Private Lives
Private Lives
Does not discussing your personal life at work make you a bit of a cold fish?
I've been wondering about that a lot lately, especially as I've hit the 4-month mark in my job and haven't talked much about life outside of The Library with my colleagues.
When I got the job, I made a decision to keep my private life out of it as much as I could. Perhaps that sounds a bit harsh. I knew that wasn't going to be 100% possible - I talked about being a carer in my interview and how it's a huge priority for me, as I wanted that to be clear right from the outset. It hasn't been an issue, and my bosses have been more than accommodating with it all, but chatting about more 'me' stuff beyond that isn't something I really fancy doing.
I learned the hard way in previous jobs that sometimes the personal and the professional really don't mix. One example I'll never forget was walking through the office door, and before I could even say 'hello' to everyone and get my coat off, my then-boss blurted out some bad news Ian had received that morning. Because it was on Ian’s Facebook (and my boss was friends with him on there - big mistake), somehow, it made it fair game to announce something private across the whole office for everyone to hear and then continue talking about for the day. That incident and similar ones that followed were a huge factor in me binning having a personal FB page for good.
I'm not a complete ice maiden when it comes to chatting to people at work and becoming mates... of course, it's nice to get on with your colleagues on a daily basis! If you're spending more hours a day with them than you do with your loved ones at home, you can't be all business - it's necessary for your sanity. One of my closest friends is someone I met through an old job, and now I can't imagine life without her in it.
Right now, part of me feels a huge sense of relief / 'You were right on this one Jools' for not getting deep about my life on the shop floor - especially after one of my colleagues whom I thought I got on alright with revealed themselves to be highly problematic* recently. Keeping work life and home life separate (and hopefully not coming across as a soulless robot) works for me. I like the balance, and I really like being able to shut the door on work-life the moment I exit the building and get on with my own thing.
Despite running a blog and occasionally sharing the deeper contents of my head on here, I'm quite a private person... don't laugh - it's true! I know at some stage, there is going to be a very weird crossover when my book comes out. Believe it or not, I've managed to keep quiet about the whole project. But now that things are pretty much complete (and I'm feeling less superstitious about it all going horribly wrong), conversations are being had with some folks up in head office. I'll explain more about that as it develops...
In the meantime, I'm gonna keep on going about my business and keeping my business to myself. It's not a bad thing to have a private life... right?
*You may have caught some of this on Insta'Stories. I might elaborate further on it here one day...
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Velo Elsewhere
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I'm Writing A Book!
You can pre-order Back In The Frame (out May 2019) from Amazon, Waterstones, Hive, or Book Depository