New Job, New people...

LegacyUser

ok, so after a year of unemployment I finally got a job and while most of the people I work with are fine, one person seems to have some sort of issue with me. I dont know what got into their head about me, but they really dont like me. They constantly make bitchy cmments towards my work, give me dirty looks and laugh at me. I feel like I am in school again sometimes I've only been here a month, naturally I'm going to not know everything.
What bothers me most is the whispering and giggling and privet jokes with other staff. Maybe they arent at me, but its pretty rude.

Anyway, its got to a point where i am now left on my own for my lunch every day. The place I work has no facilities for going for going out or anything like that, so they go off have their private conversations and leave me sitting on my own. Its a pretty small staff too (4 people)

anyone got any suggestions as to what I can to improve my work situation?

Starokan

The only thing I would suggest is calling them on their behaviour every time. And I mean every time, defend your work and ask them publicly to explain what their problem is with you.

As regards lunches the only thing I can suggest is that you ask if they mind if you join them. If this one person is preventing that it will be pretty evident.

Also if you feel you are being bullied while at work then escalate it to management. As small as it is staff wise the managers hired you for a reason and they wont want you not feeling good about coming in every day. In a small space it may not be a popular thing to do initially but if you have to go this far then do it.

Monkey Allen

Ask them for some advice. They sound a bit precious but some people can be like that. Find out something about them thats not work related and see if you can ask for some advice on that particular topic for you, or a friend. They might love the opportunity to share their wealth of knowledge on something. It might be an incredibly boring conversation but it can given you something to relate to.

i've been in difficult situations like this before and find trying to make small talk makes no difference as they don't respond to it. But, they will respond when they have information to share. If you can keep them talking about 10 - 20 minutes then that might do it.

Another reason for doing that is because sometimes people get in their heads that a new person needs to do all the work to fit in. They've been there for longer than you and didn't decide to hire you, why should they change their behaviour? In reality it's a two way street. But, the sooner you deal with them, the happier you will be at work.

Monkey Allen

Starokan wrote: »

The only thing I would suggest is calling them on their behaviour every time. And I mean every time, defend your work and ask them publicly to explain what their problem is with you.

I wouldn't do this as people don't respond well to being challenged. Being new, you're not likely to know the extent of their influence with colleagues/managers.

LegacyUser

Sorry to hear about your situation OP. I was in a very similar situation recently. I'll let you know my experience. I got a new job and worked exceptionally hard for the company. I was friendly with everyone there - but one person took a disliking towards me. They essentially bullied me. Ignoring me when I would say hello, snide comments, blaming me for stuff I had not done at all - they were generally rude and were basically doing everything they could to get me fired.

I have worked with many different people over the years and I did not want to tolerate their rudeness, so I asked them to please not speak to me in the manner they did. The bullying continued. They were so two faced about it. I eventually mentioned it to my manager. The outcome? I got fired. The reason: a review stating that I did a lot of things I never did at all (they made up fake reasons to fire me). I was within probation so couldn't do anything about it. It made me feel so low. I had worked so hard and this bully got away with it. This incident has actually put me off this particular line of work which I have spent 6 years studying towards gaining good qualifications. I do hope karma catches up with bullies eventually.

My advice would be to put up with it and try not to let it get to you. In my case, speaking to the bully didn't have any affect and talking to the manager just made things worse as I was probably seen as 'rocking the boat'. If I had my time back again I wouldn't say anything to anyone at work about it.

LegacyUser

I'm sorry, but that's possibly the worst advice anyone could give. Don't say anything? You're not going to solve your issues by just shutting up and constantly take the barrage of BS sent your way. I've been in some high stress jobs in my life and one thing I learned is NEVER let things slide. If you take the mentality of just cowering away, they'll feed off that and just perpetuate the situation.

Stand up for yourself and never have people make you feel less worthy than you are. Albeit, it's a small workforce, I've been in many myself and I know you all have to get along, be civil and moralistic towards each other. The mentality of a bully is always the same, the only thing that changes is peoples ages.

Being friendly and accommodating is one thing, being the offices emotional dart board is another. I hope things work out for you OP.

goodluckop wrote: »

Sorry to hear about your situation OP. I was in a very similar situation recently. I'll let you know my experience. I got a new job and worked exceptionally hard for the company. I was friendly with everyone there - but one person took a disliking towards me. They essentially bullied me. Ignoring me when I would say hello, snide comments, blaming me for stuff I had not done at all - they were generally rude and were basically doing everything they could to get me fired.

I have worked with many different people over the years and I did not want to tolerate their rudeness, so I asked them to please not speak to me in the manner they did. The bullying continued. They were so two faced about it. I eventually mentioned it to my manager. The outcome? I got fired. The reason: a review stating that I did a lot of things I never did at all (they made up fake reasons to fire me). I was within probation so couldn't do anything about it. It made me feel so low. I had worked so hard and this bully got away with it. This incident has actually put me off this particular line of work which I have spent 6 years studying towards gaining good qualifications. I do hope karma catches up with bullies eventually.

My advice would be to put up with it and try not to let it get to you. In my case, speaking to the bully didn't have any affect and talking to the manager just made things worse as I was probably seen as 'rocking the boat'. If I had my time back again I wouldn't say anything to anyone at work about it.

kjl

I had a guy like this at my job when I joined. He didn't laugh at me behind my back, but he would always be questioning every thing I did.

But he would always be trying to take the piss out of me. Like I would ask something about administrative work and he would try to make it seem like I had not done something, even though there was nothing to do.

At one point he was meant to check something that was due on Wednesday. I send him an email on Thursday, so he had 6 days to check it. He comes to me on Tuesday night with all these concerns he had (I stress concerns, the code was right, he wasn't even a programmer, he was just trying to make his voice heard)

We were on site, so he asks to meet me in the executive lounge in the hotel. At this point the guy had gone behind my back to the project manager to tell her that I hadn't done my work, which I had, and as the project manager was not there she asked him as he was a senior member to have a talk with me.

I listened to what he had to say about his concerns and my reply was simple. I said to him that I had told him on Thursday about the work and it was pretty odd that he comes to me late the night before it was due with his concerns. As he had gone to the project manager I also reminded him that she was cc'ed on the email that I had sent out on the Thursday. He then said to me that he was done with this conversation and walked away.

We were going out for diner that night, I met him in the elevator and I asked him if we are still friends in a kinda nice way, trying to separate work from matter. I thought everything was OK, until about 4 months later during my appraisal he basically gave me a terrible review which caused me to not get a pay raise.

This was my opportunity to fight back, I had a 1 to 1 meeting with my manager and since this even I had kept a log of all my communication with this guy. I told my manager exactly what was going on, including the way that he was trying to make me do work that he was supposed to do and I showed him the exact transcript of the email surrounding this argument.

I suppose the point of my story is that you need to stand up for yourself. Don't let a bully put you down. A lot of the time they do this because they are slacking off work and want the attention to be put on someone else.

LegacyUser

This is really good advice. You need to confront your bully. Maybe get them alone just after work and find out what the problem is. Speak slowly and calmly and try not to raise your voice. I wouldn't advise you to be anyway aggressive. be honest and open and explain to them that their actions have a serious effect. Explain to them that you are still learning and if you do something wrong you'd appreciate more understanding and some constructive criticism and not snide comments.

Keep a log with dates and exact instances of when your coworker has demonstrated acts of bullying behavior. If they don't ease off and grow up after you have a discussion with them you should go to your manager. Again be open and honest and stress how your coworker's behavior is affecting not only your work but your life. It's hard enough to get and hold a job in these times the last thing you need is to be unhappy in your job or even driven away from work because of the actions of someone else.

Also maybe show your wonderful self to your other non bullying coworkers. Start getting friendly with the nicer people. This will help with your lunchtime situation. I know that's easier said than done but try to find some common interests with your other coworkers.

I really hope this works out for you OP. Bullying is disgusting and there should be way more emphasis and measures in place to eradicate bullying. Best of luck with it all. You deserve happiness

kjl wrote: »

I had a guy like this at my job when I joined. He didn't laugh at me behind my back, but he would always be questioning every thing I did.

But he would always be trying to take the piss out of me. Like I would ask something about administrative work and he would try to make it seem like I had not done something, even though there was nothing to do.

At one point he was meant to check something that was due on Wednesday. I send him an email on Thursday, so he had 6 days to check it. He comes to me on Tuesday night with all these concerns he had (I stress concerns, the code was right, he wasn't even a programmer, he was just trying to make his voice heard)

We were on site, so he asks to meet me in the executive lounge in the hotel. At this point the guy had gone behind my back to the project manager to tell her that I hadn't done my work, which I had, and as the project manager was not there she asked him as he was a senior member to have a talk with me.

I listened to what he had to say about his concerns and my reply was simple. I said to him that I had told him on Thursday about the work and it was pretty odd that he comes to me late the night before it was due with his concerns. As he had gone to the project manager I also reminded him that she was cc'ed on the email that I had sent out on the Thursday. He then said to me that he was done with this conversation and walked away.

We were going out for diner that night, I met him in the elevator and I asked him if we are still friends in a kinda nice way, trying to separate work from matter. I thought everything was OK, until about 4 months later during my appraisal he basically gave me a terrible review which caused me to not get a pay raise.

This was my opportunity to fight back, I had a 1 to 1 meeting with my manager and since this even I had kept a log of all my communication with this guy. I told my manager exactly what was going on, including the way that he was trying to make me do work that he was supposed to do and I showed him the exact transcript of the email surrounding this argument.

I suppose the point of my story is that you need to stand up for yourself. Don't let a bully put you down. A lot of the time they do this because they are slacking off work and want the attention to be put on someone else.