"Var personlig, men var inte privat" - Be personal, but don't be private
This advice I received from a former colleague when I was just heading out into the buesiness world. I had just graduated engineering school and finished an internship with the Swedish Trade Council in China. At the time, I didn't put a lot of thought into it, but a few years later I gave the same advice to a fellow engineering student.
What was different this time, was that that student wasn't Swedish. He was in fact very much a "blatte" (Swedish ghetto slang for immigrants), like myself. He and his friend both looked at me, then each other and said something they probably never would've told any of the other biz people at the career fair.
-"What does that really mean, I mean, I've heard it many times before, but I never got it, you know?". And I realized shit, I totally got'im.
So it hit me. I don't get it, and they don't get it, because non of us ever grew up in a Swedish home. We never received the accompanied anecdotes or hand gestures or whatever that would've given us a deeper meaning to the phrase. What the hell is the difference between 'personal' and 'private'? If you google the definition of those words, they are freakkin identical!!
This story gave me the idea to start a blog about me trying to make a career in business, and the challenges I encounter, being a female engineer, and being a 'blatte'.
I was working at a career fair as a company ambassador when
I had the encounter with the two engineering students!
