DEAR SOMEONE ELSE’S MOM: I am one of the “older” staffers at the USPS processing center where I have worked for the past 22 years. The majority of my coworkers are 10-20 years younger than me.
I enjoy my job and most of the people I work with in my department. I am also a very private person and rarely feel the need to share much about my personal life. Big events like when my kids graduated and got married, that sort of thing is the extent of it.
What I have a hard time with is how much of THE most personal information my younger coworkers share and overshare. I have no need or desire to listen to the latest sex tricks they learned from some guy they picked up, or about how they got wasted and barely made it to the bathroom before they lost it all at their favorite bar. These people put it all out there, everything, in great detail.
I must be getting older than I thought I was. When I was their age, we were doing plenty of the same things, but at most there were one or two of my coworkers back then so ready to share and so proud of what they did, not the whole department like now.
What ever happened to keeping a few secrets? --- DON’T NEED TO HEAR IT
DEAR DON’T NEED TO HEAR IT: My theory is that people have gotten so used to everything, even of the most private nature, being shared over social media that that kind of way too much frankness has spilled over into real life.
Personally, I agree with you that a little discretion is a good thing, and should be in wider practice than it seems to be now.