A Tale Of Two Personalities: Professional vs Social

Tauqir Choudhury • ago 05, 2020

We all have our own way of dealing with things, whether it’s at work or at home. The way we speak and socialise with our families and friends is usually different to the way we speak and socialise with our bosses and colleagues.


Our work life balance does not just include our working hours and the time we spend with others, it is also the way we behave and speak to one another. It’s not just being formal or informal that defines who we are as professionals and as members of society or families, it’s also the way we approach different situations.

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For example, how often would you use slang when speak to your close friends or siblings? You would almost never do so with anyone at work, right? The words we say and the tone we speak in would be different. This itself is an aspect of our personality at work and around others. Speaking another language is a further example.


Some people may define the difference between professional and social lives as Conscious vs Code. With ‘code’ referring to attitudes at work, such as being punctual, getting work done and maintaining workplace privacy. Conscious ethics of a person may involve them getting drinks at certain times of the week, but their code should require them to have no drinks at all except for work parties.


However, this does not mean that our conscious and code are completely separate. In fact, there may be aspects of our conscious that affect how we implement codes. Such as our pre-existing values which we carry out no matter what.


This also means that there should be a limit to our conscious. While maintaining workplace privacy is important, having social privacy is equally important. Social media is a big part of our lives, whilst there may be things that we like to show of personal lives, maintaining a limit of what we expose of ourselves is important. Whilst you may not be at work, your behaviors on social media can cost you a job or may stop you from getting an offer. Making comments or sharing content that’s not even yours can be costly. So it may be worth going over some privacy settings.

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Our working life and social life are more intertwined than we may think, but there are clearly some differences. Understanding these differences and similarities can lead to an effective and successful work-life balance.


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