Ever worked where you "just dont fit in"?

[Yellow Fang]

I've noticed individuals become targets for flak before. Quite often they are not particularly great at their job, but then there is often quite a long learning curve to a job you are new to, especially if you're not that long out of college. I certainly felt I was not competent at my job for most of my 20s. Quite often there is a personality clash too. I have usually got on with my line managers, but if you don't, then next time there are any redundancies in the offing, guess who will be on the list. So if it were me, I'd get out.

 

[gbb]

Don't tough it out, sort it out. Take in some doughnuts, tell her you realise you goofed with the newness of it all and it caused her a lot of problems and the doughnuts are to say sorry. Tell her you are now starting to get on top of all the new machinery and processes but are worried your goof did not get you off to a good start and you'd like to clear the air. Doughnuts rarely fail IME and they are cheap enough not to be seen as any sort of bribe.

Oh thats already done in a different way...
She is a mare, its nothing personal, even the service engineer who visits and knows more about these machines than all of us put together says she's a mare...no patience at all. So i comfort myself its nothing personal.
No, i did goof on a job when i started, she got more and more irate and it was really down my mis- interpretation of what she wanted. Once it became obvious she'd lost some (maybe a lot of) respect for me, i approached her and apologied to her for the misunderstanding. Not cowtowing, just calm and to the point with a smile. She seemed to accept it, but sometimes its hard to figure out if shes getting her own back...or its just her way.
As my skills impove with the machinery i dont really know, she won't have the same upper hand. At first everything on a new machine is a mystery, you have to learn the intricacies of it...it takes time. Sometimes you fail on simple faults. Once learned, she'll wont have the same ammunition.

 

[gbb]

I've noticed individuals become targets for flak before. Quite often they are not particularly great at their job, but then there is often quite a long learning curve to a job you are new to, especially if you're not that long out of college. I certainly felt I was not competent at my job for most of my 20s. Quite often there is a personality clash too. I have usually got on with my line managers, but if you don't, then next time there are any redundancies in the offing, guess who will be on the list. So if it were me, I'd get out.

And sometimes there's a complete irony in those who are completely uselss at their job, and EVERYONE knows it...and they flourish (or at least seem to survive) because theyve the gift of the gab, or their personality fits in the company. They're the ones that baffle me...and all companies have them.

 

[cyberknight]

I have never fitted in wherever i have been, i put it down to the fact that i am not intereted in football,typical male bullshiting and one upmanship and the fact that i probably have trust issues from when my mum died when i was 10
Up shot is that even thouhg i get excellent appraisels every year my opinions tend to get ignored and then if someone brings it up later they get praised in front of the whole group.Work "mates " are all busy txting each other about random shoot and can you guess how many have asked for my number?......

 

[Night Train]

With hindsight I was in that position at my last job.
I didn't share the company sense of humour, I was never into going to the pub on Friday after work to get bladdered, I had no interest in spending my weekends camping in the Lakes or hiking over the Pennines with them, I didn't support the local football team, no one really spoke to me during breaks or lunch, I was always the one who had the most extra unpaid duties, the least rewards and the public tellings off when someone else cocked up.
Four other people left my job before me with severe stress, then I did too and I was then scapegoated for all the department failings.

Glad I am out of it now.

 

[gbb]

There's a generation aspect to this as well..
I was speaking to a girl (she's maybe about 20) the other week. She was bemoaning how hard it is to get a job and when you do you get treated like sh1t and paid peanuts...generally it's sh1t out there.

I was telling her...im 53. When i was young, you got a job, if you didnt like it you moved on, no fuss, no aggro. For the last 30 odd years ive worked in companies who've had to tough it out financially, i don't think its been easy for a long time, but...you got treated with respect. You had a laugh, immediate management were always ok, the hours were pretty standard, the pay was ok.
Nowadays it seems like everyone want their pound of flesh out of you, no respect, drag every last hour out of you, fcuk off if you don't like it...Maybe thats the industy i work in, ultimately supplying the supermarkets..who won't be happy until their suppliers have dissapeared up their own ar$es.
Its worse now than ive ever seen it in my pushing 40 years of work.

 

[smokeysmoo]

That's seems to be the view in the industry I'm in at the moment. You're made to feel you should just be thankful for having a job, which I am of course, but that should be enough to offset the fact there has been no pay rises for several years, staff have been made redundant/left and not replaced, and everyone else is just expected to pick up the slack, smile and say thank you very much

 

[colly]

Reading some of the above posts makes me glad I have been self employed for the past 30 years.

 

[screenman]

You and me both Colly, I wonder how many people who complain about a job could make it self employed though.

 

[Night Train]

I had been self employed for most of my working life, either running a business or as a subcontractor. I have never had a conventional permanent job, though I have been offered a few, and many jobs recently have been short contracts.
I am returning to self employment, and running my own business, and staying that way for the foreseeable future.

 

[Doseone]

Am very relieved to be self employed, but in the past have seen more than enough examples that your ability to do your job is less important than if your face fits, or if you are "one of the boys". It's not right.

Looking quickly at the thread title I thought Andre Villas Boas had joined CC.

 

[Globalti]

I was sent to run my London employer's Paris office because I speak French. What they forgot to factor was the resentment the French staff would feel towards an inexperienced Brit being made their boss and the fact that my employer was grossly incompetent didn't make things any easier. I stuck it out for two of the loneliest and most depressing years of my working life before admitting I'd had enough. By then the one ally I had back in the UK had also resigned in disgust so I resigned and went to work in Manchester, where I've been working happily for 23 years. Not surprisingly that London company went bust about 10 years ago.

 

[Paul J]

I left my last job after only 3 week as I couldn't put up with a bosses daughter who was made up to general manager! She was trying to tell me how to do my job when she didn't have a clue about. Job in question was a commercial embroiderer for a company in Peterborough. I knew I was going to fall out with them so decided to quit before it got nasty.

 

[cookiemonster]

It happens to me all the time, not fitting in that is.

I have got to the stage where I actually expect it, I ignore it and I just get on with whatever job I'm doing.

 

[MontyVeda]

I once left a job i loved because they couldn't/wouldn't give me full time hours... went to a full time factory job and hated it. The bloke i worked next to wouldn't speak to me, unless he absolutely had to, and on those occasions his tone made it perfectly clear how he felt. I can't have offended him because he was like that from the first day... anyhow, by day five I was cycling home after a miserable first week thinking I'm gonna ring up the shop and ask if i can go back, in spite of only being 21 hours. But instead I got home to an answering machine message from said shop shop saying "we have full time hours for you, please come back". So I did