From "Do Not Bring Your ‘Whole Self’ to Work" by Pamela Paul (NYT).
Paul (obviously) doesn't like the idea. She recommends "that old-fashioned thing we used to call 'being professional.'" But isn't "being professional" another way of saying acting like an upper middle class white person? You have to acknowledge that it's a much easier way of being for some people than others.
But Paul doesn't acknowledge it. She amuses NYT readers. It should be easy to act "professional": "Heck, it’s the you you were for your entire corporate history, until the prevailing H.R. doctrine abandoned buttoning things up."
The you you were is an interesting phrase. When do you feel like you? In a corporate setting, some people feel exactly like themselves and others don't feel like themselves at all. There's a continuum of you-ness to be felt. Now, you might say, even if I don't really feel like myself, I'd at least appreciate being relieved of the experience of needing to be around other people who are being themselves.
So could we all agree that there's a way to be and then act like that? Actually, no! We can't.
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76 comments:
It should be obvious that "bringing your whole self to work" is a scheme by HR managers to insert themselves into every workplace activity.
"Acting professionally" is not an "upper class white" behavior. Plumbers and mechanics do it, too. It means limiting your interactions at work to work related activities. This is not "easier for some people than it is for others," any more than wearing clothes or not punching strangers is easier for some than it is for others. That is, it is a banal truth.
"you 'bring your whole self to work' — personality flaws, vulnerabilities, idiosyncratic mantras and all"
The better to get your deviant deplorable self squashed into the prog mold, or else. If your flaws are a bit too flawed, HR scolding or Twitter cancellations await or global denunciations Justine Sacco, what say you?
What is the "whole" self, anyway? And if I bring it, do I have to show it?
What... the white left don't think people with more pigment in their skin are capable of dressing professionally?
The White left are conditioned to look down on blacks. See here for proof.
Sure, much better to bring your personal bias and tell everyone from your coworkers to customers what you really think about them. Someone woke up on the far left side of the bed today.
Abandon professionalism and pretty soon you find that the "whole self" nonsense is like working with a staff of self-centered kindergartners with no impulse control. You may call it "acting like a middle-class white person" but in reality it is simply a set of behavioral standards that allows all kinds of people to work together. The concept of professionalism evolved for very good reasons, among which are the concept of getting business done rather than indulging everyone's idiosyncrasies.
It's also just a lie. They don't want people to being their "whole self" to work if the self is the wrong kind. I was forced to watch a drag queen video extolling this stupid idea in a staff meeting once. Well, of course they want drag queens (and the guy was, quite honestly, an attractive drag queen, shockingly enough). But do they want pro-life Christians airing their views at work and using company email and Slack channels to organize Bible studies and prayer events outside abortion clinics? Of course not. Do they want me to wear my "Woman: Adult Human Female" shirt to work? Nope, not that either. Did the other executives stop speaking to the one exec who wouldn't get vaccinated last year, despite the fact we were all still on Zoom? Yes they did, because they didn't want her "whole self", even when not in person. Her ideas were wrong think. Only certain selves need apply.
This made me think of the Althouse post a few days ago about the social media influencer who TikTokked about showing up to an imaginary corporate job wearing a miniskirt and yellow bra with yellow knee high stockings. (I think I have that right).
Ah - found it:
"Gen Zers insist on wearing sexy clubbing outfits to the office: ‘Like who’s going to stop me?’"
Screw it: I'm going to work in my pajamas.
I am Laslo.
Is being your "whole self" more efficient? Or is being "professional" more efficient.
Only the efficient will survive, unless the government puts its finger on the scales.
The left wants to add the workplace to the chaotic scene of black public schools.
isn't "being professional" another way of saying acting like an upper middle class white person?
Thanks for that example of critical race theory.
Isn't the above italicized question another way of saying that Black folks are incapable of being professional, comporting themselves with discipline, reliability and self-restraint in meeting standards? Isn't it the hard bigotry of no expectations, as if Black people are children who are naturally lazy and shiftless and the workplace must be accommodating to that?
I would hope that this question above is merely a projection of what others might say.
At my workplace that phrase is code for black people to not be afraid of acting black and being mistreated by their mostly white colleagues. This is all part of the diversity initiatives.
I cannot comment on whether folks feel they have to hide an identity at the workplace, but the language indicates that management believes that is the case.
What if my whole self is an asshole?
While we are at it, we can abandon specialization of labor as well. In fact, we can abandon labor altogether, and sit in a zoom circle and talk about how women make only 75 cents for every dollar a man makes and how to address caste discrimination in American companies and how people need more mental health breaks because of the toll bringing their whole self to work entails and the difficulty of writing a really good D&I commitment.
The workplace as a venue for group psychotherapy.
Let it all hang out.
Don't get the wrong idea Mr. Toobin.
Of course we can.
The "you you were" is the guy who leaves his etching hobby at home so that he has something to invite his date up to look at after dinner and drinks.
The current HR doctrine as the author calls it has the guy bringing his tools so he can work on his etchings at lunch in the breakroom and bore everyone around him senseless about them while they're thinking about the pressing work deadlines they need to address before they leave the office that day.
Anyone who thinks this is some racial thing ought to check themselves for blithering.
"Whole self to work?" Another approach to ruin an organization from within. If the work culture is so loosely defined to allow -- and even encourage -- such behavior, well, time to move on before it's too late.
'...it’s 'essential' to create a work environment 'where people feel safe enough to bring all of who they are to work.'
Jeffery Toobin already tried that. It didn't work too well.
....and then the fat chick with tattoos shows in her flannel pajamas with her dog. You know, that one that insists upon masticating with her mouth open.
I thought of the shop teacher who's gone viral lately for wearing gigantic fake boobs to school, fully embracing this concept, I would say, if you'll pardon the image that phrase may call to mind.
Bring your whole self to work and then some.
If a thing is being done by both Google and Experian, you need know nothing else about it to know it's bad.
Actually, what they are talking about is that grotesque asshole of a shop teacher in Canada who shows up to teach with gigantic fake tits draped over his belly. He gets to bring his whole perverse, obnoxious and repulsive self to work. The rest of us get to leave our whole bigoted selves at home. That's modern HR.
Of course, they have to pay the real people more. We get the work done.
"But isn't "being professional" another way of saying acting like an upper middle class white person."
No. Are you suggesting all upper middle class white people act "professional"? Because if you're not, perhaps you should reexamine your premise.
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Perhaps "being professional" is a manner of acting that some white people deem desirable. And perhaps some non-white people also deem it desirable. And perhaps that's for a good reason separate from the race nonsense.
"Acting professionally" is not an "upper class white" behavior. Plumbers and mechanics do it, too.
Now if we could only get the fucking carpenters on board.
I was an airline pilot for 30 years. If you’re sitting in row 28, would you want me to bring my ‘whole self’ to work, or may be just the part that will get you to your destination alive?
I doubt the "bring your whole self to work" folks would tolerate anyone showing up in a MAGA hat.
Bring your whole self to work sounds like someone has been watching too many TV sitcoms where every issue is resolved in 25 minutes. Get real.
Work? We don't need no stinkin' work.
Back when I worked in a cheese factory, it was amazing how hard and fast the old farmers there could work. The young kids, not so much, except for one illegal from Mexico. And that was 50 years ago. I shudder to think of what things look like these days.
So very "white collar" office job. I've worked in environments where you act professional on the job or people die. And there will be a sorting as it is easy for one person to ruin productivity. Those who prefer a more professional environment will need to change employers.
When I worked ships, I joined one where a young officer had just reported, a late Gen Xer fresh out of grad school. I was told that he declared "I am high maintenance". I being grizzled as I am, replied to the mid-20 something (in the late '90s) "I hope he brought his own tool kit or he's likely to be broken down and discarded". I got so tired of trying to make adults out of kids in their mid-20s, recent recipients of masters degrees. And this was in the late 1990s. Can't imagine what it's like now. But many did, when faced with stepping up, step up.
If you want to be an adolescent adult, best try for a position in academia, the real world makes you grow up.
Contrast the woes in this piece with Joel Kotkin's recent piece on the "Revenge of the Material Economy" at Spiked.
The conflict between the material economy and the economy based in ephemera – such as the creative industries, tech and financial services – is likely to define the coming political conflicts both within countries and between them. The laptop elites, led by Silicon Valley, the City of London and Wall Street, generally favour constraining producers of fuel, food and manufactured goods. In contrast, the masses, who produce and transport those goods, are now starting to realise that they still have the power to demand better futures for themselves and their families. Like railway workers, they can threaten to shut things down and win much higher pay.
Leave your whole self at home. Bring the part that wants to work, that wants to make money for the organization, that wants to provide goods and services for customers and clients, that has the self-discipline to suppress anything that gets in the way of those goals, which are the shared goals of the organization, which is why you’re at work in the first place. Don’t talk about your feelings at work. Don’t bring your emotions to work. Don’t bring your personal problems and hangups and neuroses to work. Don’t impose those things on other people who are there to actually work, to make the organization successful, to make sure that there’s a place to come to work in a month or a year, so that they can bring the money home they need to feed their families. If you need some kind of group psychotherapy session, find a place to do that outside of work. If you need a blank canvas to express your wonderful special snowflake identity, find a place outside of work to do it.
I used to live in the United States. But I woke up one day, recently, I’m not sure exactly when, and I found myself living in a country that’s a mix between some kind of hippie kindergarten, a feminist commune, a dystopia of malicious sexual depravity, and the east German police state, all run by smug and incompetent idiots possessing lovely paper credentials.
The pile of trash that this country had turned into cries out for a deep cleaning, and a bonfire of all these idiotically and destructive pieties, and not least, lots and lots of people with nice salaries and fancy titles losing their jobs and being thrown into the street..
Work was always just a hobby, including holidays and weekends. Self didn't come into it.
I dunno about these people under discussion, but I contain multitudes, and they won't all fit in my car.
Seriously. What kind of narcissist, or exhibitionist, believes that it's proper to show everything you are to your coworkers? Why, God, why would you want anyone you work with to know that much about you?
Or is it just a sign of what an emotional desert these people live in - that they have no intimates and so have to pretend that their coworkers are their dearest friends?
"...the whole self' movement has gained momentum in part because it dovetails with fortified corporate diversity, equity and inclusion (D.E.I.) programs...."
funny how that worked.
Fee free to parrot the corporation's programs and have no qualms about denouncing your coworkers. That's just being your whole self.
Does this mean that the seven habits are not only inoperative, but racist as well?
Fine. Bring your whole self to work. Just stop bringing your dog.
Don't get caught "acting white".
Less is more: In a recent TikTok video, Dani Klarić, a young interior decorator/creative director, gleefully shared her workday outfit: a white miniskirt, a short-sleeve shirt worn totally unbuttoned to reveal a lacy yellow bra and a pair of sheer yellow thigh-high socks. "If I had a corporate job this is how I would go dressed to work," the TikToker says...
As an employer of a dozen people, I've learned that unfortunately the people who generally bring their "whole self" to work invariably bring the bad parts, i.e., all of their problems at home and outside of work interests. And then I as the employer have to deal with those issues, e.g., bad boyfriends or children, political views that absolutely have to be expressed, etc. I enjoy hearing about what employees do outside of the office, but let's bring it up when we're mutually talking about such things. Ultimately, we're only there to make the clients/customers happy, so that they will continue to purchase our goods and services, so that we can make payroll and hopefully a profit (since I as the employer am the last one to be paid).
This is the mantra at my workplace. It’s part of embracing emotion at the workplace. But because it’s progressive Madison, that whole self coddling includes internal communications ensuring that there were resources available to those who were threatened and hurt when Donald Trump won, Saint George the Martyr was killed, and when the Dobbs leak happened. But when Biden won and when Waukesha happened, no similar communications. But my whole self, conservative and generally pro-life, is white privileged.
What drivel. Each of us —when properly socialized— checks our ego at the door and focuses outwardly: to read the boss, subordinate, colleague, customer, situation, task and thus assess what these require from us in the way of demeanor, attitude, focus, dress, speech, action. This is called “being an adult and a professional.”
The more extraneous crap you import into that engagement, the less efficient (and thus mutually beneficial) it becomes, and the more tediously narcissistic it tends to be.
Simple rule: it’s not about you.
People of Off-White (PoOW): men in suits, women in dresses. People of White PoW) ("albino"), too. People of Women (PoW), of course.
People of Yellow (PoY), People of Gray (PoG), People of Brown (PoB) and other colors... uh, races, spectrum identities, etc. are famous for adopting PoOW attributes to advance social, political, and industrial goals.
Some people are so open minded their brain falls out.
Professionalism (i.e. a contextual association, a healthy respect for others) was the traditional model before social progress (e.g. fascism, wokeism, DIE) encroaches at work, home, religious (e.g. ethics) institutions, etc.
Bring someone else's whole self to work. Let them get blamed for your mistakes.
2020: Lean In
2021: Quiet Quit
2022: Bring/Don't Bring Your Whole Self to Work
I wish people would make up their minds.
Half the battle is just showing up.
The person who stays home or hides in their cubicle isn't getting that promotion...
What Vonnegan said at 9:10.
They don't want yourself if you're not left of center. Not even center-center. Right of center and you'll be out of a job as soon as they can arrange it. Not speaking the right platitudes may also mark you as bringing the wrong kind of self to work.
Sometimes, I worry that being a white male at work is bringing the wrong kind of self to work. The only thing that keeps them from going 100% DIE (Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity) is that the CEO is a white male. If he really believed in DIE, he'd ask the board to find a DIE CEO and step down when they did. Can we call him a hypocrite if he doesn't? I suppose if he transitioned to a she, or picked up a gay lover, he'd be OK to stay...
Through long association we’re able to do the “whole-self” thing among my immediate work colleagues. Of course, we’re all reasonably mature, fairly conservative, straight White men, and so comity is a higher value than self-indulgent drama. Interestingly, that allows us to be both honest and tolerant ‘cause you know the other isn’t doing/saying that thing just because he’s a neurotic tool.
I suspect more diverse “whole-self” environments will result in a shitload of resentment and suppressed rage.
Simple rule: it’s not about you.
Thus the corporate/incorporated model as an unique and separable identity in legal treatment and its unfortunate drift to social and political integration (e.g. fascism).
I had a friend who ran a latte place. She said that a large part of her time was training the barristas, and a large part of that was teaching them what "professional" is.
"But isn't "being professional" another way of saying acting like an upper middle class white person?"
No. See your Kyoto post to grasp the narrowness of this definition.
"You have to acknowledge that it's a much easier way of being for some people than others."
Putting that assertion directly after your racial reference is a questionable decision. You raise the issue of White versus Non-White behavior and you're saying I have to acknowledge that it's more difficult for Non-Whites to act professionally?
I know living in Madison has limited your direct experience with Non-White people but that is low expectation, paternalistic nonsense.
Perhaps your strong sense of personal responsibility and duty doesn't allow you to see that when other people fail to meet reasonable expectations it is because they just don't try hard enough, not because it's too difficult.
Back in the day (late 1980's) I worked as a Kelly Girl at a defense company. A lot of the executives were former military and the shop workers blue collar union. The employees were predominantly male.
During my time as a temporary employee (I was later hired full time after I graduated college) there was an HR kerfuffle about calendars. One or two women had complained about the pinup style calendars some men had at their workstations or desks. There was no nudity but there were bathing suits. Companywide the calendars had to go.
So....if you get to bring your "true self" to work now, could men bring back their calendars? Why not? If other employees are offended by the calendars how is that different than other types of "true self" offenses that could be occurring.
Are companies going to start choosing whose "true self" wins and gets to stay and whose lose and must be stopped?
"But isn't 'being professional' another way of saying acting like an upper middle class white person?"
In a word, no.
I think being professional is not exactly just what Lewis Wetzel wrote about limiting your work behavior to work, but it's even more different from upper middle class white person behavior. Being professional is keeping mostly focused on work, with time-limited exceptions for non-controversial small talk, being respectful about differences of opinion or perspective, expecting each person to put in good effort, and also having standards for quality of work product.
If satisfying those expectations is easier for certain white people, that's not a valid criticism of either professionalism or being white.
"Simple rule: it’s not about you."
There ya go.
How about showing up at work on time, sober, and ready to do the job they’re paying you to perform. No surfing the net for hours or doing personal things except during breaks. No forcing everyone to listen to your political opinions or personal issues. Almost no one gives a damn. Do. Your. Job. There’s evidence that the US is in a recession and that it’s going to get worse. When that happens, companies use that as an opportunity to cut their deadwood. Some people are in for a reality check.
Reader @ 11:54: “…if other employees are offended by the [pin-up] calendars…”
Exactly. The whole point of society (and, within it, work society) is to maximize the bandwidth for “depersonalized” communication.
What you want is “Customer A needs Product B with Modification C at Time D at Price E: can you fulfill? If not why not?” NOT “How are you feeling today about working on something that might increase the exposure of lesbians to planetary carbon?”
If you want to destroy the competitiveness of a company one of the best ways to accomplish that is to destroy the cohesiveness of their workforce. One way to do that is to encourage the employees to focus on their differences rather than what they have in common. Its the opposite of team building exercises.
This is about parades: Christmas without Christ, pride without lions, Halloween without magic, progress without rites, Kwanza in the minority, Ramadan with Allah, Easter with bunnies, taking a knee, begging, self-flagellating, etc.
"There’s evidence that the US is in a recession and that it’s going to get worse. When that happens, companies use that as an opportunity to cut their deadwood. Some people are in for a reality check."
They're not worried. Old Joe will shovel them money.
@ Jupiter re: 10:17AM
Just saw this. I wonder if it's true.
More much ado about HR BS. HR departments have zero influence in an efficient company. But HR professionals just LUUVVVEEEE ESG because it offers another excuse to justify their uneconomically unjustifiable existence.
"Being professional" applies regardless of race, creed, sex or anything else, and should be something to which everyone can aspire.
What this country needs is a really sharp jobs recession. Then we'll see it really isn't difficult to be "professional."
Ever worked in a predominantly black office? I have. The standards for professional behavior are much higher than in a northern white office. Starting every email with “Good Morning” and other appropriate greetings. Praising people for every little thing they did right, and circumlocuting like an MF before getting to any negative feedback.
If you come into an environment like that with behaviors that are totally normal in an NYC office, e.g. “Joey, where are those Q1 figures?” you will be seen as horribly rude.
My point is that professional behavior is not a white thing at all.
JSM
Your "whole self" is disruptive to business. A business that sticks to business has a tough enough time staying viable. One slip and you are an 8 track tape maker or Netscape, and gone gone gone. Having employees act out their fantasies, neuroses, foibles on company time is a sure way to fail. This is particularly so when junior people want to air grievances, confront management, start fights, and call coworkers racist/sexist/whatever. When hired, you have a job to do. This job requires all your time and attention. If you think that giving your time and attention to your job is "acting white" then you have a pretty low opinion of POC.
The idea that being professional is somehow white seems absurd. If you're looking for a perfect example of the professional - someone who dresses well, speaks well, gets along well with everyone from cab drivers to the queen of England, competently manages a complex organization, doing truly great things while making lots of money, hiring and promoting dozens of talented people and when necessary firing the ones who aren't working out - it's hard to beat Duke Ellington. He's definitely in the top 1% of professionals I can think of, and his race doesn't have a damned thing to do with it. Examples of all races and both (there are only two) genders could easily be multiplied.
What if your "whole self" includes lack of personal hygiene, being rude to customers, showing up when you feel like it, yelling at co-workers, and doing sloppy work? Is that ok? I curse like a sailor on my own time--can I bring that to work? How about sexist jokes?
Between this and quiet quitting it's hard to imagine much work getting done.
I would argue that the 'please see all of me and let be me whatever I want at work' is far more white middle/upper middle class than being "professional".
professionalism - definition
NOUN
the competence or skill expected of a professional:
"the key to quality and efficiency is professionalism"
the practicing of an activity, especially a sport, by professional rather than amateur players:
"the trend toward professionalism"
Notes:
Competence and skill are attributes limited to no one set or excluding any set of people.
Some seek to redefine the word in modern social justice terms, portraying professionalism as an attribute encompassing class and race.
Frederick Douglass would disagree.
(( Apologies for dup. It appears the last comment went to the Kyoto post. ))
"My point is that professional behavior is not a white thing at all."
Isn't it kinda racist to assume that it is? I'm thinking it's kinda racist.
It used to be the case that people caught masturbating in meetings were fired immediately and never spoken of again. Let's get our elite media organizations back to that seemingly unarguable level of "professionalism", and then talk to me about anything else with an "-ism" attached to it.
My “whole self” includes my faith, my politics, my moral worldview, my hobbies, my sexuality, etc… these don’t seem like the kinds of things one should bring to work (and I’m pretty sure that HR agrees). My suspicion is that they mean the part of one’s self that HR/mainstream approves of. We aren’t eliminating the closet, we’re just changing what has to go into the closet if you want to keep your job while denying the existence of the closet. I would prefer that HR do its best to stay neutral and require that employees keep the parts of their life not relevant to the job out of the workplace (i.e., require employees to be professional).
Google didn’t like James Damore’s whole self.
Laslo wears pajamas?!?!
Talk about burying the lede.
Being "professional", as most matters of manners, is about consideration for others in a shared space. It is a common behavioral language to engender trust, cooperation and productivity without the long lead time of bonding and learning each other's quirks.
Being "professional", as most matters of manners, is about consideration for others in a shared space. It is a common behavioral language to engender trust, cooperation and productivity without the long lead time of bonding and learning each other's quirks.
This is true!
But the danger in adopting the professional disguise
Is that you are dishonest and hiding your upsets
And the real you is hidden from sight
and nobody knows what you are thinking
and your "professional" atmosphere becomes a hellhole or rat-race or ugly place to be
see also faculty lounge
far better to expose your flaws and let people know the real you
honesty is a bad short-term maneuver
but it's amazing over the long-term
Althouse,
I apologize for giving you a hard time when you ran one of my cussing posts up on the front page
I was always pleased when you did that
it was a big, big honor
we all like that shit
it was niggardly (sorry, I like that word) of me to complain about the selection
it was a joke complaint, but I definitely had the thought ("shit, why did she choose that one, all my brilliant thoughts and she went with diarrhea")
a thousand apologies
it's your blog and any commentator opinion that you love is deeply honored to be high-lighted
I'm too arrogant for my own good sometimes
and I feel bad because I feel like you dropped the practice after I shit on myself like that
I really should watch my language on your blog
it's a public place and I am thinly disguised
not sure why I do it
something that crypto guy said about his haircut ("it makes me seem authentic") struck home
cursing is a flaw but if you expose flaws people trust you
(Trump might have figured that out years ago)
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