Bring your whole self to work

[Porvendo]

My organisation is big on 'bring your whole self to work' crap. We've done training sessions where we're meant to 'open up' about life's troubles etc and get to know each other more deeply.

I used to buy into it all and considered certain colleagues friends etc but more recently I've seen the organisation and some of its leaders in a whole new light (after a nasty redundancy process where we let go of 12 colleagues) and it all feels a bit like they were just duping us into work more hours and creating a sense of blind loyalty (a bit like a cult)

AIBU? Has anyone else experienced this at work

I hear you OP. What they mean is management can bring their Authentic Self to work in flowery shirts to buy forgiveness for precious harsh practice. It’s complete bollocks and you’re right to not be taken in. ‘We’re a family’, ‘ our people are our greatest asset’, until you actually need something and then BANG you’re just a number.

Yep. When we asked for mental health first aiders we could have won a bet on who would volunteer. Tye says people who want to be fire marshals, staff reps, first aiders etc - the same busy bodies who would be front of the queue to bring their whole selves to work and talk incessantly about themselves.

Im a HR manager and I hate this shit. I just want to do recruitment, deal with genuine issues, be polite and professional then fuck off home.

First post nails it! x

I feel like the initial purpose of the "bring your whole self to work" movement started off well, but it was let down by the phrasing in the end. Really, the original concept was "you shouldn't have to hide huge parts of your life at work for fear of reprisal" and it did a good job, encouraging acceptance of same-sex marriage and understanding of mental health issues and chronic illnesses. I wouldn't worry nearly as much about mentioning a same-sex partner offhandedly in a conversation with a colleague as I used to, so I'd consider that a success.

That said, I really dislike what it has become. The phrase itself has become far too literal, it was never meant to be an encouragement to merge personal life and work life! When I go into work I am there to work, and to do so professionally. I'd actually hate if all of my colleagues and higher-ups had any reason to feel they "know" me on a personal level. There are colleagues I have made friends with, and they do know my "whole self," but I prefer to choose who does and does not get that kind of insight into my life!

Haha, yes, we have them where I work too and they’re all people I would cross the street to avoid.

Oh god ‘mental health first aiders’ what kind of cheap-ass ‘get the drones to shoulder even more’ bollocks is that?! 😡

Exactly. This bullshit is made by and for privileged people who have soluble and temporary ‘problems’ who might feel better with a biscuit and a cup of tea and a chat.
They don’t actually want to hear any of the shit things and actual discrimination that goes on day in day out at work.

It’s absolute bollocks. Hypocritical bollocks at that.

You don’t get paid to share your deepest, darkest secrets. You’re there to work. I’ve worked with some absolutes horrors over the years who would absolutely use personal information to their advantage.

Has anyone been fired for not bringing their whole self to work?

It’s the same as when they say you are family at work. They do that for a reason and as soon as they want you out they stop treating you like family.

Oh, I really dislike this. My work gets the part of me it pays for: the professional who does her job. Everything else in my life is none of the bloody business of some big corporation.

Totally agree. Bringing your ‘whole self’ to work can easily be weaponised if there is a toxic work culture. I’ve seen some people protected and put forward because of personal reasons and then others held back for things outside of their work if they’re deemed undesirable. I’m a believer in being a safe, professional version of yourself, separating your self-worth from your career and keeping work transactional to protect your mental health. It can feel very personal in a “bring your whole self to work” culture if things don’t go your way!

Good God, no. My private life isn't there for the entertainment of others. What a repulsive practice.

thats the thing, similar with our team all smiles and yea yea from managment then fast forward couple weeks later then its oh by the way your team has a meeting etc hole thing was planed and executed before we even got to the meeting the rest was just fluff

I used to work in places with a similar ethos and tbh I think overall it was helpful when done right and the idea was about creating a supportive team and preventing burn out and an honest culture which was what it did - I'm still friends with all those colleagues even now years after I moved on.

I'm guessing you work in a community based role as they usually promote this concept. And having been through a few redundancy processes with various places I think it's incredibly difficult to navigate this without feeling demotivated and devalued when people feel loyalty to an organisation that is having to cut back in order to save itself. Its a brutal process and I think it's possible to bring yourself to work and support each other while not forgetting you work for something bigger than yourself and that the funding climate is the worst its been in years.

’Mental health first aiders’ is actually really offensive to mental health and to first aiders. Someone in my workplace with no skills or training or expertise, and no time to talk, and no duty of confidentiality, to apparently be an ‘emergency service’ for me to confide on in and to console me at work. No way

At work, I'm supposed to be working. I'm not there to make friends or to offload my problems. I absolutely do not want my privacy invaded. My "whole self" needs to be kept as far away from work as possible!

plus i tried to build what i thought was a good friendship and even asked permission etc for different requests and it still went south, sometimes even when you do it by the book you still lose

I think there is a time and place but some of this stuff just blurs boundaries and means people use their line managers and team as an emotional crutch. I was in an organisation a bit like this and it is much easier being somewhere that is less ‘bring everything to work’ and is more ‘be kind and supportive’ where appropriate. I felt like I was being asked to act like a mental health professional with no training at my last job.

Oh hell we have this rubbish too. Nope not happening as far as I am concerned.

I have bosses like this. They pretend they care and want you to talk about you to ‘team bond’ ‘trust each other ‘ ‘collaborate’ etc. bollocks. They will use it against you if need be ….and notice how they never tell you anything about them?

I think it depends on your profession.

I'm a teacher and if I didn't have colleagues who had my back, the job would be a hell of a lot harder than it already is. We have to be able to confide in each other and be honest with each other about what is going on for us outside of work, because otherwise we're putting on a front not just in front of our classes, but also in front of our colleagues, and that would be absolutely exhausting. I love the fact that I have been able to come into work after a weekend break up, a bereavement or other personal life crisis and know I could tell my colleagues and have their support if I was feeling wobbly and didn't know if I could manage to hold it together in front of the kids. In our line of work, we need to be able to look out for each other. A colleague slipping into your classroom with a cup of tea and a biscuit because they know you've had a shit morning, or offering to cover your class while you go and have a cry in the toilets and sort yourself out because you've just had some bad news, makes such a difference. I love my colleagues - we're very much in the trenches together, and they're my friends outside of work as well as in. I think in some professions you do develop much closer bonds with your colleagues than in others and that will change your perspective on professional and personal boundaries.

However, when I worked in an office prior to becoming a teacher, I hated all the bollocks that HR trotted out, because it was performative. They didn't really care about us - they just wanted to be seen to care. Mental health first aiders were the worst. I couldn't imagine going to speak to any of them - all terrible gossips - often very young with zero life experience, all very middle class, and having had no actual meaningful training - therefore in no position to give any legitimate help or support to anyone. I think when you don't work as closely with your colleagues and have no relationship with many of them, the expectation to share personal things or to have to listen to and be involved in other people's personal life dramas or fundraising initiatives or forced to 'identify' as particular things can become intrusive and unnecessary, especially when it's got nothing to do with the work you're doing together. There has to be a respectful boundary between personal and professional. As another poster said - it's about balance.

Oh yes. I've just left an organisation where they liked to say this.

In truth, there were only certain "whole selves" they really wanted to see (mainly the ones that hit their diversity targets).

It's absolute nonsense anyway, it promotes unprofessionalism.

This.

Plus, my boss has been crystal clear to us all that she is not qualified to deal with all our emotional and personal shit and we’d be better off talking to our mates about all that, not her.

And my ‘whole self’ is a bored work shy fopp who thinks 95% of what we do is a pointless waste of time and our entire team could be made redundant with no impact on our organisation whatsoever. So I don’t think I should take my ‘whole self’ to work. 😃

I find it to be an exercise in ammunition gathering and we all know how ammunition is used!

There are a lot of people whose “whole selves” I would rather not be around and they definitely don’t want me.

I wonder if it is to do with diversity because many gay and trans people might feel like they have to hide themselves in the workplace?

Yes, yes yes!