Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How do they do this? I am British and I find there are some Americans who seem like actual robots at work. It's one thing to be efficient, polite, focused on outcomes. It's another to be like - a fake person. Does anyone else feel this?

American here who has learned to thrive in a corporate setting, and I’ll comment that unlike Europeans we have very few, if any, worker protections. We can be fired for many things, or at least marginalized. And after #metoo and recent diversity pushes in the corporate world, it became even more restrictive. Of course I don’t want to see sexual harassment or discrimination in the work place, but people started becoming very afraid of saying anything remotely controversial. People have been fired for political speech on social media outside the workplace bc most company policies allow for very broad rights for violating these policies (which no one reads) for any sort of message that might bring ‘disrepute’ or is not in ‘keeping with their culture’.

A former co worker was just commenting how our prior employer wasn’t perfect but we could be our messy opinionated selves at work, and how rare that is.

Because it is in corporate America.

I think this is pretty much true in all non-intimate aspects of life now. And why people end up living in echo chambers because no one is safe to say something for fear of being cancelled by someone who doesn't like them or agree with them.

Anonymous wrote:How do they do this? I am British and I find there are some Americans who seem like actual robots at work. It's one thing to be efficient, polite, focused on outcomes. It's another to be like - a fake person. Does anyone else feel this?

American here who has learned to thrive in a corporate setting, and I’ll comment that unlike Europeans we have very few, if any, worker protections. We can be fired for many things, or at least marginalized. And after #metoo and recent diversity pushes in the corporate world, it became even more restrictive. Of course I don’t want to see sexual harassment or discrimination in the work place, but people started becoming very afraid of saying anything remotely controversial. People have been fired for political speech on social media outside the workplace bc most company policies allow for very broad rights for violating these policies (which no one reads) for any sort of message that might bring ‘disrepute’ or is not in ‘keeping with their culture’.

A former co worker was just commenting how our prior employer wasn’t perfect but we could be our messy opinionated selves at work, and how rare that is.

Because it is in corporate America.

If we use George Smiley as an example, sometimes the non-work life is complicated or depressing.

At my work, people primarily talk about sports, because it is a "safe" topic. Most workplaces avoid politics and other controversial topics.

I have seen a (different) workplace where many of the people socialized together as families on nights and weekends. To me, that seemed to be a bit too much.

Anonymous wrote:My whole MO at work is efficiency, so I can deliver on my goals and leave on time to enjoy the other fulfilling things in my life.

Chitchat is a time suck. I like working with moms; they know how to be efficient with their time.

The moms of elementary school kids are so efficient at my job.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some of these people may be closed off because they don't really want to talk about their personal lives. Complex, afraid of judgment, etc. I think people with very straightforward/ approved lives (eg married with kids living in a nice suburb) have an easier time bringing their "whole selves" to work and seeming more open.

That is the most moronic thing I have read. You clearly like to go to work and talk about your "whole self." Fine, if you want to yap about your life all the time. But many of us with perfectly normal lives don't go to work to gossip and over share.

Case in point.

My whole MO at work is efficiency, so I can deliver on my goals and leave on time to enjoy the other fulfilling things in my life.

Chitchat is a time suck. I like working with moms; they know how to be efficient with their time.

Why would I want to talk about my personal life at work? I have a few friends from work who know more about me, but we actually hang out in our free time. Otherwise to PP’s point, no one at work cares that my child won the spelling bee. We aren’t friends, we work together. This isn’t a choice to spend time together.

Anonymous wrote:Some of these people may be closed off because they don't really want to talk about their personal lives. Complex, afraid of judgment, etc. I think people with very straightforward/ approved lives (eg married with kids living in a nice suburb) have an easier time bringing their "whole selves" to work and seeming more open.

Where I work in the U.S., I actually got told to be more social and ask people about their weekends at the beginning of meetings, etc. I really hate that because my experience is that people like to ask me personal questions but don't really care about the answers. Once I started doing what I was told to do to be personable, I found that people didn't really remember what I told them anyway. Also at my work the men like to talk about sports (which doesn't interest me) and they really like to drink together after work. I'm a short woman who doesn't care for drinking and I can only have 1 drink and be safe to drive during a "happy" hour.

I understand that chit chat is social glue but it's depressing to find out that nobody cares. I enjoy the company of business-like people who start meetings on time. I don't consider them unfriendly at all. I consider them respectful of my privacy and my time.

I've had one workplace (in DMV) where we all got personally friendly and I invited many of the people to my wedding and still send them Christmas cards although I haven't worked with them in decades. One of the key differences was that those people liked to talk about the news, cultural events, and travel. It is hard to discuss your latest trip to an art museum with someone who wants to discuss the outcome of a football game. They simply don't care anything about what you saw. And it's difficult to comment on game plays you didn't witness yourself.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some of these people may be closed off because they don't really want to talk about their personal lives. Complex, afraid of judgment, etc. I think people with very straightforward/ approved lives (eg married with kids living in a nice suburb) have an easier time bringing their "whole selves" to work and seeming more open.

+1. Even just something like "what did you do over the weekend?" is not a question everyone is going to want to answer.

Yes, and it doesn't have to be for negative reasons. People use information about your vacation choices, sports interest, marital status, health issues, church involvement, etc. to build a simplistic story about you, and their assumptions can hurt you professionally.

For this reason I never talked about my kids or family life.
I have learned that most of the women in my profession (architecture) are unmarried and have no kids or they are the main breadwinner. The female bosses I have had were childless and too old to try. So I clam up.

Responder above - basically the hiring manager or my boss would know that I have kids but if I talk about it too much it undermines my sense of duty to my job amongst my colleagues, especially during the years I worked part-time.

I noticed the inverse amongst women who had kids and were the main breadwinner. They talked about their kids constantly but rarely saw them because they were in office all the time. Amongst women like that I definitely clammed up. They were envious that I negotiated a part- time arrangement and had an earning spouse as well.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some of these people may be closed off because they don't really want to talk about their personal lives. Complex, afraid of judgment, etc. I think people with very straightforward/ approved lives (eg married with kids living in a nice suburb) have an easier time bringing their "whole selves" to work and seeming more open.

+1. Even just something like "what did you do over the weekend?" is not a question everyone is going to want to answer.

Yes, and it doesn't have to be for negative reasons. People use information about your vacation choices, sports interest, marital status, health issues, church involvement, etc. to build a simplistic story about you, and their assumptions can hurt you professionally.

For this reason I never talked about my kids or family life.
I have learned that most of the women in my profession (architecture) are unmarried and have no kids or they are the main breadwinner. The female bosses I have had were childless and too old to try. So I clam up.

I get it OP. I am also British. Lived here 20 years but will/can never lose that deeply ingrained way of looking at the world side on. American WASPs in particular just don’t have or get that. It has probably hurt my career here, but I am who I am and I can only fake being someone else - earnestly excited by whatever the latest incremental man-made goal is - about 4 hours a day, max.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some of these people may be closed off because they don't really want to talk about their personal lives. Complex, afraid of judgment, etc. I think people with very straightforward/ approved lives (eg married with kids living in a nice suburb) have an easier time bringing their "whole selves" to work and seeming more open.

+1. Even just something like "what did you do over the weekend?" is not a question everyone is going to want to answer.

Yes, and it doesn't have to be for negative reasons. People use information about your vacation choices, sports interest, marital status, health issues, church involvement, etc. to build a simplistic story about you, and their assumptions can hurt you professionally.

Anonymous wrote:This is just an odd question. Roger Federer’s whole personality is being a tennis player. Is that wrong?

Do you know Roger Federer? Are you sure about that?

Lindsay Vonn’s whole to you might be skiing , but she is involved in many things and she is an amazing piano player. I’m sure there’s tons of things I don’t know about her. But just cause all I know is ski skiing doesn’t mean it’s just ski.