Why does my personality disappear when I go to work?

We're all very different people to different people depending on the situation and circumstance - you're not the same whoever you are with your kids as you are with the people at work. Physically you're the same person, obviously - but the personality you convey is a very different one to say that you share with someone with whom we have an intimate, physical relationship. We're all different people to different people all of the time, we just integrate these wild disparities in the broadest terms and don't particularly dwell on whatever inconsistencies we may feel goes with that. Neurologically there's a *reason* for this - though one's own concept of self is entirely fundamental, that concept of one's self gets bundled in with the parts of your brain required to interface with other people. You actually pick and choose your personality from various sources - friends, family members, even fictional characters you read in a book or saw in a TV show or movie throughout your formative years growing up. We don't distinguish between factual and fictional role models, either - we just integrate them into who we see "ourselves" as being and present whichever facet works best in whichever situation - workwise, family-wise, institutionally or *whatever*... To you - all these various facets seem perfectly natural, perfectly *you* \- but they're actually means your brain needs so as it can interact with other "people". In short, we're each closer to an AI agent than we generally like to imagine and sometimes this shows in some situations more than others. Work is where we probably "tone down" the person we see our self as being the most, because our livelihoods depend on fitting in and performing a function within a larger unit. The technical term for it is "Identity Negotiation" or "Impression Management."