Ask HN: Do you feel you are able to be yourself in your job? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Do you feel you are able to be yourself in your job?

50 pointsdrdunce71 comments

Many companies, particularly in the tech scene seem to have high expectations of their employees. These expectations go far beyond skills or shared ethics into fuzzier areas such as cultural values. In some cases a companies attempt to architect their own sub-culture and expect staff to follow.

There's been a few high profile cases of quite senior staff in companies standing down recently after they've expressed an opinion in the public forum that didn't align with that of the company (e.g. Google).

Diametrically opposed to this, there's been situations in which a large number of the staff have collectively challenged the company itself (e.g. the Netflix walkout).

I thought it might be interesting to ask, day-to-day, to what extent do you feel free to express yourself where you work, do you perfectly align with the companies chosen culture, and how important is this to you?

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No way.

5+ years ago, I'd have been more myself but with today's politics it's not worth it. I don't think I've ever said anything wrong, but I used to occasionally express opinions and make jokes with the teams I got chummy with. Nowadays I'm pretty sure everything I say has potential to be misinterpreted and potentially be used against me. I used to like being social on Slack but I make it a rule these days to use Slack minimally and to significantly reduce or eliminate unnecessary socializing. No, I will not be attending after-work socials and I won't be going on team lunch outings all the time. When asked about anything remotely controversial, either I'll not say anything or I'll be the greatest fence-sitter that ever lived.

In all honesty, maybe it's for the best. I'd rather work be a place where we show up, do work, get paid, and go home. As much as I miss some of the good times I had socializing and having others actually get to know me, there's really no reason for me to express myself in that setting or have others express themselves to me.

I hate to say it but after working for 7 years I have the same conclusion. In the end people live to save themselves.

> In all honesty, maybe it's for the best. I'd rather work be a place where we show up, do work, get paid, and go home.

Agree 100%. It's just easier for everyone to have work / life balance. And with that comes boundaries.

> Nowadays I'm pretty sure everything I say has potential to be misinterpreted and potentially be used against me. I used to like being social on Slack but I make it a rule these days to use Slack minimally and to significantly reduce or eliminate unnecessary socializing.

Agreed. All it takes is one sensitive coworker to share one screenshot, and your career is over. It's baffling we, as society, have come to this.

Sure, I've built a reputation as the person that says what needs said. That's just how I am, and the same tact works there too. I've been here about five years, my longest stint.

The secret is staying productive in the criticisms I've found.

This isn't particularly common; many places have tried to treat me like a child or sweep real problems under the rug. It wasn't a good fit so I moved on

Life is too short to masquerade. I'll try to be tolerable, but I'm not definitively changing who I am or my principles either

I just joined a startup about 6 weeks ago. yesterday I've been told it was quite boring before I joined and they dread the day the company grows and HR starts watching you. unfortunately today I've been "language-policed" for the first time and probably not the last :(

it's been fun. that's one of the reasons I don't support rapid growth, but investors expect that (ceo said that) and nearly every day there's a new face and to be honest it looks like they will accept anyone who's willing to work there because offices not in central location. sad. I'd much rather keep a tight culture of close friends who are always on top of what's going on.

What do you mean by, "language policed"?

Use of politically correct language, I guess

The euphemism treadmill. A growing list of things nobody can say, à la http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html. Linus being pressured to restrain himself after years of leading a famously successful project.

Please avoid using the word police in this context, it detracts from the work done by actual police officers.

that's a pretty good example of language policing.

The comment even got downvoted, so yes a good example all around.

Don't worry, I got it :)

> to be honest it looks like they will accept anyone who's willing to work there because offices not in central location. sad.

What's that say about your own potential qualifications for the job?

> unfortunately today I've been "language-policed" for the first time and probably not the last :(

What did you say exactly?

Yes and no.

I am myself, my mannerisms, my mode of communication, the way I treat others, are all “me”.

But I rarely talk about anything I value, because my values are more traditional and classical, and tech companies values are what is popular.

It doesn’t bother me that my values are different, what bothers me is how you can loudly proclaim your opinions provided they’re in line with the status quo, but you will be cancelled if you hold a differing opinion, even if your differing opinion doesn’t cause you treat others badly.

At My current, more progressive, work place, I would be labeled as a conservative, yet at my previous more conservative work place, I was thought liberal. The difference was at my previous place it was ok to have and share differing opinions.

IMO you shouldn't be yourself at work. Develop a work personality that aligns with your internal ethical compass. Keep your private life private, and do your job as a true professional would.

Sounds tiring. Do you enjoy that?

I can't speak for totalZero but I feel the same way. I am not at work to make lifelong friends, I am working so I can eventually retire early and do what I really want (that doesn't have any opportunity to earn income).

I don't find it tiring. I do the same thing with my family and more so my spouse's family, who are very religious. I'm used to it.

Not even remotely. But I love what I do for a living.

I also live this life. I let them in on some personal stuff, basically the stuff I am willing to post on other social networks. But nothing beyond that. It is not tiring at all. I think a lot of us have been doing this for a long portion of our lives, think of if you've attempted to keep any sense of anonymity or privacy to any facet of your real life versus your online persona(s).

Interesting; so privacy and others for the politics. I did it for a few years when I started working decades ago, found it tiring and never did it again. It rapidly separates like minded people from people who do not like me and that is almost always reciprocal without knowing them. Privacy is interesting; I cannot imagine how you work with people every day 8 hours and then have shields up!

Absolutely not.

I don't say a peep about anything remotely 'Current Events'. If someone brings something up then I give non-committal answers like "Huh" and "Wow" and then excuse myself. I've lasted too long in the corporate world to get taken out by some pointless discussion.

As the company grew a lot I learned to stop to making jokes after getting a note from HR for an innocuous comment. Try to be mute now

This is the unfortunate reality. Be quiet at work and yourself outside of the office away from colleagues.

What was the comment?

"How's it going, guys?"

This is fairly normal. My wife, friends, and I are all in very different fields and all play professionalism daily. That's life in a workplace. That's why business attire exists: to keep personality out of it as much as possible and give people a stable and predictable place to focus on the business at hand.

The last job I had where I could be myself was as a pizza delivery guy. Even as I moved through my career, wearing shorts was about as personalized as the workplace got.

No. I code switch to a character I created to role-play work. Otherwise known as being professional. No doubt he inherited some of my characteristics.

I just have to say, as an observer of this thread, that I am extremely grateful not to be any of you. Some dystopian shit going on in here.

I understand not speaking about sex, politics and religion. But replies in this thread give me the idea that people are also hiding their family life, Netflix queue and sports teams. You're right, this is some dystopian nightmare.

Agree, there's so many people here thinking that the only acceptable way to behave is having a "work persona" devoid of anything personal. Horrible way to spend at least 40 hours a week of your life.

I work at a megacorp doing uninspiring average software work.

I found quickly that people would pigeon hole me and profile me based on very small comments - I now play everything close to the vest and even sometimes advocate for agendas I don't really care about to smoke screen. This has been very effective at rehabilitating my coworkers view of me.

I found out right away that people will judge me for being unorthodox when I first started and it really cost me a lot.

I've been lucky enough to work in a couple places where I felt I could relax and be myself. Not feeling that way at many other companies is a part of why I've started businesses.

I consider it quite the luxury and I think it's especially rare outside tech. Also once you find it, enjoy it because it does tend to fade.

I remember one job in particular there was a focus on openness, transparency, and being yourself. I wasn't really sure if it was marketing or not, always hard to tell early on. I was even meditating with a group there which is not something I would normally talk about with coworkers.

But alas they eventually fired everyone involved with the transparency stuff and replaced the leadership.

I think smaller tends to be better. I don't really have any tips on searching. It's not like something you can ask about very directly.

Ok here is one thing that's maybe something. You want to try to work in places that engineers are delivering real tangible value and the buerocracy feels like this flimsy thing that just happens to be there to defer to all the value being created every day.

Both of the companies I felt the most comfortable at had that in common.

The inverse has also been true. If I think of the easiest jobs where it's mostly meetings and nonsense, buerocrats have had more power and have made up more imaginary culture you're supposed to repeat.

The question does imply that one knows one's self sufficiently to answer.

The unexamined career's not worth having.

Yes.

I think it's quite easy being yourself in the workplace by remembering that 1) you're working with other people who don't always share your viewpoint & 2) realising that there is a sense of professionalism that is implicitly required.

At the end of the day you're meant to enjoy what you do, but you're likely also meant to do it alongside other people.

I have my own consulting company with myself only, so huge yes.

And when I'm at a customer, I'm always myself and never faking relationships or try to make friends with people higher up if I don't like them.

Because of this, I create genuine relationships that last a long time and where everyone is themselves.

There's the "I am joker imp that likes to shock people" with crude and lewd jokes. That ship sailed a long time ago, but is #3 reason for early retirement. Find people that you can goof off with and hold them close, but work is about getting shit done.

I also am exceptionally creative which comes with a dash of enthusiasm. I can go super manic on ideas and I've been told it's like drinking from a firehouse. I've only met one or two people that can keep up with me, and it is just ineffective communication. #boring and the #2 reason for early retirement.

Finally, as I have become a leader I have to hold back and focus on growing people around me. Ok, fine but this means I don't really connect with people in a symmetric fashion. Worse yet, when I have an insight and share it then I can ruin people's goals. For example, I can many time find better ways to do things or to not need an effort. Well, if a person is working on such an endeavor and I say something which threatens their work, then their performance is up for grabs and they are anxious. This offends the craftsman in me that we have work being done just so people can progress in their career, but it makes sense to grow people so I don't need to be oncall. Once again #boooring, and this may be #1.

Oddly enough, yes. I work at a big enough company where even my manager and my manager’s manager is meaningless. The team also has seasoned enough people to know just how little we actually are in the grand scheme of things. There’s some liberty in how we talk simply because we don’t take ourselves too seriously.

That isn’t to say we’re blabbering out intense politics or strong stances on social issues, but we are reasonably free to brush lightly on stuff.

Never. In fact you should never show your whole self in the workplace.

This isn’t even about national politics or about being fake, but about keeping work and personal life separate; and treating your job for what it is and not confusing it for what it isn’t.

A workplace that doesn’t honor this is one that you should leave.

That also doesn’t mean bad actors or companies should be left off the hook or given a free pass, but never confuse your colleagues as friends.

Kinda-sorta. My company has quite liberal sort of values and so do I, so I don't really feel like I have to hold my tongue in that respect. Although any of that kind of talk was usually reserved for socials/drinks/etc anyway.

But you know, work is work, what I do is intrinsically shaped by what my employer wants me to do and their goals so it's hard to say I'm spending that time "being myself" when the truth is I'm "being the company". I'm expected to be interested and engaged even when I'd much rather crawl back into bed. Even from a technical point of view I'd much rather be putting together prototypes using some language I'm barely familiar with than maintaining working codebases because that's more fun, but is obviously not that commercially useful.

At least with WFH I don't have to act some way I'm not feeling for 8 hours straight every working day, there are usually breaks in-between calls and I can code with a scowl, so that helps with the sense that I have ownership over myself during work hours.

Not really. I'm often the only one that has a problem with a product feature or process, and my speaking up just results in more work (remaking my case multiple times) and no additional work for anyone else. It's better to clam up and let them discover the problems themselves.

Not that I am always right. Maybe they're not real problems? In that case being silent is still a clear win.

Being myself? No thanks.

I am weird, and most people don't tolerate weirdness. I can be weird in my free time, with my friends. At job, I am there to make money to pay my bills, and I am not going to jeopardize that needlessly. I will try to mostly be quiet, and let you project your own beliefs on me. That is what most people prefer.

Politics is just another case of this. Many people got caught by surprise, because being normal is now also officially considered weird and unacceptable.

> These expectations go far beyond skills or shared ethics into fuzzier areas such as cultural values. In some cases a companies attempt to architect their own sub-culture and expect staff to follow.

I suppose they would prefer running a cult to running a company, because cult members are cheaper and more obedient. Pretend to play along, don't believe any of it. They most likely don't believe it either.

If you want to be treated with respect, unionize. If you believe you are too smart to unionize, shut up and enjoy the fruits of your imaginary smartness.

Now that I'm a freelancer that works from home, yes.

But before that, no.

Unconventional lifestyle choices aren't directly frowned upon, but the less your superiors think you're one of them, the worse you're prospects of "getting ahead in the game" are.

Reading the comments it seems there is no company for which 'being human' is a value. Thankfully working remotely makes it easier for most people to avoid permanently walking on eggshells

If I was truly myself in an interview I would have never gotten a job.

I believe that people who are most successful in the corporate ladder are those that are able to be completely pathologically "fake".

Ah, an in-the-wild explanation of the Gervais Principle.

This is a pretty common refrain from people who can't comprehend what it means to work with other people that have feelings and beliefs that don't jive with them.

If no one would ever hire "the real you," it seems pretty plausible to me that the real you is terrible. I get that that's something you can't control without faking it, but at least realize that this isn't true for everyone.

I totally disagree. The real me is not "terrible". I'm just a normal person, I have good days and bad days.

Some days I'm energetic, up for the challenge, other days I'm lazy and don't want to talk to anyone.

I don't think that makes me a "terrible" person as you suggest. But if I present the full range of my personality, no employer will take that risk.

If you believe so, then you're naive.

I have a wall of shelves behind me for video calls and I spent a full week carefully selecting every single item on them, even purchasing new items, because I knew each item would be a point of discussion or shape how the other person on the call treats me.

I feel compelled to do this because, in the absence of in person meetings, people will constantly be looking for something to judge about me. It's human nature. So a wild wall of 'Stuff' deflects that conversation away from me and onto that stuff.

Sure, in a constrained sense at least. There are things I wouldn't do/say because I don't especially want to do/say them in a professional context. But I seldom, if ever, feel that I need to act in a truly inauthentic way at work.

A little bit of false enthusiasm now and then? Sure, it makes it easier to get through the day. In both a professional and personal context.

i remember once 'expressing myself' as a 'really cool, open company' -- sf office -- ten or so years ago -- was like some internal blog on our hiring process, which i thought was too much, and i had just gone thru it.

i got a lot of backlash, and strong -- like i had just skinned someone alive and hung them up in the office, School of Americas-style.

it was pretty stupid of me, but i guess i was kind of like 'f it' and also bought into the company hype a bit. i prob said some word or thought that would have gotten me a reprimand here at HN, too.

companies are near-perfect totalitarian regimes, so the idea of 'being able to express yourself' there is pretty ridiculous, imo. all the fired and harassed Starbucks ex/employees know this, amazon unionizing employees, google anti-war employees, etc.

No, although based on physical things that people can see, I'm not sure it really matters anyway, even if I was toeing the company line. I don't bother trying to improve companies anymore, the best way to improve it is to have the good talent leave and force a change that way IMHO. Remember, no good deed goes unpunished!

I work at a small business whose core employees are pretty staunchly conservative (e.g., still prominently displaying Trump campaign stickers) and all go to the same church together every Sunday. A surprising number of business decisions get made at after-service coffee hour.

It can be difficult asking for time off to be with my husband when I know most of them don’t consider me to be married, and are eagerly looking forward to the overturn of Obergefell.

I would leave, but few people seem to want a rapidly-approaching forty mathematician-slash-software-dev.

This is an important observation to share with us. Thank you.

A previous comment mentioned the "value" of homogeneous cultures. I'm sure, from the POV of your coworkers, they have a homogeneous culture - everyone is the same (except for that one person - you). From your POV, you are the odd person out. I'm sorry you don't feel welcome.

I fully own that taking a job here was my decision and I knew in advance what I was getting into. There are some incidental circumstances that make the job somewhat desirable despite that.

Well, we are looking forward to "the book to come" out of it :)

All the best!

Regarding your last statement, and depending on how much experience you have with the software-dev side, you may find you have more options than you expect. Lots of folks seem to be looking for software devs at the moment, and I personally would see the mathematics background as a potential bonus (even if not directly applicable it generally suggests a certain amount of rigorous consideration that is beneficial for software development as well). There appear to be quite a few remote options (see the "who's hiring" discussions) but also, if you're willing to relocate, my employer would likely be interested. E-mail me at my username @ gmail.com if you'd like more details/to discuss further.

Sincerely, A just-finished-being-forty electrical-engineer-turned-software-dev

PS I'm planning to write up a response to the OP next; check that out for a little more insight into what my employer is like

I've been working at a smaller company (<20 employees) for a bit over a year now, and we're all quite similar. Most people are <30 years old, so internet culture has taken over. Politically, we're all similar.

Quite happy being here, and not having to worry that hr might try to police us.

I work in Hong Kong and I dont speak Chinese so I work only in heavily multicultural teams.

It's common belief around me the best teams are mono cultures, for instance a philipino team in my prev company, who all moved together to HK when we restructured, was extremely satisfied, spent all their time together and some couples even sprung up. Meanwhile the mexicano-hindi-chinese team next to them was miserable and my franco-pakhistani bi-cultured team was alright (even if we vomitted the odd Chinese teammate management would attempt to add once in a while).

It's not that people are actively racist/xenophobic, it's that you're very lonely if you dont have someone to share language, inside jokes, or even beliefs and values with.

I work in an enormous company now having around 100k employees all over the world with no choice but to mix. Well, the indians will work best woth other indians, all my chain of management is french and the Chinese keep to themselves nonetheless. It's insane this is not more explained / studied / accepted, or I havent looked enough.

Our own monocultured european global management, all blonde and proper, still tell us about the wealth of diversity we must cultivate. They still send blonde managers from Europe to replace the asian people they cant work with at the top...

Ironically, if it were the case that people didn't "feel [they] were able to be [themselves] at work", then you wouldn't know if some of those 20 people were faking their political views in order to fit in. Making an assertion that 'politically, we're all similar' sort of ignores the whole proposition that some may feel the need to hide their views in order to avoid political prejudice.

I guess I never really thought about that, actually the more i think about it the more likely it seems, as my boss has been quite hostile towards socialist ideas.

Nope. There's always some level of unconscious bias on many personal subjects.

Not really. I'm pretty far on the auth-left side of the political compass and have to really temper my opinions to be acceptable in a corporate environment.

When I was younger, I used to be my full passionate loud self at office. But again that was early 2000s, so I was able to get away with saying stuff that weren't even close to PC.

Nowadays, the church of social media is very strong. I also believe there is a critical and analytical eye being cast towards all actions, both good and bad. A lot of judgment is made based on actions rather than intent. Overall I think it is good for the society to highlight the stuff we used to brush under the carpet before, but I don't think it is good for me to get involved in that. The same way I believe government should govern, I believe HR and management should handle non-work things at work.

I personally remain very non-controversial, I try to be sensitive of current issues and steer clear. I don't engage in non-work topics at work and all of my friends I hangout with off-hours are not my colleagues. I do have a bunch of personal friends from earlier employments, but this pattern has fallen off. I can probably blame my age and family situation for this (no time for socializing outside the already existing circle, not to mention the new relationships that my wife/daughter bring in from school/neighbors/clubs etc). Rarely there are some folks who pierce through this solid wall I keep for myself, those friendships I treasure.

This works just fine - and of all the models I have tried, this is the one I recommend the most.

TL;DR - Don't be yourself even if the company is very accommodating, bring your best polished self. You want to be known for your work rather than as the 'XYZ' guy.

I recently changed my manager and I just realized that, for the first time in my live, I should not be myself in my job. I am still learning how to do this, but it's not easy.

It turns out I'm just way too different form my manager, we have fundamental differences in our points of view and for a lot of stuff we just can't agree. I am trying to share a little as I can from my personal life and try to have the "drank the company's Coolaid" attitude with him, because that's how much different we are. I recently found out he's even an anti-vaxxer. I hope they replace him soon.

Do the work and gtfo. If the majority is leaning to one side then they don't tolerate any differing viewpoints. I don't interact with anyone if it's not related to getting the job done. As an example, the majority are vaccinated. You're in company meetings and have to hear how the unvaccinated are morons etc. My mic will always be muted but at least I know what they think about people like me. I've withdrawn socially because the more liberal and politically correct a company becomes, the more intolerance follows towards others.

> As an example, the majority are vaccinated. You're in company meetings and have to hear how the unvaccinated are morons etc.

They're not wrong. You, and all the other people who refuse to get vaccinated, are a big part of the problem.

Money keeps people at bay

tl;dr -- I have spent the last nearly-fifteen years at a large-ish (5k-10k employees) research-oriented US government contractor and generally yes, I do feel free to express myself where I work (it is a large part of why I have stayed so long!) I feel that I align pretty well with the overarching culture of the organization, and that I have been able to find projects and teams within the organization with whom I have a good cultural fit. This is tremendously important to me, and I am a little surprised at the number of responses that have answered "no"--thank you all for sharing; it has been eye-opening!

Some examples:

I have a poster of a dragon playing a text adventure in my office. I have a shoji screen (that I brought in) separating my desk from my officemate's desk to help me get a little more privacy. I have a few more framed prints of some iconic videogame scenes that I have not yet brought in because the pandemic hit before I had gotten them framed, but I have no doubt that they would be allowed to stand and that some of my colleagues would comment favorably on them. Management supported me in getting a chalkboard instead of the standard issue whiteboard, and in moving it when I switched to a new group.

Upper management has expressly stated support for people wearing what they are comfortable with to work so long as it does not interfere with their work or with safety protocols. (Specifically in response to a question about shorts and t-shirts, so I am sure there are limits to this, but they are well beyond what I am generally inclined to wear).

I generally use Emacs though most of the teams that I've been on have used Eclipse, IntelliJ, Visual Studio, or, more recently, Visual Studio Code; nobody has ever told me I need to change to something else.

I'm a bit of a joker and I find that humor can be an excellent way to alleviate the stress of working under a tight deadline or the frustration of a bug that just won't quit, but I am also aware of the harm that joking around can cause and try to take that into consideration when choosing whether to attempt a humorous statement. I also try to be aware of the culture of the teams that I am on (I have worked on several projects throughout my time here, many at the same time) and adjust my levity accordingly. My colleagues seem to generally appreciate my wry sense of humor and application of sarcasm.

As I get to know a team, and they get to know me and my productivity and contributions, I will sometimes bring a fairly small handcraft to meetings to help keep me focused (especially for longer meetings and/or meetings for which my portion of the project is not the main discussion). Chainmail, knitting, and cross-stitch have all been things I've brought, and while these often draw comment it is generally neutral-to-favorable; I have never been asked not to bring these sorts of things. My teammates also seem to enjoy receiving the trinkets that I was working on as I finished them.

I do not generally get into detailed discussions of politics, and I would say that generally it does feel that the organizational does somewhat discourage those in general (not a particular party or ideology, but overall discussion of politics). That is not to say there is not the occasional grumbling about the latest continuing resolution or a government shutdown disrupting funding, but generally people leave their soapboxes at home.

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