Negotiating normality

After my wee bitch session the other day about Radio Man at work, I started thinking about the ways in which we balance our working selves and our outside-of-work selves. Obviously, there are plenty of people who can gaily head off to work and not feel like there is a tension between the two - you fit into the work culture just as much as everyone else does in the organisation. Others don't give a toss about it - they work in a job where it doesn't matter at all how you present yourself (ie. it's shit work); or, they have unassailable self-confidence; or, it's a very tolerant working environment. Others can be in stealth mode - they can "pass" and choose what parts of their non-work selves they want to reveal. Others, like me, can't pass if they tried.

There have been a few occasions where I felt no tension at all about fitting in - my first serious job, which was at a women's printing company, and two universities. The nice thing about universities in general is that they hire people around the world (well, at least in the three countries I've lived in) who would ordinarily find it difficult to get work that suited their skills.

Obviously, everyone needs to compromise to some degree to fit into a working environment. I'm a left-wing mouthy feminist child-free dyke foreigner, but to fit in with my relatively conservative, Australian, small-town orientated (Canberra is a small town), male techie colleagues in a quasi-government enterprise run by not-quite-dead white men, there is a limit to how much of the iconoclastic routine I can pull off without isolating myself. I had a job for seven years where I had backed myself into that corner, at least from a management point of view, and I can tell you it's a very awkward place to be in. Also, one of the effects of having gone to way too many schools as a kid is my sensitivity to that feeling of being out on a limb by myself, with no allies. I can't work like that.

Essentially my career has comprised of a pretty finely-judged balancing routine. I often go at things like a bull in a china shop... where there is no risk to me. Being out of work, or being put into a miserable situation workwise is not a risk I am willing to accept. Yes, everyone at work knows that I'm a left-wing mouthy feminist of questionable sexuality. However, I am not isolated by my peers because I choose which battles to fight. I have men trying to piss in my professional corner on what seems to be a monthly  basis, one way or another, and I very very very strongly defend my professional realm.

Do I run around saying "I'm here, I'm queer, get used to it?" No. Do I say to certain individuals' faces, "Look, I realise you're a middle-aged honky engineering-orientated married-with-kids male, but could you get rid of some of your more stupid assumptions"? No. Do I tell them off when they start with the racist jokes in front of me? Yes. Do I tell them not to forward me any of those stupid "battle of the sexes" emails, even if, according to at least one colleague, I should like them because they're "putting down men"? Of course I tell them not to. Do I tell them to keep their filthy mitts out of my servers because I am the Technical Authority for the mail system, in just the same way that one guy is the TA for the comms network, and I require the same amount of control over what happens on my systems? Of course I do, because that is language they understand.

I wouldn't be where I am without being assertive, and assertive about being perceived as good at my job. But I very carefully choose the areas I'm assertive in. All I want from my colleagues is professional respect, and their personal backing in the work we carry out together. Getting that personal backing can be a tricky thing to achieve, given the fact the only things I have in common with them are shared language (thank god) and profession. I have no interest in talking with them about cars, kids, crappy music, "the wife", or sports. I do not trust my colleagues to validate all aspects of myself, and by throwing too much of my non-conformity into their faces, I risk professional isolation and disrespect. And once that happens, you might as well quit, because you ain't going nowhere careerwise.

If I want to feel personally validated and have a bitch session about the cluelessness of certain individuals from the perspective of having my own personal reference points understood (you know, the queer, butch, feminist thing), I rely on my loved ones and friends to there for me. And thank god for L/J for providing some of those functions of cultural community which I'd find difficult to track down here otherwise (although I'm starting to).

It's also interesting how many differences one can cope with at once. I found London pretty difficult to take, because I had horrendous culture shock, and no support network. The fact that London has an extremely diverse population was a help. Things also improved once I had a girlfriend or two and started working in one of the aforementioned tolerant environments - I suspect they would have been even more bearable if I'd had this as an outlet as well. Canberra has the advantage of being more similar to my own culture, to a degree, and it certainly isn't really really conservative either, just small-town-like... but I don't feel anywhere near as secure here as I do at home. Again, though, there is the balancing act between expressing more parts of myself and avoiding risk.

I'd be interested to hear what other people find of risk to themselves professionally or in living with whatever dominant community they find themselves in, and how they mitigate or deal with those risks. Also, what do you reveal so that your core values aren't totally run over in the working environment. I don't put up with racist, sexist or homophobic remarks, but it's easy enough coming from someone as "identifiable" as I am... although I'm still amazed at how much I'm expected to nod along at quasi-racist remarks in what is ostensibly a middle-class environment. People who are more stealth in their presentation must choose how much mental whiplash to give to someone who assumes they share a certain conventional value set - much can be done without being self-revealing, but does it plant "seeds of suspicion"? Avoiding such situations is generally best, but some people just need to be hit over the head with the inappropriateness of their statements - people might bitch about "PC", but at least these days you can use that as a clobbering stick without having to necessarily compromise yourself with some wanker who would attempt to use any personal information.