{"id":10517,"date":"2026-02-13T10:42:51","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T10:42:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/readinstory.com\/?p=10517"},"modified":"2026-02-13T10:42:51","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T10:42:51","slug":"my-job-description-includes-my-skills-not-my-instagram-password","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/readinstory.com\/?p=10517","title":{"rendered":"My job description includes my skills, not my Instagram password."},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-path-to-node=\"2\"><span class=\"\">I\u2019m Kelsey,<\/span><span class=\"\"> and I recently learned the hard way that &#8220;culture fit&#8221; is often just code for &#8220;total access.<\/span><span class=\"\">&#8221; It started when my manager asked to follow me on Instagram.<\/span><span class=\"\"> My account is personal\u2014mostly just photos of my friends,<\/span><span class=\"\"> my cat,<\/span><span class=\"\"> and my weekend trips.<\/span><span class=\"\"> I politely told her that I prefer to keep my work and personal life separate.<\/span><span class=\"\"> She laughed it off,<\/span><span class=\"\"> calling my attitude &#8220;old-fashioned,<\/span><span class=\"\">&#8221; and I thought that was that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p data-path-to-node=\"3\"><span class=\"\">Two weeks later,<\/span><span class=\"\"> I was called into a surprise meeting and fired.<\/span><span class=\"\"> The reason?<\/span><span class=\"\"> They said I wasn&#8217;t a &#8220;cultural fit.<\/span><span class=\"\">&#8221; My performance was never questioned; in fact,<\/span><span class=\"\"> I had been meeting all my targets.<\/span><span class=\"\"> I left the office in a daze,<\/span><span class=\"\"> replaying every interaction in my head.<\/span><\/p>\n<p data-path-to-node=\"4\"><span class=\"\">Eventually,<\/span><span class=\"\"> the truth came out.<\/span><span class=\"\"> A former coworker told me that our boss checked every employee&#8217;s Instagram stories daily to monitor their social lives and habits.<\/span><span class=\"\"> She believed this &#8220;surveillance&#8221; helped her support the team better.<\/span><span class=\"\"> Because I refused to give her a window into my private life,<\/span><span class=\"\"> I was labeled as &#8220;not a team player.<\/span><span class=\"\">&#8221; I wasn&#8217;t fired because I couldn&#8217;t do the job; I was fired because I refused to let my boss into my living room.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019m Kelsey, and I recently learned the hard way that &#8220;culture fit&#8221; is often just code for &#8220;total access.&#8221; It started when my manager asked to follow me on Instagram. &hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10518,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,22,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-co-worker","category-inspiration","category-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/readinstory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/readinstory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/readinstory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readinstory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readinstory.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10517"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/readinstory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10517\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10519,"href":"https:\/\/readinstory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10517\/revisions\/10519"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readinstory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/readinstory.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readinstory.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readinstory.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}