On Compartmentalization

Unedited (mostly) dictation for DigiWriMo
from-my-mouth-to-the-page writing experiment

I left a comment on someone’s excellent #altCV blog post about our “pathological ability to compartmentalize” (edit essential here – it was Mitra Emad’s Stuff that Matters post)

The blog post focused on how the things that are so important to us especially family related matters – don’t really count at all in our curriculum vitae, on our resumes, in our work life. The “pathological ability…” was part of my reply, not the blog post itself. (since I’m refusing to go back and edit, I have to clarify that here.)

I was thinking about how other societies are more holistic. They don’t seem to compartmentalize things as severely as we try to do.  I’m sure that’s an overstatement but that’s what I was thinking.  In my mind I was speculating about how we might all have a healthier outlook if what mattered at home also mattered at work. If employers were able to adapt their working hours to accommodate the needs of the family instead of “you can’t get ahead if you put your family first” type of attitude.  If instead of valuing cutthroat competitiveness, we value the things that make someone a good mother, a good husband, a good father or grandfather. Or even conversely, if things in the workplace conspired to help someone dysfunctional become better functioning in their roles outside of the workplace.

Then today I had an experience that stood that whole thing on its head. I was desperately wishing that the society in which I lived was better able to compartmentalize. Events that occurred in the community over the Halloween weekend intruded into the classroom in a somewhat destructive way. It could’ve been worse, but it was certainly very uncomfortable. And even as I wanted to exhort people to remember that we talked about workplace skills and leaving home life away from work, I remembered that I had just called that a “pathological ability to compartmentalize”

Yeah, I guess I’m a total hypocrite. I want it both ways. Well no I don’t want it both ways, I simply want the ability to choose one way or the other at my convenience. (oops, I should have dictated a semicolon there instead of a comma to separate those two independent clauses). Is it schizophrenic to be able to compartmentalize sometimes and not other times? Is it idealistic to think that people should learn to compartmentalize for my convenience, but to be holistic when that suits my whim?   Or would arrogance be a better term than idealistic?

Is it even fair to expect that a society that operates by consensus and in a holistic manner, a small community where everybody knows everybody else’s business, and where the motto is often quoted “it takes a whole community to raise a child” – is it fair to expect people from such a society to practice our ideal of leaving your home life outside of the office, outside of the classroom?

The answer is, I don’t know. I do know that I am required to teach that principle as part of a work readiness course. I do know that the dominant society will expect this of people without regard for the holistic nature or lack thereof in their home communities. What I’m not sure of is whether you can more highly develop the ability to compartmentalize without sacrificing holistic ideals.

I think raising this question in class tomorrow might be a good way to address the conflict as well as to review some “western” work skills.  Sure hope it doesn’t blow up in my face.