Growing up, we all heard our parents remind us where we were, what company we were with, and to govern ourselves accordingly. Were they ingraining in us double-minded tendencies in doing so? Hardly. There is a difference between knowing the time and place – when it is time to play and when it is time to work – and consciously alternating language and mannerisms based on the environment. This brings us to code switching, a practice that demands a change in speech and arguably, identity. This linguistic shift can occur between encounters with friends, family (namely parents and elders), and lastly, in the workplace.

On the outside looking in, it may sound like a bizarre practice, but, it is quite common in our society.  While it originated within the parental dynamic as a way for children to show deference to their parents, it has become far more weaponized than was intended. While I can talk about switching language or tone when talking to a parent or other familial persons of authority, the type of code switching I am more concerned with is that in the workplace. That is the environment where code switching might be most common and the most problematic.

All that aside, it has proved successful as it is a tool in the arsenal of many individuals. Thus, an assessment is to be made. What is the appeal of office code switching? How does it benefit those who do it? By the same token, why might it not be beneficial? In what way does it inhibit transparency?

On one hand, being able to code switch is an exhibition of great adaptability and adapting one’s vernacular to that of their colleagues and superiors would only reap benefits, right? To be able to, literally, speak the language of those around us enables a certain comfort, allowing us to feel a sense of belonging. That is an understandable desire.

However, that same adaptability, to some extent, is a dangerous skill as it is a daily practice of suppression. Even more than that, it is an exercise in futility, creating a new persona. To speak “proper” with your boss, using all the buzzwords appropriate for the workplace in efforts to fit in is the equivalent of being a verbal chameleon, adjusting vernacular to fit in with present company.

Be yourself, everyone else is taken. Oscar Wilde said that, and I am certain he was not referring to code switching, but the shoe still fits – quite well actually. There are pressures, placed upon us by society to be someone else, to suppress our own identities when they do not align with the people around us. But, the question we should ask ourselves before we answer that incoming call from Bob in accounting is not, where am I. It’s, who am I?