So I have this job. Its not a bad job. I like the work and it pays me slightly more than enough to pay my bills. Though the people I work with aren’t “my” people, we all recognize we are all working toward the same goal. And for the most part we stay on task.

But its the not my people part that creates the stress. I don’t live in the community where I work. My commute is short in terms of time and distance but not in terms of like mindedness. I am less inclined to practice the fake friendliness of my peers. i understand how, at some level, that is what makes our company world go around, but at the same time I believe one can be professional and good at a job with the false fronting.

When I applied to work there, I wasn’t looking for friends. I believe that true friendships grow organically, but work relationships aren’t organic. You talk to the people you work in the closest proximity to, either in task or performance. And certainly you can develop a rapport, but that’s not friendship. The relationship is still defined by the terms of your employment. Who they expect you to be and what slice of yourself do you show determines the nature of the rapport.

I was raised by a woman who believed honesty of self is what you owed yourself. And what you owe to yourself is what you owe the world. The truth. Your truth. But there are slices to that truth. I don’t think I am so different from anyone else in that I mentally shift gears when I go to work. Someone is paying me money to perform certain tasks as efficiently as I can. I’m not there to be entertained or entertaining. I’m not there to be myself. I am there as an employee.I am there on someone else’s dime, so to speak.

The company itself and I are aligned in some social awareness levels. We both seek to do our part in lowering our damage to the earth and its resources. It wasn’t until I started working there that I realized how important that was to me. I have been conscious of my carbon footprint for many years, but I never really thought about how I could lower it with some small changes in life.

Ultimately, work is work. Its not real life, its just a slice of real life. Could I work somewhere and be happier? Maybe. But that’s not really what work is about. Not for me. There are aspects of being employed that make my life livable. The regular paycheck, the nature of being a productive member of society, even the superficial interactions are things that are vital to certain quality of life. But to say my job enhances other aspects of my life would be incorrect.

It is far healthier for me to keep a clear line between my work life and my home life. There is no real room for me to be all that I am at work. I have a defined set of responsibilities with coinciding expectations. I prefer to know both of those things. But when there is a false sense of family, of familiarity, knowing where those lines are made more difficult. I want to live and trust in life those things I have learned to trust. People who I see for a limited amount of time in the very narrow setting of the workplace are not things I can develop trust in. And its in the trust I feel that I can show more of who I am.