How much should you share at work?

Finding myself in the tricky situation of starting at a new company, I am beginning to wonder just how much is the right level of sharing?

The balance is a hard one to find.

We have all worked with the people that over-share. You know the kind, the girl that comes in with all the details of the boy that she has just started seeing. You hear so much about ‘Joe’ that you feel like you know him, and then when he finally turns up at your workplace and you say ‘Hey Joe!’ and he looks at you like you are some kind of raving mad stranger.

How much would you share? 

On the other hand, we have all worked with the under-sharer. The person that is so silent and withdrawn you quietly wonder what their problem is and imagine them as some kind of weirdo recluse, possibly living with lots of cats and hoarding old newspapers.

I have been told that my personality can be kind of ‘quirky’, sometimes ‘thoughtful’, leading all the way through the spectrum to the downright ‘bitchy’. This leaves me with the predicament, tell all about my life and run the risk of being seen as a show-off or a big mouth or keep my life to myself be accused of being shy. It’s a tough call.

To add to all of this, we have the added nuisance of Facebook. Where’s the line? When do you add a colleague to your friends list? Is a smiley at the end of an internal email a hidden signal that you are now friendly enough to become cyber friends too? Oh the perils of modern technology.

After two weeks at my new desk, I feel the time has come to open up. I hate being seen as shy and from Tuesday this out of character quietness is going to stop. I need to talk. My internal dialogue is driving me mad. I need to let some of it out.

It’s very hard to like somebody that you know nothing about, but then it’s very easy to hate someone who is bending your ear when you have deadlines looming. Perhaps the key is to invite our colleagues to the pub after work? We are after all, a nation of Brits that form the majority of relationships after a pint or two. That’s my plan anyway, I’ll ask a few people to the pub and hopefully I can then ascertain the level of sharing required for a happy work life.

You never know, the quiet guy may have just been waiting for an invite. That’s if they accept the offer to go to the pub…. If they haven’t already made their minds up that I’m the weirdo recluse, or the even more annoying blabbermouth. ‘Till next week…