How do you deal with colleagues you’re indifferent to?
Reason i ask, I’m currently stuck in a scenario where there’s a lot of forced socialising at work. The problem is that our team is only small and I find them quite draining. We are all in senior positions in tech based roles.
My issue? Everyone I work with bores me and a couple of them are quite offensive too. As a result i’ve stopped attending anything ‘social’. I’ve recently been reprimanded for asking not to be included in calls unless it’s about work. I have been told it’s mandatory to socialise as part of team building – even when it’s wasting my day (e.g. a 15 min call often turns into 2 hours of rambling about mortgages or carpets or whatever’s on Netflix). It’s getting me down a bit.
I feel like these people have no friends so they use work to offload. Whereas I like to have boundaries AND i like to be productive.
I feel like everywhere else i’ve worked i’ve naturally formed a bond but for some reason it’s not happening here.
Have you ever been in this scenario? How do you deal with it other than quitting? Can i be fired for not engaging in conversation?
12 comments
Grab the bull by the horns – if you’re being “forced” into dealing with a colleague that’s offensive – personnel need to pull their finger out.
Use the rules as opposed to being shepherded by them.
Start looking for a new job. “Corporate Culture” is a fucker, but if you can’t/won’t get into your company’s, you’re on a hiding to nothing there.
Can you maybe attend these calls for a short time (say 10 mins) and then dash off? “Ah it’s been great catching up, but I’ve got to run that report off before COP!”. That way you’re seen to be making a little bit of effort but it doesn’t eat into your entire day? And hopefully a small amount is more tolerable, we all have to make awkward small talk sometimes.
If you get called up on it, you could talk about how you’d love to socialise more but it’s impacting on your work, distracting you from priorities, difficult to task switch etc.
Unfortunately, you’re kind of stuck with it. Being able to survive soul-drainingly boring social events is a life skill.
If it’s on a call, get on with your work and zone it out.
Plus, as a sidenote, it is entirely possible to be friends with colleagues and for work to be where many of their friends are.
I have not had this.
Suggestions:
Take off your headphones during the conversations?
Let the people who are the end customers know they are overpaying for their product because of the time wasting?
You might be able to argue that some of the subjects are triggering- after all mentioning Netflix who have shown the Harry and Meghan documentary could be said to trigger any dysfunctional family you have, or racism, or something else. Talking about sport if you are not interesting reminds you of bad experiences at school, for example.
I don’t socialising with my colleagues I have had at companies. outside of work time is my time
I manage a big team and I’ve got a couple who love to socialise and a couple that hate to socialise, but everyone else is in the middle.
Anyone who doesn’t want to take an hour off to do no work and chat, whilst still getting paid, then alarm bells are ringing. My advice would be to join in, but cut the time down to what you can cope with. So if it’s everyday, attend once a week. If it’s a 2 hour call. Join for 10mins. You’re not obligated to do anything outside of work hours. You can’t get fired for not socialising, but it will hold you back if you can’t communicate with all kinds of people, even ones you don’t like.
I’m kinda in this situation now. Not so much forced to interact, but I’ve been here just over six months and I feel out of place still. Like I don’t connect or have the same humour as them. Granted, they’re all lovely people and it’s nothing personal. But having to pretend to find something funny so as not to be seen as a humourless bore, it’s draining. It’s not a good sign I’ve not fit in, especially after this long. I think it’s time to look elsewhere.
As you’re in a senior position, it’s part of the job to be active in the team. That means you’re expected to lead to some extent.
Perhaps you need to change job if you don’t like your colleagues?
It really doesn’t sound that bad.
When I’m in a meeting with a bunch of bores I’m usually keeping myself entertained doing other stuff. I’m guessing it’s remote working??
Save yourself the aggro of fighting it if the management is saying it’s mandatory it’s not going to change any time soon.
Not current by a few years, but the last job I had, most of the operations people worked in a communal office / workspace. There’d be 4 big desk where everyone would face inwards and spend an entire day fucking around.
I really didn’t relate to anybody in this room and most already had their own little cliques going on so I spent most of my day with my headphones on doing work at my own pace listening to Spotify, and as I had my back facing a wall, I could pass off a good chunk of the day watching / listening to the news or stuff on YouTube whilst working – nobody bothered me, I didn’t bother anyone and I just got left alone, it was great.
Middle management put in this stupid bloody policy about 6 months before the company went under where once a week we’d all stop for an hour, grab a cup of whatever and stand around chatting about shit which mostly turned into people bitching about clients.
Luckily I got moved into the project management office about 2-3 months before the doors closed permanently and managed to figure out fairly quickly the company wasn’t for this world for much longer.
Went off sick for 3 weeks skiing in the Alps, did the Skype conference call to say we’d all lost our jobs in my hotel room at lunchtime and never looked back.
To answer the question, I try not to
‘Forced socialising’ ? What’s that?
If my employers require me to be anywhere out of hours, they’re paying for it.