Compartmentalization?

I don't necessarily think that all the parts of my life have to be integrated.

Example: No-one at either barn, the Work Barn or Riding Barn, needs to know that I'm a kinky, poly Wiccan. It has nothing to do with how well I ride or teach. Likewise, at kinky get-togethers, people are more apt to want to know what I did to Second Husband with those rose canes that one time, and witchy folk are more likely to want to know what powders I might be sprinkling on Work Barn's surfaces to help things along. Not that I have. Yet. Ahem.

As a young queer pagan person, I thought that not bombarding a potential new friend with ALL THE DETAILS was being dishonest. Now I think that it's just that I've gotten better at compartmentalization. You friends are for riding, and you're over here. You friends are for kink and poly, and you're there. You witchy lot...well, you folk are all over the place (grins).

Does my Co-instructor want to know about my Husbands? Probably not. If I tell my Work Barn bosses, will Second Husband pick up a second job there? Probably not. If I tell my kink/poly buds about Work Barn's summer camp, will they send their kids? Possibly. Some of them are pretty sadistic.

Some of this was spurred (no pun intended) by Work Barn's intent to have a "social night" with low pay for us instructing types and two-and-a-half hours out of our Friday evenings, complete with a potluck.

This got me to thinking about how work cultures differ in the amount of your free time they expect you to give up, and how some people don't seem to understand that you might want to go home, do whatever, and leave work where it is. I put it far more tactfully than this, but at the pay they're offering for this, I'd be paying to come, run after kids, and bring "potluck food". I will not do this, nor do I think the other instructor will. I also don't think it will suddenly draw new students or more lessons from existing ones.

I give 110% in lessons. I love the work, if not the job, as it were. But at the end of the day, when kids and horses are safely off to their respective pastures for the evening, I want to go home and see my non-horse-insane family so that I have the energy to do it all again the next day (or two).

So, what do you think? Do you keep certain aspects of your life separate from other aspects? Why or why not? What factors influence your decision to do so or not?