quite rightly wants to keep their private life private! This is a totally batshit idea and completely ironically oppressive. “Tell me EVERYTHING or you’re fired!” Erm, no.

If you do make up something don’t make up something as extreme as that

What sort of questions are you declining to answer? If it’s stuff like ‘have you ever had a miscarriage’ then obviously you’re not being unreasonable. But if it’s something like ‘do you speak any other languages at home’, then that’s more debatable. I just can’t imagine what sort of life story information they’d be asking for.

This is deeply inappropriate. There is value in sharing with work colleagues if its either relevant to the job, or if it becomes a friendship. But forcing people to share about difficult parts of their life is inappropriate under nearly all circumstances.

They have no right to your private life.

They pay you to do a job, that's it. Your life story is yours and you get to choose who you share it with.

I hate things like this. It’s people who haven’t been affected badly by traumatic events or upbringing, and haven’t had serious mental health problems who never seem to have an issue with doing things like this and can’t see why others might not be ok with it.

Someone's ability to tell a sad story does not equal their capacity for empathy.

Showing a shared vulnerability by sharing private information one on one or in a small group is very different to telling your life story in order to gain brownie points. In fact the latter sounds shallow, without substance and a little narcissistic.

This is absolutely disgraceful, and I would be speaking to a customer about it. How dare they think they have a right to your private and personal history? What if someone had been raped? What if they had been taken from their family and adopted without their mother's permission? Do they really think that colleagues at work have the right to this information? Can they not see that some things are private?

Speaking to ACAS, not a customer!

This as well. If they truly understood they would not be pushing this issue. It's really inapproriate.

I would hate this.

I dont see how these type of team building events are beneficial.

There is a lot of my life I dont want my work colleagues to know about me. Mainly because some of them are soo nosey and love gossiping about other people’s lives.

I think putting all your vulnerability out on show for your colleagues to pick apart is completely wrong setting.

My advice is to share something mind numbing banal in huge amounts of detail and that will discourage them from asking you again. In years when I was single and dating when my colleagues would ask about my family I would go into vast amounts of detail about my sister (stuff like her commute and what she thought of it, my journey to see her new flat, how she was thinking of going for a new job and I was helping her). It gave the impression I was sharing and open but it was terribly boring so no-one encouraged me to keep talking. Look up grey rock. Have you watched or read anything recently you can share your passion about? The duller the better. Any home renovation or DIY stories?

@UhhhhhhhOK oh no, cake is not allowed anymore www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-64315384 🙄

Exactly @Overthebow

Can't you just tell them that some people have traumas and you don't want to trigger it or discuss it. And them forcing you is in conflict with your right to work in a safe environment, and you'd like to keep work as your safe space. Any replies just say I'd rather not comment for the reasons outlined above

Change your Teams pic to a black cat. Your story is..

“So I was once in this job and I was expected to reveal my vulnerability in meetings and told if I didn’t that was bad so I did feel vulnerable. I thought to myself what would a witch do in this situation? I researched witchcraft, I spent hours perfecting the spell and one night, when the moon was right, I carried out the spell……

Say no more unless asked…..

if asked say “The company folded”……

if asked about colleagues say vaguely “they aren’t around any more”.

Breeze off for lunch.

I can bore the pants off people talking about my hobbies so finding something to distract people with shouldn't be a problem 😀

The expectation is that we share information on things like serious mental health conditions and our relationship histories.

Ironically we've also had the training on GDPR, how this kind of information is sensitive and should be treated as such by law........

Not in a million years would I be sharing my life story and vulnerabilities and emotions at work. I don't even share much with my husband. I'm a Scorpio, we value privacy and secrets. It's discrimination against Scorpios and that's my philosophical belief which is protected under equality law. Or at least that's what I would be arguing.

And it's highly discriminatory against anyone a bit introverted or shy. I once watched a video of people on assertiveness training, one woman was so shy she couldn't take a compliment. She had to bake a cake and pass it round and everyone said "It's delicious, did you bake it yourself? How clever of you" and she just had to say "Yes, I did bake it myself, I'm so glad you like it, thank you". She blushed like a beetroot and really struggled to be the centre of attention in this way. It would practically kill her to have to join in with this sort of nonsense.

I'd just say I've no intention of discussing what is private to me with others outside of my close confidantes circle, and I have no interest in hearing about the private lives of others. You can conclude from this I am a confident, secure and discerning adult. I have no need to be emotionally supported by others and if anybody needs my support, they can talk to me privately.

Hi @HangryBerd, you choose what you share with others.

For a moment I hesitated, and wondered if I thought this applied generally, and then decided whatever your role (whether peer support or something else) your stuff is your own, and you are the only one to decide who it's shared with!

Excellent suggestions from both @cadink and @Ritasueandbobtoo9

I'd tackle this from a data protection perspective, because it usually makes management piss themselves.

Since disclosing your past story can include sensitive category personal data, I would ask them:

• Have they done a DPIA for this form of data sharing? If not, why not? If they have, what does the DPIA say about the potential risks to individuals, and how are they mitigating them?
• Which of the six legal bases are they relying on to collect this data?
• What is the purpose of the data sharing, how will it be stored and processed, how long they will retain the data?

(A DPIA is a Data Protection Impact Assessment - it's not required in every case, but they had better have a GOOD justification for not performed one for sensitive data being shared in a group setting)

Is this seriously a thing?
I haven’t been in the workforce for a good few years. Why do they want you to share such personal things? Some peoples lives are so complicated, that seems completely unfair.
You definitely should stand your ground.