I have a few friends at work where we’ve learned to trust each other over many years and many conversations. We enjoy each other’s company and are comfortable joking and talking shit about the job and bosses.

Outside of that very small group I practice “gray rock” tactics with all of the rest of my coworkers, especially people in management. I just act as boring and uninteresting as possible, so they don’t see me as any kind of threat and it greatly limits the “attack surface” they can use against me with others. Outside of my inner group of friends, my coworkers have almost zero knowledge about my family, my hobbies, my pets, anything at all.

This is not a good way to be if you are ambitious and want to climb the ladder. But if you just want to clock in, do your job, and clock out (like I do) then gray rock is the way to go.