I had a situation with my mom about 2 weeks ago where I drew a penis on a plate at work (since I work in a restaurant with my mom) using raspberry syrup. She got mad at me, this was very surprising to me. I wondered why since we usually joke around like that anyways. Later, she told me it was because we joke like that between us as a family and not really in public since others may get offended. Which was true. Not thinking of that, I just thought it would be alright since my mom was around that it wouldn't be much of a problem and my co-workers didn't mind the joke at all either.
This brings me to kind of what I think of public decision making. Where I could have talked to my co-workers and asked if it was alright to joke around like that and let my mom know that it was alright to do so in front of them, including my mom. Or making a choice to say "hey keep those jokes to yourself and at home."
Differentiating between private and public space in general, is kind of a gray area. It would depend on who you are with in public and as to whether or not they consider setting to be the determining factor in what is to be talked about. I don't really know what not to talk about explicitly in public or in private sometimes, I just know that I shouldn't yell things that others wouldn't agree with.
Hi Salvador,
ReplyDeleteI agree that trying to decide what is public space and what is private space can be a little challenging and confusing, especially since many people may view public vs. private space differently. This can be problematic if the "rules" are not written down and someone might get into trouble because they see it differently. There is a very fine line between work being a public space vs. a private space, which you and your mother do not view the same. My question with this particular situation is: would your mom have to conform to what you and the other employees deem the workplace as private or would you and the other employees have to conform to what she says as a public space? Does work become private because you did what you did behind closed doors and away from customers? Or is the workplace viewed entirely as a public space? Who decides what is what? What if your mom is the minority in this situation and everyone else deemed the workplace as a private function and your action appropriate? What happens then?
As we go through life and encounter different people in various spaces, we start to gain an idea of what is considered public and private space. But at the same time, we learned from a very young age that certain institutions have specific rules and are public or private space predominately. It gets confusing when you add factors of private space in a public setting. For example, in the book I believe it mentioned that when we are at a restaurant, we want to use our inside voices to allow for other dialogue to occur but at the same time does the space not become private because others cannot hear our conversation?