Bringing your whole self to work

[FlyingOink]

What are your thoughts on this?

As a lesbian, out at work and highly visible, I like not having to make up a pretend husband if questioned by colleagues.

But does my workplace need to know everything about who I am as a person? Is there any benefit to this?

I think the move towards always-on working, where WFH can bleed over into leisure time, the fact many people work shifts, zero or minimum hours, or casually, and the fact our employers seem to want to own us almost entirely makes the idea that I have to commit to sharing my whole self with them really off-putting.

Also, what do I do with this information about my colleagues? Is it relevant? Where I'd maybe get to know someone as a friend and then learn of their passion for model boats or romantic poetry or the Liberal Democrats, now am I expected to be faced with all of this information and somehow use it?

Is bringing your whole self to work forcing the issue, is it harmless as an idea, what does it mean for various people? And how do you set boundaries around privacy if other people are determined to overshare?

I said it on another thread this morning. There should be a maximum percentage like 80%. I reckon everyone has at least 20% that they should keep well away from the workplace.

R.e. bringing your whole self to work - I don't think I ever have. I'm naturally a private person so I don't say much about my personal life but some colleagues go into so much detail I wonder if they have any sort of filter. I have at times been the only ethnic minority in the office (not anymore) so that has meant I've been 'on guard' quite frequently in the course of my career. I also avoid talking politics at work and certainly wouldn't mention mention my GC views at work.

@ShirleyPhallus

I don’t think “bring your whole self to work” means “tell everyone all your business about your private life”

It means “we want you to feel comfortable sharing whatever you want to”. So if you’re a naturally private person, that’s fine. But if you want to be out and are a bit nervous, well the business supports you in that.

I think it’s quite a nice sentiment if incredibly cheesy

What if other people aren’t comfortable with you sharing what you want though?

What if you decide to share about your personality disorder & other people find themselves worrying themselves about the risk of suicide with your personality disorder and don’t know how to support you with that and become anxious and unwell as a result? What happens if that massively impacts on productivity?

What happens if it’s a safeguarding role and employees talk about their asexuality or their pansexuality in front of the primary children they teach or in front of the elderly women with dementia they should be caring for?

What happens if other employees are victims of sexual violence and aren’t comfortable with you being in your pride at supporting sex work with your earnings and penis?

@FlyingOink

Of course you or anyone shouldn’t be making up a husband or boyfriend. But I don’t really see how anyone at work needs to know other than if you mention a wife or girlfriend in passing. No one needs to know you are single and on the hunt for a female so for example, they don’t need to know your on lesbian dating sites or whatever. I appreciate there can be plenty workplace chatter and socialisation in lots of roles. I’ve mostly worked in roles that involve vulnerable children or adults and other than them knowing I have a boyfriend/husband/that I have kids, it’s not appropriate for them to know more. There’s no scenario it would be ok for me to talk about being single and needing to find a man. But it’s been a long time since I’ve worked in roles that don’t have strong safeguarding needs. So I’m maybe not getting the need to chat about social issues. We have had lots of issues in my job roles where staff over shared personal mh problems or political opinions or personal information or religious views that then caused safeguarding problems and impacted how people were able to fulfil their job role.

Of course you shouldn’t need to lie about about a husband, i just can’t see how it’s anyone’s business at work.

@BloodinGutters quite clearly whatever you share has to be business / professionally appropriate. If someone shared with me that they absolutely love anal sex then that would clearly be inappropriate in a business environment and go against any HR policy, above and beyond “being yourself”

I don’t think I really needed to say that though, some people here are being deliberately obtuse

I don't mind this kind of approach. It's helped me to appropriately share issues I've had with depression, which has been a relief.

It has to be optional though. We had a 'sharing' session where we were to discuss in groups 'an event in our life that led us to where we are now'. I didn't take part, as I wasn't in a good place in my life so to listen to everyone's phenomenal events and great lives wouldn't have been positive for me.

@Disfordarkchocolate

God no. You get my work, you get me being professional, helpful and punctual and bloody good at my job.

The emotional labour of 'bringing my whole self', fuck that. I like a clear distinction between work and home.

This x 1000

I dislike that people share their personal lives. Nobody at works business what my sexuality is or if I have kids.

Although for OP to not have to lie about having a husband and mentioning a wife without an eyebrow being raised is fantastic and as how it should be.

But the kids single parent thing drives me insane to be honest.

I have a colleague, let's call her Sue, who never pulls her weight at work because she a single parent. Booo hoo hoo.

Oh poor Sue can't do Saturday morning as she has her kids, can you do it please Dino?

Well actually no I fucking can't, I'm a single parent too and I took the job knowing there would be some weekend work and made arrangements for childcare.

I know most single parents are women and is therefore a feminist issue in the workplace. But fuck me, there are some who take the piss and make it more difficult for women to be taken seriously in the workplaces

Whoops sorry OP slightly off tangent.

I think it's quite interesting. Theoretically if someone is racist or sexist in their private opinions it shouldn't matter at all if laws and behavioural rules mean their colleagues are protected from that (eg no political/slogan tshirts in the dress code protects colleagues from their Combat 18 leisurewear or their Leave Means Leave badge. That code would also stop me wearing an Adult Human Female tshirt to work and that seems fine).

In practice it is of course questionable whether someone who regards a woman with a professional job as part freak can really leave those views at home, hence the outrage when Geoffrey Thing of UKIP made that 'slut' joke about not cleaning behind the fridge and ended up resigning, even though it really was an off the cuff joke and quite funny - it seemed to indicate that he wouldn't have been able to work effectively with female colleagues, even though nobody had said that was an issue.

I'm not sure we've really worked out how to manage this. I have colleagues who voted Leave and I just don't think about it. I'd prefer not to. Can't help wondering if we should be careful what we wish for if we want people's whole self at work.

[quote ShirleyPhallus]@BloodinGutters quite clearly whatever you share has to be business / professionally appropriate. If someone shared with me that they absolutely love anal sex then that would clearly be inappropriate in a business environment and go against any HR policy, above and beyond “being yourself”

I don’t think I really needed to say that though, some people here are being deliberately obtuse[/quote]
But what people consider business appropriate really varies these days. Even within the same business it varies massively and the people who get to dictate what’s appropriate aren’t thinking of all these things.

That was actually my point. Not being deliberately obtuse at all.

I’ve worked in roles in residential schools and mh facilities and supported accommodation and care homes and childcare.

I’ve had numerous situations were the people we were supporting would no longer accept support from someone because they over shared political or religious views. I’ve spent shifts dealing with co workers who worked themselves up into a state talking about their personal mh issues or past csa, ive dealt with accusations at staff because staff have discussed their sexuality in front of the people we were supposed to be supporting- not a polite answer of oh I have a girlfriend when asked if they have a boyfriend, but nah I’m bi, but I’m looking for a girlfriend just now & trying these clubs/dating sites etc. I think especially with younger staff boundaries can get very blurred, and the ‘bring your whole self to work idea’ makes it more unclear what’s appropriate in terms of boundaries.

I’ve not worked any other type of job since bar work at uni though, so i would only see this from a safeguarding perspective. Which I acknowledged when I addressed @FlyingOink

The phrase "bringing your whole self to work" brings to mind wearing rubber fetish gear at work, recording yourself in the toilets having a wank, and then uploading the video to the Internet.

It's a nice idea until you stop and think about it.

No one should have to hide their sexuality or a disability at work. And if Mark wants to wear a feather boa and call themselves Marsha on Tuesday afternoons that's fine by me.

But after 30 + years in the workplace I don't believe bringing your whole-self to work is without consequences. If I openly admitted that I started my menopause at 45 and that I was so dog tired after almost zero sleep that I used to take trains rather than risk driving I don't think I would have been celebrated.

Equally, few work places think middle aged women are stunning and brave for juggling their jobs with childcare and the commitments of caring for elderly relatives.

No one should have to hide their sexuality or a disability at work. And if Mark wants to wear a feather boa and call themselves Marsha on Tuesday afternoons that's fine by me.

I have a problem with this. What relevance is it to their job? A feather boa would be a hazard in many work environments. I had to wear steel toe capped shoes, protective trousers, thick gloves, helmet with ear protectors and face guard and hair tied back. Any deviation from this would be hazardous and at minimum result in a written warning. Also I needed clear communication between my team and also with others who may not have intreacted with us very often. Staff randomly changing names would hinder this.

I thought of rubber man too.

Bring your whole self to work means being able to tell people I am a Christian.

Current bring your whole self to work means telling people I am a Christian then insisting everyone joins me in Grace in the break room.

(Currently watching Superstore)

@JustcameoutGC

I said it on another thread this morning. There should be a maximum percentage like 80%. I reckon everyone has at least 20% that they should keep well away from the workplace.

It was your comment that prompted this thread, and I agree

Bringing your authentic self to work sounds much better.

A young woman wrote a blog on our intranet about being bisexual. I still have conflicted feelings. It’s really important that people are able to talk about their partner, whether they are same-sex or opposite sex. But as she was single, it felt a bit too much about her sex-life and made me uncomfortable/ feels like she’s to offers.

Previous posters have mentioned the word "appropriate".
I know what they mean, and most people reading know what they mean, but how do we delineate what is appropriate when some people have different views?
At one point, being openly or identifiably (can of worms) lesbian was not deemed appropriate.

Likewise divorced or a single mother.

Does the visibility of openly-single-mother women in the workplace reduce stigma? If so that's a real positive. But does everything need to have stigma reduced?

What happened to the NSPCC rubber toilet wank guy anyway?
Presumably some people will consider his actions perfectly appropriate because he was in a cubicle or it was a Tuesday or whatever. Personally I'd rather he felt too stigmatised to act like that in his workplace!

@Flammkuchen

Bringing your authentic self to work sounds much better.

A young woman wrote a blog on our intranet about being bisexual. I still have conflicted feelings. It’s really important that people are able to talk about their partner, whether they are same-sex or opposite sex. But as she was single, it felt a bit too much about her sex-life and made me uncomfortable/ feels like she’s to offers.

It's a good point, some people make themselves vulnerable through oversharing, I mentioned earlier that there would be more general interest in women's private lives than older men's, for example. If this young woman was encouraged to overshare (and to me her piece sounds inappropriate) then she's made herself vulnerable by revealing too much of her private life.

Also who shares the most about their private life, the admin assistant or the CEO?

My CEO and COO are both men, I have no idea if they are married or have children. Obviously if they do it doesn't affect their work anyway, because facilitated men.

I also think some people overshare as a kind of verbal flashing, for the shock factor.

If you've ever had a guy talk to you about being a swinger, for example, you might have thought he was getting off on the fact you were shocked or that you might have had an unwelcome mental image.

@Disfordarkchocolate

What I find most annoying about this is *@FlyingOink* the fact that for some people it means bringing so much of yourself to work you don't have the time to do any work.

You can be anything you like but it shouldn't interfere with work. Bringing your 'true self' seems to end up with taking time away from work to be on groups, committees etc that focus on your identity when actually nobody is really that interested.

And with regard to this - I'm supportive of groups or committees with a tangible aim. If there aren't enough BAME employees for example, a specific group could help identify why. Perhaps the recruitment process doesn't work properly. Perhaps the jobs aren't advertised in the right places. Maybe there's a nepotism problem. Maybe potential employees of a certain ethnicity live somewhere where the transport to that workplace is poor. Identifying these blockers, that other staff might not even think about, is important work.

But having a group for the sake of it, is just networking, and whilst that is useful, it's not as valuable to the employer as dealing with particular problems.

I'd be interested to know what kinds of things the BBC LGBTQ+ group discussed, for example. Especially given that working hours spent in group meetings are paid for by licence-payers.

I'm not the arbiter of whether a group is useful or not, but certainly in some cases they probably are a time-wasting exercise. I think there's a good possibility that once a group is set up, it's probably impossible to disband it too.

I think it's fine, like previous posters said it's not forcing anybody to be more open than they're comfortable with.

My current company has a LGBTQ society and one for people who experience racism which I think is a positive thing.

That is a good point - groups are just networking. Then is it helpful to have work-place networking groups that exclude particular groups? Is that not discriminatory?

@Flammkuchen

Bringing your authentic self to work sounds much better.

A young woman wrote a blog on our intranet about being bisexual. I still have conflicted feelings. It’s really important that people are able to talk about their partner, whether they are same-sex or opposite sex. But as she was single, it felt a bit too much about her sex-life and made me uncomfortable/ feels like she’s to offers.

My god, just because she’s bisexual single you’re assuming she’s “open to offers”.

I think this exactly explains why some of this is needed fgs.

I think we should aim for people feeling comfortable sharing basic life facts and culture without being penalised.

Women at my work don't talk about children for example, yet it impacts our working lived hugely (we are not allowed to take leave during half terms for example) so it feels like we have to pretend this whole thing isn't happening and get on with it. If it was out in the open that a large proportion of the workforce find 3-5pm meetings a nightmare then maybe we could be more productive overall.

Likewise I have colleagues who have cultural backgrounds they conceal at work. They shouldn't have to do that to be taken seriously.

So I like the aim, but it shouldn't be compulsory.