One of the questions on the VortexDNA survey is about the percentage of time you feel you’re able to be yourself at work.

It’s a great question. The first time I took the survey, I was in a job that I didn’t enjoy. My natural state is one of irrepressible exuberance, and yet I spent my days sullenly biting my tongue and tamping down my spirit. As I responded to the question, I knew how much I was letting myself down.

Things have gotten a lot better since then. I work for myself. I share an office with two friends, people with whom I genuinely enjoy spending time. I choose how I spend my days and with whom I choose to do business.

Yesterday my officemates and I went out to lunch together. As we placed our orders, I spied Raf, from VortexDNA, coming in.

Now, you may have figured out from the title of this blog that I do a bit of work for VortexDNA. And I certainly would never want to jeopardize my business relationship in any way. But here’s the beauty of it: he came in, and he joined me and my friends for lunch, and the dynamic didn’t change. It didn’t grow stilted. I didn’t feel fearful that he might see the non-work side of me.

We all adjust our behavior to be appropriate for a given situation. I might swear with my friends, for example; I wouldn’t on this blog or with my mother-in-law. I choose carefully when and with whom I’m willing to engage in a conversation about politics or religion. But there’s a big difference between deciding to be appropriate and suppressing your inner nature.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately because of the privacy issues surrounding Facebook. A lot of the complaining is from people who have carefully compartmentalized their lives and would be livid if their various personas were ever to overlap. Professional career women having their lesbianism dissected at the office water cooler. Authoritarian parents letting their kids see them as real people.

Take this quote from a New York Times article dissecting Facebook’s privacy problems:

Mr. Das, who joined Facebook on a whim after receiving invitations from friends, tried to leave after realizing that most of his co-workers were also on the site. ?I work in a small office,? he said. ?The last thing I want is people going on there and checking out my private life.?

?I did not want to be on it after junior associates at work whom I have to manage saw my stuff,? he added.

There’s nothing wrong with Mr. Das’ desire for privacy, and I’m not suggesting that our every weekend fling should be shared indiscriminately with our business colleagues. I do wonder, though, if they are two separate issues: the Facebook one, and the one in which our many lives are kept completely dis-integrated. Is there something wrong with the fact that so many of us don’t want people to see who we really are?

What do you think about it?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 13th, 2008 at 6:13 am and is filed under Facebook, People matter, Privacy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.