Too Much Information, Girl: Do You Over Share at Work?

September 4th, 2012 - By Mame Kwayie

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When I started my career, I learned quickly that I’d have to navigate the terrain of socializing at the office. I had to learn how to answer the seemingly innocuous “How was your weekend?” and the even more loaded “So what do you really think about the boss’ project?” with tact. Sometimes I was on the receiving end of honesty, offering a listening ear to a colleague venting about a new assignment or chatting about the new love in her life.

There is a fine line between being about business and being sociable at work. Some women find that after opening up to co-workers over time, finding a “work friend” could ease the day-to-day office grind and heavy workloads. It could be as simple as sharing vacation photos over lunch or trading stories about each other’s children. Others may only do lunch with their latest book club pick, eating alone in the break room or at their desks for fear that having to make small talk that’s not work-related could lead to personal territory that could make business interactions murky.

And then there are the over-sharers. The co-workers who are ready to share the details of their weekend’s drunken debauchery, or the cube mates who will tell anyone with an ear how much they hate their jobs. The age of Facebook may have encouraged a generation of I’ll-tell-you-everything professionals, those who teeter between zero boundaries at work and being deemed detached and standoffish for not being more personable.

As Peggy Klaus writes in an article for the New York Times

Social media have made it the norm to tell everybody everything. The problem is that people are forgetting where they are (at work, not a bar or a chat room) and whom they’re talking to (bosses, clients, colleagues and the public, not their buddies). And even if they know it’s inappropriate to share certain personal information in a business setting, they do it anyway because everyone else does.

This is where I mention that a middle-aged colleague of mine once peeled back a Band-Aid to offer a visual update on a minor injury she’d sustained over the weekend. And that another thought it prudent to share with me the horrid details of an infection that kept her out of the office for several days. Whether or not oversharing is symptomatic of generational entitlement (“I’m a millennial. I’m special and important and not only do you have to know what I had for lunch today, but you have to listen to every torrid detail of the date I went on last night and the reasons why I hate this project so much.”), I ascribe oversharing to the need for people to connect, regardless of age. But, with everything else, oversharing in the office can come with consequences.

In the working world, we often are thrust into a group of folks with whom we would never socialize under any other circumstances. We spend most of our waking hours with our colleagues and may see them more than we see our own friends and family. In my own experience, I’ve learned that many folks are just itching to drop the facade. They are almost always down to talk about the new office rules or about their jobs. I’ve seen genuine friendships forged at work, ones that outlast a colleague’s tenure at the office. I’ve seen openness backfire, with colleagues using personal information to bully their so-called work friend on business matters.  For many, a simple “I went to the lake this weekend” suffices for a Monday morning pleasantry, and heart-to-hearts are rarely necessary in an office setting.  For others, work friendships are vital outlets for expression, appropriate or not.

How do we reconcile our need to connect with our professional boundaries? How do you set the rules for office friendships? Are you an over-sharer?

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  • CarlaKah

    I keep it light and funny. Not deep and damaging

  • ResHeart

    I work with a group of people who have no idea when its time to shut it down. One girls told me she was a weed head, another that she was molested multiple times by various family members and lastly a coworker told us all that she used to be a stripper . To all i said my little ” oh , wow well im glad you over came” and changed the subject. Not that i was trying to be rude or didndt care but, some things you dont tell to people who are just associates. Shoot im the youngest one in the office and they didnt even know that til today ( 2 years after working with them) . Keep your stuff to your self, people are already shooting for your spot, dont supply them with the bullets.

    • Truth

      Where the hell do you work, Sad Heifers ‘R’ Us? lol

      • Resheart

        lol lets just say our job requires a confidentiality agreement , so i guess when we so use to holding in secretes all day from family & friends it just all spills out at work lol idk ! But i aint spilling !

  • Negress

    ”
    In the working world, we often are thrust into a group of folks with whom we would NEVER socialize under any other circumstances.” May I please reiterate, Neva!

  • Lana

    Wow I feel like I work with over sharers international lol I have been guilty of oversharing in the past. But once I moved on from that job and realized that I had shared so much of my life with people I would NEVER see again and who didn’t really care. I wished up on my next job and I think people think I’m stuckup but I just don’t like sharing evey aspect of my life and sometimes even pleasant small talk leads to nosey questions being asked and speculations being made. I’ve seen it so many times where I work now the typical convo is like ‘how can she afford that she pays $$$ in rent and her car note is $$$’ I kind of blame reality shows people seem to feel entitled to know other peoples business without their request for privacy.

  • Toya Sharee

    I went from working in my own office for a job that I was relatively mobile for, to working in an office where everyone’s desk are out in the open. You quickly learn who has a hard time balancing casual conversation with work; it’s like some people are uncomfortable if it’s quiet for too long. My advice is to be careful with sharing your personal business. Regardless of how casual things appear or how cool management seems to be, certain aspects of your life might make them look at you differently and can be used against you in the future. I also make it a point to have boundaries when it comes to social networking. I avoid fraternizing with co-workers on Facebook and Twitter; I’ve made exceptions in the past with people I don’t mind hanging with off the clock, but I don’t make it a habit. But yeah, I’ve definitely witnessed a lot of oversharing and there is at least one day a week where I wish everyone would just shut the hell up. This is why I seek jobs that allow me to be mobile. My day can’t revolve around water cooler gossip.

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