When people feel entitled to police your your behaviour

It’s not that I am necessarily a private, super closed off person that you can’t get to know about preferences and so on, but I am sort of an open book in some ways.

On the blog, in real life, at work, meeting strangers… I know my limits of what I can say or not (don’t touch politics, money, religion or culture y’all..), but I am pretty open about who I am as a person, which I think to a certain extent, helps connect me to other people and endears me to them.

In the short amount of time I have been working (this is true for pretty much any contract), I tend to integrate pretty fast into the culture of the company, and end up making colleague-friends VERY quickly.

There are some people I work with, who have been there for 8+ years, who don’t know the names of anyone in the office other than in their area. They don’t know the people just even ONE CUBICLE OVER.

I have only been there a month or two, and I’m already in the know of who makes this, who makes that, who does what etc… I’m just a friendly person, but I also make the effort.

I don’t do it just to have friends at the office to talk to, but I do it strategically to know who can help me or not. It is very handy when something happens that you know WHO TO TALK TO and you get it fixed without much of a hassle.

THIS is worth its weight in gold to me in my job, folks.

The only thing I really don’t like is when people find out about my eating habits.

Not that I care that they know I’m a pig who eats twice her weight at each meal, but more that when I get excited (or they see my food) and I start talking about how I have been trying to move towards a more vegetarian / vegan diet.

Then, what happens with SOME people is that they see you order a burger or a steak and immediately launch into a half-joking judgemental mode:

But I thought you were vegetarian!

OMFG.

I said I was moving TOWARDS a more veggie-based diet, but it doesn’t mean I am giving it up completely.

I want to roll my eyes because I am not a strict vegetarian (far, far, FAR from it), and am more of a FLEXITARIAN with a leaning towards more vegetables than meat, but it is like the minute you mention that you are working on being more vegetable-based, they start policing you.

This same attitude crops up when you talk about eating sugar, drinking coffee (ANYTHING REALLY…) and about money.

I remember talking about how diabetes runs in my family and I try to keep my sugar intake down in general so I don’t end up with (preventable via diet) diabetes, also known as Type 2 Diabetes.

Then one guy sees me taking a hot chocolate (like ONE a week if that), and he says:

But I thought you were not eating any more sugar!

What planet do you think I’m from? I’m not a monk.

What planet are YOU from to think that someone who LOVES sugar can give up sugar!?!?

I still eat cakes, love candy, etc… but I am eating LESS of it, I am being conscious and I am being careful to not go nuts and have a candy bar every day like I did in high school.

Or when you talk about your money.. that you are saving it for this and that, and then they see you spend it on something “frivolous” like a breakfast sandwich, and immediately the refrain…

But I thought you were saving for a condo!

…jumps out of their mouth.

REALLY???

Sigh.

I guess that is what happens when you are an open book. People feel more comfortable to judge and police you when actually, they have no place to.

No one likes feeling like they’re being watched and that aspect of it all, does make me a bit irritated and uncomfortable.

I wish people would stop doing that.

Have you ever had this happen to you?