for two days in a row I’ve gone home in tears over some comments from my employer suggesting that my mannerisms are rude to customers and annoying to her and my coworkers.
For context I’m nerdy , probably auDHD or something similar and a bit of a blabber mouth despite a lifetime of severe social anxiety that often left me unable to speak. With medication, therapy, and some self help I’ve been able to get to the point where I’m able to talk about my interests with people with fairly minimal amounts of anxiety, and actually have fun sharing information.
I recently started a new job that enables me to talk a LOT about my interests, as it is very much a centerpoint of the position. I’m passionate about my job and decent at it, especially considering how new I am to the whole thing, I think. Unfortunately my excitement and passion has caused me to make some social faux pas and has gotten on the nerves of my employer.
My boss has pulled me aside after what I thought was a successful and positive human interaction with a customer and told me that specific things I said were rude, annoying, or came off as snobbish/know it all.
Generally speaking I try to be incredibly curteous and kind to others even if they are not doing the same to me (to a limit). I work very hard and I have a positive additude and I am meeting/exceeding my quota for the week in terms of sales so nothing I have “done” has at all jeopardized the business. All of my clients have walked away happy so far. So any time I’ve received “feedback” for my performance I’ve just been bewildered, hurt, and confused.
It seems I just can’t tell when I’ve strayed from being helpful or insightful inti being rude and presumptuous, and per my boss I have been doing more of the latter. Either that or my boss just finds me annoying and is trying to just shame me into shutting my mouth.
I’m not sure what to do. I like my boss, I wish I wasn’t such an easy target for criticism, but I also want to try looking out for myself more because since kindergarten I have let myself be bullied, believed I deserved it, and wished I could be a different person because of it. I just don’t know how to communicate how hurtful some of the comments she’s made to me have been without getting emotional or jeopardizing anyones jobs. I genuinely want to believe she’s not trying to hurt me on purpose. the job is stressful and I understand that people are *allowed* to be irritated by some of the things I do. I know I can come across wrong. I’ve been alive as myself long enough ro understand that. It just feels constant, either in terms of getting comments or getting looks shot at me, or the way I’m spoken to and not always included in conversation. And when I do receive criticism, it feels like it came out of nowhere, and it doesn’t feel constructive or helpful at all. Just humiliating.
Part of my feelings too may be cognitive distortion and believing I’m more hated than I actually am, but I’m not so socially unaware that in can’t read facial expressions or understand tone. Reading expressions has honestly been a survival tactic for me for a while now.
I also think I could be blowing this way out of proportion – but as a person who received messages starting from age 5 that I was annoying , too loud, taking up too much space, or being just TOO MUCH in general, I am extremely sensitive to any comments that clearly state or imply that I am in fact irritating as hell.
I adore this job so much, its genuinely the first ive loved in a while, but the emotional weight and anxiety of believing I am annoying to my core and being terrified of becoming the black sheep or gossipped about and losing my job is taking a massive toll on me.
Um help?
I also cannot afford to lose this damn job either thanks inflation!
6 comments
Just try to dial it back. Say only the information needed and nothing more. It’s great that you are passionate about your job but it can be easy to come off the wrong way in situations like that.
Like if I sell motorcycles, and I tell a customer that bike X sucks and I ride bike Y because it’s way faster and handles better, that can come off the wrong way if bike X is the only one they can afford or they need something with less power or whatever.
They could be picking on you because you are different, but it’s hard to say without being there
I think your boss is actually trying to help you be giving you specific feedback. I’d follow it. Remember costumers are not your friends and you don’t know anything about them, so try not be overly familiar and gauge their interest. Ie dont monologue at them instead focus on their questions and needs. Your boss probably just wants to not lose money, it’s not personal. If she hated you she wouldn’t bother and would just find a reason to help you. Specific feedback is her trying to do you a solid. Taking criticism is hard but a good life skill to develop. It doesn’t mean she is right about everything but she probably does a sense of her customers, and finding what you can learn will serve you well. The costumer stuff is NOT personal. It’s a skill to develope. They are not your buddies. If you are indeed a lot in terms of personality, thats ok, but you will have to develope the thick skin that goes along with that. You may very well be missing cues and steam rolling conversations, and it’s a good sign that they care enough to tell you instead of just freezing you out.
You are not that hated, even if you annoy them at times, trust me they have bigger things to worry about. It’s not all about you. Well you suffer from your skills and a history of rejection, remember that other people also get hurt when they are talked over or steam rolled, so them giving specific feedback may not be a bad things. I hope you can make it fit and you guys can adjust around each other. But honestly you need to stop taking this stuff personally with time as it will just eat you alive.
There is a lot in this post, addressing it all would be too much for a useful reply. So I would just suggest the following:
Speak to your manager and tell them you took on board what they said and you want to improve in your role. Then ask them for specific feedback on what they think you could improve. Specific feedback is not: “stop being a know-it-all”, “stop being annonying”. That is generic, unhelpful and frankly hurtful. Specific advice needs to be “when the customer asked X you said Y, in future you need to do/say Z. This is for these reasons…” With this information you can look to improve future interactions and understand better ways of communicating with customers.
If your boss is unable/unwilling to provide specific feedback, then they’re an unhelpful bully and I would just tell them in future their comments aren’t appreciated and they need to treat you differently.
Things to bare in mind:
– Does your manager have great relationships with customers? If yes, then they probably want you to improve too.
– If they do turn out to be a bully, just tell them calmly that you do not appreciate their comments and they are not helpful to your role. Make a note of every time they say things that cross the line / who else was present to witness it. If it continues, then report it to HR.
– People are often completely unaware they are being rude and unhelpful. Your boss may just feel like they are “being honest”. Give them the benefit of the doubt until you confirm they are one way or another.
You’ll have to share the specific details of the interaction for any of us to determine whether the criticism was warranted and constructive or just done to take you down a peg.
Without that information I’d say rather than allow yourself to be upset about it, just analyse how you behaved and try to think outside of yourself to imagine how another person might perceive it, if you were in the mood of the customer or asking whatever the customer was asking, how would you respond or feel when greeted with your behaviour and why? If it’s positive then great, but if there are things you could have done better, think of how you could improve it and next time in a similar situation try and implement that different approach.
You need somewhere to unload, and regularly. That’s it.
Well, it’s impossible to be accurate without being there and seeing the context ourselves, so… The best I can say is that the extent of conversation has to match the CUTOMER’s interest in the subject and not your own (even if you do really really like the thing and are excited to talk about it). It can be easy to bulldose a conversation and infodump about something you’re passionate about, especially if you’re in a place that relates to it, but it may be overpowering for the person on the other end.