Gosh you sound like me when I worked for the Post office :pout:
Does your employer have any kind of Employee Assistance Program? Usually bigger employers will and there are counselors you can talk to, if for nothing else but just to RANT :grrr:
I do agree with the stay out of office politics… it’s the fastest way to frustrate yourself and piss off others. Go to work, do your job, ignore the others and most importantly… leave it all at work when you go home… don’t carry it with you 
Oh my goodness. You just described my last job to a T. I completely empathize with what you are going through. I put up with it for 2 years and when it got to the point of me coming home and crying on my hubby, I knew it was time for me to quit. I know most people can’t do that and at that time we really couldn’t either, but it was either that or I admit myself into the psychiatric hospital.
I’m not kidding either.
That place completely drained me. Emotionally and mentally I mean, which in turn became physically.
Everything from the “high school” co-workers to the occasional vent to the receptionist. She was great to vent to, but I never really knew her either so who knows what she spread around. :shrug:
I know this doesn’t help your situation at all, but just know that I know your pain and I don’t think you’re whining at all. You can’t help how you feel. If you can, look for another job. I personally haven’t gone back to work and I’m climbing the walls, but I needed this time to heal from the emotional torture I endured while I worked there.
This one girl took to hating me the first day I started. She never once took the time to get to know me. I smiled and said hello everyday and all I got back was a grunt. For 2 years she treated me like slime and I never knew what her problem was. She even rearranged my desk!! Can you believe that? For like a week I’d come in every morning and have my stuff moved all around. The mentality of her and her click was just beyond me. She just hated me. After a while I just learned to ignore her stupidity, but she was still around me and it still drained me.
I wish I could give you a hug but this’ll have to do
I know how you feel about the customer service on phones thing. I work as a technical support supervisor, and take escalations of customers who are less then happy with our company (wether we did something wrong, or it was the customers fault). SO after 40 hours a week of having people yell at you all the time, you start to feel it. We are always told not to let it effect us, cause its the company the customer is mad at not us personally, but its hard when the customer is using vulgar language directly at you, unfortunatly at my place of business you can’t disconnect a customer for doing that, and we are reminded that we are paid the so called big bucks to take this behavior.
I too am also considering a job change cause I need to do something were Iam not feeling like Iam being pressured from both the customers and our management. I often feel like our company doesn’t value us. But it is to hard to find a job that pays this well in our city, and there are atleast 10 people behind me willing to take my spot at a drop of the hat.
I personally would not vent at work, its not a good thing. Possibly seek outside therapy, wether it be a gym membership or seeing a professional.
I tend to not build relationships between co-workers and home, as Iam a very private person and other then acknowledging that Iam married and have a daughter, thats about it.
I recently moved, so I don’t have much of a private life-friends etc outside of the house, it seems as I get older, it’s harder to meet people who share the same interest, or have the motivation to build a friendship.
Anyhow enough whinning from me, try and cheer up, grab some coffee, tea, chocolate or all of the above and try to focus on the positive in your life, maybe consider yoga or meditation, or sometimes donating your time helping someone else , makes you forget about how hard things seem and puts them into perspective. We could always be unemployeed and homeless after all.
I think it’s probably safe to say that most of us have had jobs like your’s – me included.
I learned, after about a year at my last job, just to keep my mouth shut. I figured out that “talking” to management did not help. They were a huge part of the problem.
After much prayer, God dropped the perfect job in my lap…I didn’t even apply for it.
I went into the job with the decision that I wouldn’t do office politics, and I don’t. I am so much happier. I do my job, have gotten close to a couple of people, and go home to my family.
Let immature people have each other. Go within yourself and don’t worry. People will think you are being rude and anti-social. Who cares. You are there to do a job…not win “Ms. Popularity.”
Hang in there!!!
Binky I’m sorry about work. I know how you feel, and I often feel that way myself, but when the emotion is gone I can see that I was too hard on myself and that the jerks that made me feel bad WERE the real losers!
In everything in life (work, relationships, traffic :D) we have no control over what others do, only over our own reactions. The real losers in this world are people who, in order to feel better, they have to put others down.
I’m praying for you.
Jodie, I’m truly sorry that you’re having such a bad time at work. I can TOTALLY relate to what you’re going through. For years, I worked in an office environment as a secretary, with other women, and it was BRUTAL–the backstabbing, the gossiping. After a while, I just withdrew from everybody because I couldn’t take it anymore, and then of course, I became the “outcast” and everybody gossiped about me.
Everybody’s already given excellent points and advice. We sound like we have the same personality in that we expect people to be like us–we expect them to be friendly, kind, and loyal…the problem is that in an office environment, this is rarely the case. There is more backbiting going on in an office than any other place that I know, particularly where women work together (I’m ashamed to admit this of my gender, but I’ve yet to be proven wrong in any workplace I’ve been in). Having worked in an office environment, I’d say that what I learned most valuably is (my two cents’ worth):
(1) Never tell ANYBODY ANYTHING about ANYONE else in the office. If you need to scream, cry, vent, clench your fists, whatever–the bathroom is your friend! :teehee: When I was really frustrated, I’d go into the bathroom, have a quick silent cry, and then come back (and never let anybody see you cry, because some people really get off on making others cry). No matter what you say, it will ALWAYS find its way around the office. There is no “office loyalty”. Or if you’re able to take a quick break, even walking around outside to clear your head can be really helpful. Also, as it was mentioned earlier, if there’s somebody else not work-related that you can vent to, that would be best.
(2) I always treated my job as just that–a job. If these people weren’t my co-workers, would they be people I would choose to hang out with? Mostly no, and so I never felt guilty about not going out to lunch or bar-hopping with co-workers. It’s just a job; it’s not my life, so I don’t need to spend lots of time with the people I work with–8 to 10 hours a day was plenty of time for me! True, it can be kind of lonely and ostracizing to have to eat lunch alone and stuff, but in the end, I always discovered that it’s better than having to endure endless conversations about people’s intimate lives and then expected on making a judgement on it. Honestly, do I really care about what somebody at work does in their free time, no matter how “scandalous” it is???
(3) I think that the best thing is to try to be friendly, polite, cordial, and respectful to the people you work with (because it promotes a much healthier work atmosphere)–even if they don’t reciprocate this type of courtesy–but remember that again, it’s just a job, and you don’t have to be best friends with them or even like them. It’s okay.
(4) Try to keep your nose to the grindstone and do your job the best you can (and as Mason said, try to do it better than your boss–that will guarantee job security! :teehee: )
(5) I always found that when I had difficult people to work with, there is something that somebody has an interest in that they like to talk about. See if you can strike up a conversation with them and find out what it is–if you can bring up their interest, it can deflect some unpleasantness, and they may treat you better. For example, one guy that was pretty sarcastic and nasty that I used to work with had an invertebrate aquarium, so I would always ask him about it–he was pretty proud of it. After that, we would have a decent working relationship enough where it wasn’t painful to have to talk to him or ask him questions when my boss would send me thee. :teehee: Again, we weren’t best friends, but he wasn’t hostile towards me anymore.
(6) There are two quotes I have hanging in a prominent place in my home (unfortunately, they’ve both been accredited to many different people, so I don’t know who truly said them): “Be tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak, because someday in life, you will have been all of those”, and “Be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle”. Regardless of the tough exterior some people choose to put forth, everybody is vulnerable, insecure, wants to be respected, needs to be loved, and wants to be accepted. Some people are fighting excruciating battles at home or elsewhere that make them difficult people in the work place. Time and time again, for people that I’ve had conflict with or people that I felt were really unpleasant and difficult to deal with, it’s been revealed to me in one way or another what they had in their lives that helped to contribute to the person they were. This made it easier for me to have some compassion for them, and it made it MUCH easier to deal with them, knowing that they were really having a hard time. It’s not always easy to think about somebody that’s being petty or just plain rotten as being a hurting or vulnerable person, but it helps to try to look at them in that way…we’re all human beings, made the same way, with the same basic needs/wants. Chances are, that superior attitude they’re putting forth is a big cover-up for something else. It’s also very possible that the people you work with may be insecure of you because you are more professional than they are, or maybe because you know your job better than they do.
My sister just started a job where she’s the youngest one there, and there’s this high school mentality amongst the other employees, and they treat her pretty badly, and she’s going through the same kind of things (the backbiting, clique-iness, etc.). It’s never easy.
Feel free to PM me if you want to during the day to vent if you ever want to.
Thanks some more everyone… KG, you really know how to make a person laugh!
I guess I always go into it with good intentions, but something happens to put me on the defensive and then I feel that I am irreversably pigeonholed into a certain perception of who I am. At that point, any change I make would go un-noticed by those people. Last night I decided to send an email to my boss to lay down the issues that she told me that I could come to her about, be it by email or to stop in. I don’t want to dread my whole weekend worrying about Monday morning. But sometimes the only way I can get out all my thoughts is to write them down. I feel so foolish for letting my old behaviors get the best of me as that is what I changed jobs for in the first place. Sometimes I feel like everyone is nuts and nobody behaves right, then I realize that it’s just me. That I am the problem. But I cannot behave like these people becuase it’s wrong. I would never get in someones face and tell them my opinion of them if it’s a criticism, I like to know why people think they can do it to me. One gal did that to me last week. She did apologize the next day because after the comment I turned and left. But that still doesn’t amend the fact that some people think they are so assertive that they can slam you to your face and think that will make you change your ways. I mentioned this to my boss and perhaps if I just suck it up and tell her that if we are to be a good team, that I will refrain from runnig to my friends to vent, which can cause the chance of being overheard because I guess this company has a “no gossip” policy (whatever that means), and that she needs to tell us all as a group that we are to be civil to each other. I’ve been at this job long enough where people’s true personalities emerge and you either come together or stay apart and I don’t want to be the black sheep. I would rather go unnoticed by coworkers that be labeled as the dept head case. I make a way bigger deal out of things than I need to and I can thank my old boss for that. Since I left in August after 11 years, 7 people in our dept have quit, 3 of them to come work at the company I am at. What does THAT tell you? Gossip and unrest were everywhere but nobody could go to the management, they didn’t care. Because of that, I have not yet learned to fully trust that management can be good.
So, on that note… time to warm up the car… it’s :!!!: cold here for like 2 weeks and I am getting a little stir crazy. I have an oil change to get to since I’ll be going out of town next weekend, so ta ta for now all!
Thanks again!
Sometimes you just have to cut loose and have a good time.
:roflhard: :roflhard: :roflhard: :roflhard:
Things to do:
- Buy a tiny guitar
- Get cameral film
- Wake up the cat
:happydance:
A little bit of amusing entertainment:
http://www.shagrat.net/Portfolio/cows.swfKG,
Where do you get these pictures?? They are too funny. 
KG,
Where do you get these pictures?? They are too funny. [/quote]
Google is your friend :teehee:
OMG, that’s the greatest picture! My cat looks similar to that if you just add about 10 lbs. :teehee: I swear, come 3 a.m. that’s what’s she’s doing in our living room…or so it seems. I have yet to meet a cat that suffers from insomnia.
Here is my favorite cat picture on the internet. How cute is he/she?! :roflhard:
If my cats start doing that, then we do have a problem! :roflhard:
:roflhard: :roflhard: :roflhard:
That’s pretty much how I feel right now.
Well, I’m off to bed now. Have a good evening everyone! Thanks for keeping me company. 