A tale of two personalities: Who you are at work is not necessarily who you are in life

In my former career, I had two personalities.  My professional work persona, which was probably about 50% of me most of the time, and my normal home persona that my close friends and family saw.  I believe that most people in the HR field have this dysfunction because it’s difficult to strike the right balance of remaining professional and living the part of "company role model" while also keeping some semblance of yourself so people don’t see you as fake.

While keeping these two personas somewhat separate, somewhere in between the people we support and work with have caught on and now have the perspective that people in HR are the worst offenders when it comes to professional work behavior.  When our home personas snuck through during the day during a weak or stressful moment, this became true in some sense.

Truth is, working in the HR field is probably the most difficult career I worked in when it came to being who I really was.  Since leaving the field, friends that I worked with and have remained in contact with probably have gotten more insight into who I really am as a person.  In my last career, I tried very hard to uphold that line by using LinkedIn for my work friends and Facebook for my non-work friends.  With LinkedIn, I could still be connected to people and remain professional.  With Facebook, I wanted to still be myself and not worry about offending people I worked with.  It worked...sort of.  People at work began friending me and I found it hard to keep that line tightly strung up, so of course I hit "accept" and began to filter the one place I vowed to remain myself.

If you're having trouble relating because you're one of the lucky ones that gets to be yourself at work, then here's a visual to put it into perspective.  Enjoy this side-by-side comparison of the real me vs. the work “HR” me.

HR Megan	Real Megan
Extroverted most of the time.	Introvert
Professional jokes, humor.	The most inappropriate humor there is.
Able and engaging presenter.	I would rather die than stand up in front of a group of people I don’t know.
Not supposed to use foul language.	I swear like a sailor!
Not supposed to be close to people I support because of perceived favoritism.	Introverts have few, but important people in their lives as friends.  I made some of these connections at work, a natural place to make friends as we spend most of our lives there.  I had deeper conversations with these people versus the usual small talk or work talk we were supposed to have.
Neutral when it came to hard decisions, such as firing someone.	I don’t care who you are, this is hard to do and I often felt empathy for the person on the other side of the table.  This is especially true when I knew the person.
Expected to network and be a part of company functions.	This was the most uncomfortable part of work for me.  I don’t do small talk (again, I’m a major introvert) and I prefer to just kick back at home rather than “work a room.”

I’m sure there’s more, but this gives you the gist.  In the long-run, the type of work I did in the HR field was going to kill me…literally.  Well, maybe not literally, but it would have either killed off my real personality or I would have gone crazy dealing with split personalities.   As many of you know, I couldn’t have stayed in the HR field because my true passion is writing.  Not only did I have to be true to my personality, but I had to be true to myself and what I really wanted to be doing for a career.

When social media makes you feel like you're back in high school

Social media is great.  I get to keep in touch with people from my younger years and see what they're up to week-to-week, day-to-day, and even minute-to-minute.  Even if they're checking in from "the throne."

On the other hand, it can sometimes make me feel like I've been magically transported back to my teenage years where one of your closest friends all of a sudden won't speak to you and you have no idea what you've done.  I know we've all been there and damn social media to hell for making us re-live that shit again.

This time around, there isn't really the ability to go up and confront your friend and ask what's up.  In fact, you might be sitting at your computer wondering, "What ever happened to so-and-so?  I never see any posts from him."  Then you look and find out that he's no longer a part of your friend list and you scratch your head and wonder how long it's been since he stopped being your friend and then you ponder the even bigger question of the day, what did you do to receive the dishonor of being unfriended?

I get that some people like to purge their friend list because they like to keep things clean by only having close and/or active participants in the world of social media.  Or maybe you've said something that goes completely against their views or they vehemently disagree with you in general and have hit that "unfriend" button to show you just how they feel.  Whatever the reason, it's really a shame that it happens and people are completely unaware of when and why; without so much as the opportunity to talk about it.  

In this day and age, it seems like all we do is communicate by text, e-mail, social media, etc.  No one really talks to each other much anymore.  I'm guilty of it as well.  If we're not going to talk to each other, then why don't the various social media outlets have something where you would know that a.) someone has un-friended you and b.) the reason why you're no longer privy to their daily exploits instead of hiding behind the passive-aggressive act of ending a friendship by pushing a simple button? It's the least these tools can provide since they're contributing to the anti-social behavior.

You might be reading this thinking, "Why do you let it bother you so much?  Let it go, it's not a big deal."  Well, my friends (yes, I'm speaking to those that are still on my friend list--and hell, even those that have self-selected out of my life without so much as a goodbye), here's a wonderful bulleted list for you:

• I accepted or sent you a friend request because I truly want to be friends with you on social media even if I am not active every day, hour, or minute or "like" or comment on every post or picture you have.  Who has that kind of time?  Sometimes I just like to read what you're up to.
• You are important and social media has made it easy to keep in touch with you and to keep up on how you're doing.
• I truly feel a sense of loss when you unfriend me without so much as a reason why.  I think about it for a few days and sometimes longer.  IT BOTHERS ME THAT MUCH.
• I am not a mind-reader and would love to know when I've done something that offended or hurt you.  I don't set out every day to do so and I'm sure you don't, either.  Please reach out before hitting that "unfriend" button.
• I accept your eccentricities, even if they drive me to drink or are completely opposite of what I would do and I hope you would accept mine as well. 

Social media is in our lives and it makes it easy to connect to each other.  On the other hand, it also makes it easy to disconnect with each other.  Hopefully you'll think twice before unfriending someone or at least take the less-traveled and often riddled-with-potholes high road to give them an explanation on why you are choosing to remove them from your daily life.  Sometimes it's hard to have the conversation, but it's important to remember that we all have feelings.  Even though it may be an easy button-pushing process for you, chances are it's causing some kind of grief on the other end.