I have been working at my new job for a month and a half and at first everyone was keen to talk to me and was friendly, there are about 30 people that work here.
I work in a retail/sales environment and we get paid good commission. I love people and chatting, which makes sales really easy for me to make.
I’m humble as hell, I don’t brag, and I never steal my co-workers sales, I believe in karma and team work.
I always take an active Interest in everyone, ask them how their weekend was and try and get to know them, I always say hello to everyone when I start the shift as well.
The team are like this big cliquey family, and I am starting to feel like I’m the unwanted adopted child.
I’m 30 and most of the team average 21-25, these are the people who are starting to blank me, I see them talking about me behind my back.
The older ones 26+ I get along with well, but I know the opinons of the others are starting to affect that.
It just feels like a matter of time until everyone at work begins to ignore and hate me.
I have been doing a strategy though when they all act cliquey, I go into overdrive on my sales, I sell more than anyone and then i feel epic, when I do this I don’t have time to worry.
If I’m being isolated might as well get some reward for it!
Any of you had a similar experience?
What should I do? I like to have a few friends at work otherwise it becomes hellish for me.
18 comments
I can relate. I worked a sales job once and one coworker just did not like me, even though I was always pleasant. Not even overly friendly either, just polite and otherwise minded my own business. Finally, we got put at a store together, and after getting to know me one-on-one during that shift, she admitted to me that she didn’t like me as I suspected, but after talking to me, was wrong about her impression of me.
Another coworker suspected it could have been jealousy; she said it was because I came off as naive. Whatever the case, it was her own problem, not mine.
For you, it may be jealousy because you’re succeeding. Some people also don’t like it when others try hard or put in effort, though of course you shouldn’t let this affect your performance, because their mentality is just stupid. You being slightly older may make it harder to connect to early 20s people too. It doesn’t really matter why, because if you’re otherwise a pretty nice person, that’s their own issues they’re projecting on you.
My suggestion is to try to be closer friends with people one-on-one. And when you have at least a few close friends, they can be your circle. Try to prioritize this over being on a surface level with everyone (like only talking in big groups). Once you’ve found your “place,” there’s a decent chance your circle may widen, but of course that’s not even necessary. As long as you have a place you belong.
And if you find that there isn’t anyone you can connect with, then whatever. Bad luck of the draw of people. Just remember it’s a them problem, not a you problem. Just kill it at your job, make money, and hang out with people that you actually like outside of work. Since you’re doing great, you have transferrable skills if you ever want to leave this job and go elsewhere too. That’s not a failure either. One of my college friends was bullied in high school, and when he transferred, ended up being super popular at his next school. Just be you, be positive, keep doing well, and don’t let the people immediately around you get to you.
I had this happen to me at a job that I had worked for nearly 5 years. Smaller company about 55 employees. Good pay and benefits. Everyone was nice & great work environment until I began to struggle with hardships in my life. It seems everyone began to turn on me & I started to absolutely HATE being stuck under the same roof with all the hostility.. I eventually left to seek other opportunities.
Put in twice the work, let them have something to talk about! Be exceptional in whatever you do! Goodluck! It’s just noise!
Quote: people are cool with you until you start doing better than them. Keep going anyways.
Like others have said ignore the noise. You are making them feel less-than because you are killing it.
If you must find out who likes you and who does not, bring in donuts without saying anything and set them in the break room. This way you will have an accurate gauge for which colleagues you can invest effort into relationship building and the ones that probably aren’t worth it.
>What should I do?
Celebrate!
If people start to hate and envy you, that means that you are doing right.
Hey, you started and beat everyone else within 2 months?
Either the existing team is very terrible or you are really badass good in sales, maybe even both is true.
If you were located in Germany, I would love to invite you into a phone call and get to know you better 😀
We have a special quote for this situation: “Only those with the ball are getting attacked”.
In any ball sport (Basketball, Football Soccer, American Football, etc.) you will get attacked by every opponent, trying to steal the ball from you.
So if you got the main focus and target of envy, this means that you are visible (very important) and good.
If possible, try to learn and gain as much as possible and later on you can change your environment, because eventually you will get dragged down if you are too long with people having a lower mindset.
You want people that are at the MINIMUM on the same level as you, in the best case you want people around you who are much much better and/higher than you, so you have the opportunity to grow and learn from them.
Conclusion: Ignore them and celebrate that you are doing something right, while they are still sleeping in their false sense of “security”.
Highly competitive environment’s gonna highly competitive environ!
I guess you have to choose, since I doubt you can downplay or hide your success.
You could try to tutor people and try to make them more successful, but that can backfire and make you look condescending or like a know-it-all.
Cliques at work are literally, by definition, bullying. Keep that in mind should you ever truly come to despise them, just keep being friendly. You can always anonymously report them to HR another day. Also, never report to HR with anything but anonymity.
Anyone under the age of 25 doesn’t even have a fully developed brain (before anyone downvotes this, this is scientific fact and we have known it for like 40 or more years which is why a lot of states stopped trying kids as adults.) i would be confident in saying that they just aren’t mature enough to handle working with someone who has their shit together.
For the older ones, invite them out for drinks or lunch on occasion. Get them to see you as a real person and not a salesman and spend some of that commission on them. Talk about only non-work stuff as much as you can tolerate. If you’re doing really well on the floor, there might be some “commission stealing” jealousy going on there though, just FYI.
Worked in sales for 9 years, from #2 of 60 in retail banking making $46k on up to #1 of 130 enterprise software sales making $400k+. I’ve been a top performer several times and the shift you’re seeing is common. In retail roles with younger folks they think it’s lame that you’re such a gunner. For them this is a summer job or a stop gap for something else, the older folks are treating you well because they see it as you do. However the opinions of younger folks is gonna influence them too.
Something to consider with retail which you hadn’t mentioned is side work. My managers consistently told me to avoid side work while customers were there because they knew I was more likely to make a sale or cross sell than other folks. This meant I not only made more money per customer, but also was given more at bats with customers. Colleagues resented it, but it’s a business decision that ultimately helped my managers.
In higher paying roles ($200k+) the experience shifts from gossip to respectful distance. At the top you end up talking with more people from other teams who are trying to replicate your success. Your network grows, but it’s hard to turn that network into work friendships with the limited interactions.
You end up somewhat distant from your own team as you spend more time with other groups in the company and you’re given more autonomy. The middle of the pack people have to do trainings together while you end up leading those sessions for your own team and others.
Sales is a lonely sport. I always end up tightest with support staff like my Solutions Engineer, Sales Development Representative (cold caller), boss, marketing, partner manager, etc.
Knowing other top sales people, the essentials to getting along with coworkers are:
– Keep your vocal volume managed. The instinct to project or even shout a little (or a lot) is useful in sales, but it can come at a cost to everyone else when you don’t have a sound insulated office.
– Be sure to water some of those seedling friendships you started planting. It sounds like you’re currently friendly but not a friend.
– Put a constant effort into product and business knowledge. Make sure you understand the gotchas and what makes a business relationship that’s profitable and cooperative in the long run.
– Make sure you aren’t overpromising or fast talking.
One thing to consider, that I don’t think I’ve seen anyone mention so far, is that when one person starts to outperform everyone else it can start to make them look bad, comparatively, because now management may expect them to do what you do, or now management is no longer giving them compliments the same way they were before you started outperforming them.
Most people aren’t capable of doing that, though, but the corporate ethos sees the line go up and expects it to always go up, so they may feel pressured to do what you’re doing. It may engender feelings of inadequacy or imposter syndrome.
I don’t have a specific recommendation of what to do about it, though, because this is the same situation I face. I try to call out my mistakes so it doesn’t seem like I’m perfect. I talk about what I’m doing that works so those who care can learn how I’m doing what I do. But a lot of it comes down to having an excessively analytical mind (to the point I’d probably get diagnosed with something) so it’s just try to go with the flow and hope for the best. And maybe remind management you’re an exception and not to hold others to your standard.
probably bad salesman, for the most part in all the sales jobs I worked for your social life and how much people talked to you was based on how well you sell. What’s your comission rate per sale, maybe you could go sell higher ticket items
You’re not at work to make friends you’re there to make money mother fucker!
Jealousy. That or they feel like they’ll be seen as lazy because you’re able to go further
just ask yourself. Are these the people you wanna impress? Or do you worry just because of your insecurities?
Also if you are going to treat them like they hate you they are going to no matter how nice you act. Follow yourself and you will do good.
Your colleagues seem jealous
I feel like this doesn’t even have to be sales. I work in an office and I’m literally on the lowest level out of everyone but I’m always nice and considerate but for some reason people are turning against me? This might be too deep for some but sometimes your niceness irritates the demons in other people and they just can’t stand it so they try to take you down. It hurts.
nothing much u can do about this. it’s not like ur doing anything wrong, they probably just feel threatened that ur so good at ur job and maybe feel like ur taking sales away from them. all u can do is be nice i think