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?

My trust says this on job adverts. It just made me laugh.

@Toddlerteaplease

My trust says this on job adverts. It just made me laugh.

And we mean it. Except if you need any accommodation for caring responsibilities. Or, say, you need temporary accommodations because you're having chemotherapy even tho' you're keeping up to date with your other duties…

Turn up at the interview dressed as a clown or pantomime horse. Being along your pet pig (support animal) and crack open a bottle of gin (alcoholics have to work too...). Also swear and fart... a lot.

Phew what a relief! And they can’t not give you the job for any of these!

I find it exhausting and another example of how the world is geared to extrovert. I don’t have the energy to care about it all. I want to get my work done and work with my colleagues in a professional way. I like hearing about their weekends and general chit chat but don’t need to know everything. I am happy for colleagues to share personal issues with me on a need to know basis but generally I don’t have a lot of interest in their whole selves!!!!! I also don’t want to impose all my shit on others. I come to work to get away from having to emotionally supportive others!

I work with a team of extroverts - they never really seem to get/care that I don’t want to sit n chat every single morning about the dogs bowel movements or their social lives. I don’t like talking about myself, and they’d probably find my hobbies pretty boring anyway!

I’m just there to do my job...

Like so much of this type of guff, it never means what it says. Too many women have found that bringing their whole self to work, including their beliefs that women have rights, and that same-sex attraction is OK, have got them threatened with the sack.

@ArcheryAnnie

Like so much of this type of guff, it never means what it says. Too many women have found that bringing their whole self to work, including their beliefs that women have rights, and that same-sex attraction is OK, have got them threatened with the sack.

Totally this.

Ah yes - bringing your ‘right’ person to work...

As a recently retired senior director I am quite sure that it was a good thing I did not bring my whole self to work. I was widely considered a great people person and business team leader. In reality I am a middle aged cynic who swears a lot and gives no fucks at all about my organisations roulette wheel of mostly recycled initiatives. I have been around a long time and think I retired just in time!

@MultiStorey I agree, i do want to know important stuff and be supportive to work colleagues. I guess it’s just a balance. This stuff always seems to be interpreted as “people must understand everything about me”. Yes I want to support a colleague going through a terrible divorce but I don’t need to know all the details. I can be supportive by making sure work is done or helping them with tasks at difficult times. I like helping people but find it very draining to have to emotionally support them . I can’t do that for friends, family and work !

However, if people are going to spend eight hours a day with others for a period of years, I would hate to think that they would rather not know whether the other was getting battered at home; or that a loved one was dying; or that their child won a place on the Olympic team.

There is an assumption here is that the default is to tell one's work colleagues about one's trials and tribulations. But many people want privacy while they work through their life's difficulties and sorrows. Work also provides a respite from these.

Some people don’t want the world and his colleague knowing their business. And there’s nothing worse than an oversharer who will tell you about every bowel movement of their cat in great detail.

[quote Peanutbutterrules1]@MultiStorey I agree, i do want to know important stuff and be supportive to work colleagues. I guess it’s just a balance. This stuff always seems to be interpreted as “people must understand everything about me”. Yes I want to support a colleague going through a terrible divorce but I don’t need to know all the details. I can be supportive by making sure work is done or helping them with tasks at difficult times. I like helping people but find it very draining to have to emotionally support them . I can’t do that for friends, family and work ![/quote]
What happens if he’s going through a difficult divorce because she’s finally left him after years of violence and abuse?

I think most people think they’d be happy to support co workers, because they assume coworkers are essential decent humans who think similarly enough to us. But the problem is once people bring their whole self to work we find out that really isn’t true.

There’s lots and lots of situations I wouldn’t be willing to support co workers with if I knew who they really were.

Well yes it’s complicated @BloodinGutters I don’t really want to know the ins and outs of my colleagues lives but am willing to give extra support when needed. But yes you are right, it’s not helpful to know everything about everyone! It’s too much.

@toomanytrees

However, if people are going to spend eight hours a day with others for a period of years, I would hate to think that they would rather not know whether the other was getting battered at home; or that a loved one was dying; or that their child won a place on the Olympic team.

There is an assumption here is that the default is to tell one's work colleagues about one's trials and tribulations. But many people want privacy while they work through their life's difficulties and sorrows. Work also provides a respite from these.

I agree. If my child had won a place in the Olympics I would tell people at work because I was so proud of them but no way would I ever tell anyone at work my personal problems.

What a timely thread! In a survey today on our Directorate Xmas party the options are “yes I want to help” or “no I don’t want to help because I hate Xmas”. AIBU to question the team on how “inclusive” this is of working parents (but especially mums who carry the mental load let’s be honest) and less extrovert colleagues who might feel pressure to help when it’s really not their thing?

@MilitantFawcett oh that sounds incredibly inclusive! All the people who don't celebrate for religious reasons (protected under the EA), people with money trouble, illness, bereavment and myriad other reasons

So I’m not being The Grinch then? 😁 it just suddenly struck me that if this was something to do with women’s health, rights or discrimination but didn’t make clear that men were included too there would be hell to pay!

@SenselessUbiquity

Good analogy with being fobbed off with beer and pizza when a crappily organised project means you have to work late to get it done. I don't want cheap beer and pizza at 10pm x nights a month, I want to get my work done in time to leave and have good home made food with friends or family at my own expense. Same with relationships - I don't want faux intimacy at work, i want work to be contained enough within my life to allow me time and resource to develop rewarding personal relationships outside of work.

Exactly, the company spends £20 a head and demands loyalty because they're so cool they bought you pizza, whereas the actual hourly rate you would have got paid is x. So divide the number of unpaid hours by the cost of a pizza and that's what they think the project team is actually worth.

It wouldn't surprise me if the theory is that if work becomes somewhere to socialise, form friendships, and pour absolutely every part of who you are into your role, the lines between work and home become blurred and it becomes harder to detach from work when you need to.

Like the old US coal towns, paid in scrip, living on an encampment basically.
" I owe my soul to the company store"

Someone get the CBI on it. Totally makes sense. Housing, food, the lot. Solves a lot of problems.

Why do you think Google offer nap pods, breakfast cereals and laundry services

Exactly, that was the kind of thing I was thinking of.

So the young ‘uns (or wanna be) can’t handle us gnarled old timers?

At the moment I’m sitting here trying NOT to bring my whole self to the table, as I am on the point of telling some people exactly what I think of them (and it’s not nice), and where they can shove their job (sideways). They haven’t seen me in full angry rant mode. But that’s not professional...

What a timely thread! In a survey today on our Directorate Xmas party the options are “yes I want to help” or “no I don’t want to help because I hate Xmas”. AIBU to question the team on how “inclusive” this is of working parents (but especially mums who carry the mental load let’s be honest) and less extrovert colleagues who might feel pressure to help when it’s really not their thing?

I worked for the same company for 25 years and never once attended the Christmas party. However I never begrudged those who wanted to organize and attend one.