How Do You Know You’re Not Just ‘Office Plankton’?

I recently saw a Reel about a situation at work in the UK. In a ‘presentation about yourself’, someone listed their hobbies as ‘extreme sports’ and ‘cooking Chinese food at home’. Their manager reached out and said those were bad hobbies (!!). According to the manager, liking extreme sports means you are too prone to risk, and cooking at home means you have trouble socialising. So now this person is seen as unreliable. And I would have just scrolled past that Reel if not for what they said next: ‘Now I’ll list different hobbies and try to get into them, maybe I’ll like them more’.

What is my point? There is none. Sometimes I am just mildly confused: slavery in the US was abolished 160 years ago, serfdom in Russia 161 years ago, the Industrial Revolution happened 185 years ago. Yet in 2025 employers still tell you that you have ‘bad hobbies’. And if you work remotely, you are very lucky if your employer has not installed software on your laptop and phone to track everything you do.

It is 2025. People are still afraid to be themselves, because that is treated as an act of defiance.