Career equals relationships: the new horizon of work-life balance

I have been working in an international corporation for a year now and I noticed something strange pervading the corporate world in general. I’m talking about the fact that my workplace has serious intentions in becoming my boyfriend. And a perfect one!

Photo by Avel Chuklanov

The first hint of this intention has manifested to me while answering for the first time to the questions of the quarterly survey the company asks you to fill in. This is a questionnaire about the well-being of employees, where the company ensures that its people still like it to work there and that there are no toxic dynamics going on. I see where this comes from: the corporate world is going through a big shift, compared to, let’s say, the 80s and 90s. I totally support this, of course: we do not want to be chained to the capitalistic machine and only be valued for how much and how efficiently we produce. However, while I agree that the wellbeing of the employees should be the hallmark of every sane firm, still I have some doubts about how this goal should be pursued. In particular, what puzzled me the most about that first survey was the following question: “How much do you feel you're being your true self at work?”

This question struck me and set my amygdala in panic mode. Am I supposed to know my true self to be eligible to work in large corporations now? How come is it needed that I know who I really am to make aesthetically pleasing slides and applying sensible filters to spreadsheets? Ok, let’s forget for now this philosophical discussion, which is not the real point of this blog post (although it is not a trivial realization that I have to go to therapy to be able to farm slide decks. Probably more on that will come soon…).

Photo by Lacie Slezak

The most shocking part of the question is that it seems that we are expected to be our true selves at work. I mean, why in the world would a company pay me to be my true self? I thought I am getting a salary to show up as my professional self, instead. I might still need one or two more decades of therapy to be knowledgeable on all the ins and outs of my true self and how it conflicts with Templafy, but I have taken enough personality tests to know that I am turbulent and intolerant. Very turbulent… and intolerant. I burst quite often. For everything. I burst because I pick up a pen that does not work right when I need to quickly write down important notes. I burst because the water takes soooo long to boil. Then because I burned my tongue after drinking the tea too early. So now you’re still hot uh, you stupid tea! Because the milk is still on the table after two hours I used it and why hasn’t it opened the fridge and jumped inside it by itself? And I burst because I have yet another important note to quickly write down and goddamn I picked once again the crappy pen! And what about clients? My turbulent and intolerant self would punch them in their face when they demand services they didn’t pay for. Same when they want me to re-do a slide. Don’t they know I’m still in therapy?!

Furthermore, all the above rants do not even count the times I don’t feel like working. Yep, if my company really wants me to be true to myself, then it should bear in mind that there are times when I don’t even feel like working. Especially on Mondays and Fridays. And during premenstrual days, where I believe my life is catastrophic.

Photo by Erol Ahmed

I mean, the whole point of this detour on the turbulent and intolerant part of my true self is to say… Is it really the case that companies want to pay for my true selves? Isn’t it the “job” of a boyfriend/husband/partner to embrace my true self, instead? Prior to landing the corporate world, as strange as it sounds, I used to think this is something for my private life. That it is within the boundaries of a sane romantic relationship where I’m supposed to show my true self. Not at the office. If I bring my true self at work already, what’s the point in investing in a romantic relationship and any other relationship for that matter? And how can I draw the boundaries between my private life and my work life if I am being the “same person” in both situations?

But I am a conformist, after all. Conformist and weak. I finally succumbed to this whole “let’s be our true selves at work” and now my manager is always informed when I am in premenstrual period and I feel like my life is falling apart!

Photo by Sharon McCutcheon

The second hint behind the intention of my workplace in becoming my boyfriend is the insistence on the LGBTQ+ matter. This is not something concerning my workplace only. I see plenty of initiatives advertised on LinkedIn, posts, article, webinars on why companies should make sure to pay attention at the sexual preferences of employees, especially when hiring them. To remove any doubt, when I said I work in a large corporation, I did not mean an international producer of porno movies. There I totally understand paying attention to one’s sexual preferences. Instead, my domain of expertise is cybersecurity for the financial sector and trust me when I tell you that looking at firewalls is not affected at all by my sexual preferences. Having said that, it seems obvious to me that this interest in my sexual life must come from the fact that my company wants to… well, satisfy me! And since my sexual preferences have nothing to do with the “L”, nor by the “G”, nor by the “B”, and not even by the “T”, they must fall under the wilderness of the “+”. The glorious space of those people that can’t tricked into believing that less is more… “PLUS” must represent exactly what I want, and I’ll make sure to submit my request to the next quarterly questionnaire: “Tall and muscular blonde male with blue eyes, wearing tailored shirts and expensive perfume, enduring mid-to-long intercourses 8 times a week (0 times on Wednesday because I call my mum, 3 times on Saturdays to compensate).”

Now that we can be our true selves, are satisfied in bed (or, better, on the desk) and that we have our work-life balance sorted out, how come not investing as much as we can in our careers to build what seems to be a perfect and long-term relationship we will never be able to get out of?

Quote by Marilyn Monroe

Now I’d love to hear from you. What do you think about the tendency that corporates express lately about creating a cocoon and safe space for their employees? Let me know in the comments below and subscribe to the Breaking Thirty Newsletter for more blog posts.