At the workplace and the home, a reputation is something that differs significantly, depending on where your reputation is being discussed.
At home, my reputation is far worse than my workplace, although in many areas they are identical.
In the time that I worked at the educational nonprofit organization, I was first perceived to be a tech guy, one with a relatively high-efficiency mindset but perhaps a less-than-ideal arsenal of social skills. As time went on and my actual work performance came to light as I became more comfortable, that attitude changed. Now, the problem, or rather the credit of the workplace is, as I have said before, that it is very ambient towards people who prefer to work with an easygoing, hardworking mindset. Be that as it may, most of the workers there are very dedicated, and love work more than most other aspects of their life (helping kids, why not?) This rather made it easy for everyone to see me in my comfort zone, a situation that was aptly described by my supervisor's boss, more of a mother figure to the entire organization: "Saadman's a little kid on the inside."
Now, that single sentence may come with a plethora of negative connotations, but that's where the negativities ended. Other than the quirks of being perceived as a man-child and being disliked by my supervisor for being as such, I held a good reputation as someone who wanted to work, and wanted to be given more work to do.
However, it was a slightly different scenario with my family. At home, I was considered very irresponsible and crass about many things. Problem is, there never was much of an opportunity for me to experience any strenuous situation, given the protectiveness of my parents and how I was pampered as the only son of my father's side for 13 years. When my little brother was born, the expectation of being mature and a role model fell upon my shoulders out of the blue. This mismatch of expectations (at least, that was the case in my opinion) with my actual mental faculties made it a worst-case scenario when it came to fulfilling what was given to me.
I understand how the two present a dichotomy of how my reputation can vary, but that is how I perceive my own reputation to be. There can be no fixed truth to your reputation other than some aspects of it, such as your productivity as a person, or your creativity, or your tardiness, among other things. While I left work thinking I may have been responsible for a lot of damage to the project I was tasked with, I was given a glowing report by my previously-thought-to-be annoyed supervisor to the "mother" figure, meaning the founder of the organization, who promised me that my work had convinced her to welcome me with open arms should I ever want to join the organization. In contrast to that, my reputation to my family has not changed much, and I face the repercussions of that on a daily basis.
In conclusion, a person's reputation varies in accordance to the context of the environment she/he is present in. Reputation may vary across family, work, friends, and now even social media. Possibly, only your family really knows how you actually are.
At home, my reputation is far worse than my workplace, although in many areas they are identical.
In the time that I worked at the educational nonprofit organization, I was first perceived to be a tech guy, one with a relatively high-efficiency mindset but perhaps a less-than-ideal arsenal of social skills. As time went on and my actual work performance came to light as I became more comfortable, that attitude changed. Now, the problem, or rather the credit of the workplace is, as I have said before, that it is very ambient towards people who prefer to work with an easygoing, hardworking mindset. Be that as it may, most of the workers there are very dedicated, and love work more than most other aspects of their life (helping kids, why not?) This rather made it easy for everyone to see me in my comfort zone, a situation that was aptly described by my supervisor's boss, more of a mother figure to the entire organization: "Saadman's a little kid on the inside."
Now, that single sentence may come with a plethora of negative connotations, but that's where the negativities ended. Other than the quirks of being perceived as a man-child and being disliked by my supervisor for being as such, I held a good reputation as someone who wanted to work, and wanted to be given more work to do.
However, it was a slightly different scenario with my family. At home, I was considered very irresponsible and crass about many things. Problem is, there never was much of an opportunity for me to experience any strenuous situation, given the protectiveness of my parents and how I was pampered as the only son of my father's side for 13 years. When my little brother was born, the expectation of being mature and a role model fell upon my shoulders out of the blue. This mismatch of expectations (at least, that was the case in my opinion) with my actual mental faculties made it a worst-case scenario when it came to fulfilling what was given to me.
I understand how the two present a dichotomy of how my reputation can vary, but that is how I perceive my own reputation to be. There can be no fixed truth to your reputation other than some aspects of it, such as your productivity as a person, or your creativity, or your tardiness, among other things. While I left work thinking I may have been responsible for a lot of damage to the project I was tasked with, I was given a glowing report by my previously-thought-to-be annoyed supervisor to the "mother" figure, meaning the founder of the organization, who promised me that my work had convinced her to welcome me with open arms should I ever want to join the organization. In contrast to that, my reputation to my family has not changed much, and I face the repercussions of that on a daily basis.
In conclusion, a person's reputation varies in accordance to the context of the environment she/he is present in. Reputation may vary across family, work, friends, and now even social media. Possibly, only your family really knows how you actually are.
It's interesting to think that reputation depends on context. You talked about work at the non-profit and in the family. Is it different at school? Have you established a reputation in that setting?
ReplyDeleteIt's difficult to ascertain your reputation at school i.e. University unless you have a solid "foundation", as I would like to call it.
DeleteMy own situation/time at the U of I has been the absolute most tumultuous time of my life, and it's possible I'm more of a statistic than a person in terms of reputation. That may be going to the extreme, but again, that's just my own opinion.