Sober, Anarchist, Tits.

Your colleagues are watching...

Sitting at my matte black upcycled desk (sanding is a bitch) in the ergonomic chair I stole from my boyfriend, I flip between tabs and windows, my gaze shifting back and forth from laptop screen to monitor like a malfunctioning woodpecker. My undivided attention is on blah blah tax, blah blah stock options.

Only the sexiest of subjects for me, obvs.

As I near the end of my research, I share my doc with the fountain of knowledge who will tell me what’s shite and what’s gospel. Naturally, I presumptuously schedule a follow-up meeting for my inevitable 101 questions (is it still presumptuous if I’m talking about myself?).

With the virtual invite already hurtling through cyberspace—almost certainly nestled in Knowledge Queen’s inbox—I lean back in my chair and reach for the stars like S Club 7 taught me to and rotate my head for good measure. Click, click, click. (Jesus, I’m stiff.)

In this moment, I do indeed feel like a corporate baddie.

Excelling in my job. Exuding 9-5 decorum. Performing competence with the precision of a woman who knows she must never, ever give anyone a reason to question why she’s here (even if imposter syndrome makes me question myself lol).

While I’m sitting in this professional caricature of myself, I think about last week’s Substack post. I wrote about the societal norm to penalise the body women exist in by assigning sexuality to every inch of it while simultaneously exploiting it for male consumption and economic gain. Slut shaming. I wrote about slut shaming and how I still do it to myself.

The title picture was of my boobs.

The dichotomy between the two versions of me. The duality. The seamless shift in tonality—technical writer dedicated to accuracy that reflects company excellence vs. writer dedicated to anarchy, a rebel with a cause, unapologetically challenging norms rooted in systemic oppression and the subjugation of communities.

Both of them are me. But one is a projection—shaped by the quiet skill of pulling back, of knowing when to soften, when to hold back, when to fit within the lines—mainly when something is worth the effort of me opening my mouth.

The other is an outpouring—every unfiltered, uncompromising part of me spilling onto the page without restraint.

The two do not interact.

So as much as I keep these two worlds separate (and honestly, it’s not like I’m under lock and key—I just choose not to talk about Substack or sobriety at work), all it takes is a little search on IG/TikTok (Facebook, if you’re that way inclined), and boom. There I am, in all my unfiltered glory. Sobriety. Anarchist. Tits.

And that’s mostly fine. The colleagues who follow me are sound—genuinely lovely people I can have a laugh with, chat about dumb shit with to make the day go faster. Some even like and comment on my posts, a few have subscribed to Sober Millennial. Having said that, none of my socials are private, so people from work don’t need to follow me to follow me.

But what happens when the lines blur too much?

What happens when a colleague—who has quietly consumed the outside-of-work me—brings that knowledge into the office? Maybe it starts as an awkward joke. A casual, offhand comment about something I posted.

Maybe they hesitate before saying it, as if testing the waters of what’s acceptable. Maybe I laugh it off, because I know exactly what’s happening but I haven’t yet figured out how to stop it. Maybe they reference a post of mine—something sharp, something feminist, something about the ridiculousness of policing women’s bodies—and they sit in silence waiting for a response.

Like I’m meant to perform that version of me for them, too.

And suddenly, I feel exposed.

Because that’s when the dynamic changes—when they acknowledge it in a space where I don’t control the conversation. Not in a dramatic, scandalous way. No one’s calling HR. No one’s saying anything wrong. But something shifts. Something I can’t quite name.

What do I say to that?

What do I say to the sudden realisation that I was fine existing in two separate spaces, but someone else has just collapsed them into one?

I know what I post. I chose to put it out there. I allowed people to see.

But if the title picture of my last Substack post was my boobs in a sports bra, does that mean a colleague can casually reference that photo at work?

It’s not that I’m embarrassed. It’s that suddenly, my body—my self—has become part of the office ecosystem in a way I didn’t agree to, where everything suddenly feels smaller, riskier, out of my control.

And that makes me wonder—does posting about my real self give people permission to treat me differently at work?

And if it does, is that good or bad?

When you know more about a person, it humanises them. It increases your connection, understanding and empathy (potentially). But does it also give you ammunition because with that access to information, you potentially have access to vulnerabilities. Chinks in the armour.

So maybe the real issue isn’t that my colleagues see me outside of work. Maybe the issue is what we still consider "work-appropriate." The real question isn’t just whether work-me and real-me can exist separately, it’s why we still have to pretend they should.

Because I am a technical writer. And I am an angsty writer.

And I am not made to be digestible. (Unlike my work at work. LOL.)

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