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Small work-related interpersonal question? Anyone with actual social skills, if you could give me some advice?
Okay. So you know I said I was moved to the second site at work recently? That means I'm now working under the second site manager. Who has been fine. I mean, as far as I can tell, working for him has been completely fine.
But I keep getting comments and questions. From people back at site one. From the other person on the programme with me. Even from my programme supervisor, who is not involved with either site directly and who I wasn't even aware knew my new manager at all.
They just ... They keep asking me if I'm alright working there. If the manager is treating me okay. If I don't find him a bit weird. They keep reassuring me not to let him get me down. The other day, I didn't show up for lunch at site one (you get free lunch with the programme, but only at that site because the restaurant is there), because we'd had a sudden rush and there was only three of us, so I'd had to run down to the shop and buy a lunch to eat at my desk. And site one rang site two to see if I was okay and why didn't I get my lunch.
And, I don't know. Maybe some of it is because I'm new, and sort of tiny-looking, and kind of shy, and it's like having a whole new passel of aunts and uncles. It's kind of touching that they're looking out for me. I just ...
I really, really wish I could figure out why? I mean, from all the reassurance and questions and stuff, I was half expecting the site two manager to be ... I don't know, the English teacher at my old school who threw chairs at people, or something? And he's mostly been fine. Okay, he has a tendancy to work on his own timetable more than other people's, but he always informs you where he is and where he's going to be, and stays reachable by walkie-talkie or phone, so that works out. And he's mostly up in the office rather than on the floor, except to come down and assign jobs, but I sort of thought that's what 'manager' means?
I'm confused. Is there something happening, and I'm just missing it? Is he horrible to other people and just not to me? Is he saving up the horrible for later? Is he not horrible at all, just 'weird', whatever that means?
And, um, what am I supposed to do? I think I made a mistake last week, because they were asking how I was getting on over here and I said the only thing that was tripping me up was that I couldn't identify accents by ear (on the desk, you're supposed to get visitor nationalities so we can tell what our markets are, but you're not supposed to flat ask people, so it's guess-work and 'natural-sounding' conversations, and you can probably already guess that I'm not good at that) and the manager and the other girl were sort of laughing at me a bit because I couldn't ID my own accent by ear (I'm tone deaf, which might have something to do with it), and I think that sort of fueled the wrong impression? I don't know if I'm supposed to be reassuring people that he's not horrible and that I'm fine, or if I'm supposed to be ignoring the questions, or if I'm supposed to be agreeing that he's weird, or ...?
I can't actually tell if he's weird, you see. I don't have the parameters for what 'normal' is meant to be in this situation, and I kind of need situation-specific parameters for normality because 'normal' is a stupidly broad category that depends entirely on where you are.
I mean. *rubs face* I get that most of it is probably just that I'm new and they're minding me, but there is something weird going on between site one and the manager of site two, and I don't know what it is or if I should be worried about it. It's just ... making me twitchy.
Is this a normal sort of thing that happens in work? Am I supposed to do anything about it?
People are stressful, you know that? I swear they're the most stressful part of any job I've ever had to do -_-;
But I keep getting comments and questions. From people back at site one. From the other person on the programme with me. Even from my programme supervisor, who is not involved with either site directly and who I wasn't even aware knew my new manager at all.
They just ... They keep asking me if I'm alright working there. If the manager is treating me okay. If I don't find him a bit weird. They keep reassuring me not to let him get me down. The other day, I didn't show up for lunch at site one (you get free lunch with the programme, but only at that site because the restaurant is there), because we'd had a sudden rush and there was only three of us, so I'd had to run down to the shop and buy a lunch to eat at my desk. And site one rang site two to see if I was okay and why didn't I get my lunch.
And, I don't know. Maybe some of it is because I'm new, and sort of tiny-looking, and kind of shy, and it's like having a whole new passel of aunts and uncles. It's kind of touching that they're looking out for me. I just ...
I really, really wish I could figure out why? I mean, from all the reassurance and questions and stuff, I was half expecting the site two manager to be ... I don't know, the English teacher at my old school who threw chairs at people, or something? And he's mostly been fine. Okay, he has a tendancy to work on his own timetable more than other people's, but he always informs you where he is and where he's going to be, and stays reachable by walkie-talkie or phone, so that works out. And he's mostly up in the office rather than on the floor, except to come down and assign jobs, but I sort of thought that's what 'manager' means?
I'm confused. Is there something happening, and I'm just missing it? Is he horrible to other people and just not to me? Is he saving up the horrible for later? Is he not horrible at all, just 'weird', whatever that means?
And, um, what am I supposed to do? I think I made a mistake last week, because they were asking how I was getting on over here and I said the only thing that was tripping me up was that I couldn't identify accents by ear (on the desk, you're supposed to get visitor nationalities so we can tell what our markets are, but you're not supposed to flat ask people, so it's guess-work and 'natural-sounding' conversations, and you can probably already guess that I'm not good at that) and the manager and the other girl were sort of laughing at me a bit because I couldn't ID my own accent by ear (I'm tone deaf, which might have something to do with it), and I think that sort of fueled the wrong impression? I don't know if I'm supposed to be reassuring people that he's not horrible and that I'm fine, or if I'm supposed to be ignoring the questions, or if I'm supposed to be agreeing that he's weird, or ...?
I can't actually tell if he's weird, you see. I don't have the parameters for what 'normal' is meant to be in this situation, and I kind of need situation-specific parameters for normality because 'normal' is a stupidly broad category that depends entirely on where you are.
I mean. *rubs face* I get that most of it is probably just that I'm new and they're minding me, but there is something weird going on between site one and the manager of site two, and I don't know what it is or if I should be worried about it. It's just ... making me twitchy.
Is this a normal sort of thing that happens in work? Am I supposed to do anything about it?
People are stressful, you know that? I swear they're the most stressful part of any job I've ever had to do -_-;
