Managers often say that they expect their employees to leave their personal life at the front door when they come to work and not without good reason. Every office is almost afflicted by someone who has to bring in their personal baggage and then proceed to tell everyone what their boyfriend did last night, or didn’t do and whom they have had an argument with and so on.

Generally this is viewed as disruptive behaviour, it can irritate colleagues and stop them from getting on with their work. But if you are the person ‘sharing’ all your woes, then you should also be aware that it can harm your career prospects as well!

Managers do not want to promote people who tell all and sundry of their trials and tribulations. Instead they are looking for someone who is discreet, someone who can be trusted, often with confidential information and someone who doesn’t irritate other colleagues.

Telling everyone your problems can also make you look very needy and, shocking as this may seem, if you have to rely on your work colleagues to share your troubles with, then it seems like you don’t have many friends. If you don’t have many friends, then is that because you don’t have very good interpersonal skills?

So sharing every intimate detail of your personal life can actually do your career some serious damage and you may never be taken seriously. Colleagues will also view you differently (as will management) if they know too many intimate details about you and whereas you may move on in your personal life, they may still remember that night you locked your boyfriend out of the house….. It may also be very irritating for colleagues, who after all, will all have their own problems to sort out and deal with.

Some people who may be temping and working for a recruitment agency may think that this isn’t applicable to them, because after all they aren’t permanent, but what happens if you then decide that you would like to work at that company on a permanent basis? Again, if every aspect of your life has been discussed to death by you and your colleagues, then you are much less likely to be employed.

The moral of the tale is therefore, that when you come to work, you leave all your problems behind and just get on with the job in hand!