Do i look angry at work?
“I’ve gotten this feedback from those around me for years. Even before I was a coder, when I was an ESL teacher in China, I had multiple students approach me (those I had made friends with, they were all 20-somethings and over) and ask me if I was OK, because I looked angry. I appreciated their concern but I didn’t feel angry, so I had no clue what they were talking about. It was only later that I learned about the concept of a “resting ___ face”, and that I might possess one.
This is a huge reason why I support WFH policies and personally take advantage of them. I don’t personally feel the need to “fix” myself; doing so would involve putting on an artifice in order to placate people whose impression of me is founded on incorrect assumptions. It would make me feel like I was walking on eggshells, and it would take up precious mental bandwidth which would be better spent on the work problem at hand.
WFH means management of my facial expression is one less thing I have to worry about, since people can only see my Zoom avatar at best, and usually only see the section of the laptop screen that I’m sharing. Counter to what anti-WFH advocates say, it actually makes me more likely to form close bonds with my coworkers, since they’re less likely to jump to conclusions about my demeanor and personality if they aren’t privy to my facial expression.”