[rdegges]

Welcome to my world -- we're extremely similar =) I'm also always in a cheerful mood, expressive, and jolly.

While some people prefer to keep a separate personal and professional identity, I chose to do the opposite and refused to create separate personas. I'm 34 atm, and have been working in industry full-time since I was 20.

Here's a few observations from my own experiences here:

1. If you're willing to bring your personality to work with you, it'll help you make friends. Some of my best friends are people I've met through work while just "being myself". 2. It opens opportunities you may not be aware of. Years ago I ended up switching from being a founder/CTO-type to working in Developer Relations where I would spend ~50% of my time building software and ~50% of my time doing marketing-related work (writing articles, giving presentations, etc.). I fully attribute this shift to my personality, and it's been a great fit. I really enjoy the work I do and feel like I can be my authentic self at work. 3. I've also been in situations (similar to what you describe) where I don't fit in with the corporate culture. For example, I worked at Okta for ~4.5 years or so and didn't blend in with the corporate culture AT ALL. I still feel like I enjoyed myself and made a large impact, but I certainly wasn't expecting to become a VP there or anything like that.

My advice: just be yourself and optimize your work so it's something you can fully enjoy without putting on an act.