Feeling so shit

The answers to your questions are obvious to them because they know the answer. Don't worry.

When you ask, do you tell them what you think and ask if you're right? That can help as they aren't spoon feeding you but still acting as a sense check. Obviously if you've not been trained and have no idea you'll have to keep asking.

Could you get a mentor? Make sure your manager is meeting with you regularly and giving specific actionable feedback.

honestly if you were my child I would strongly recommend job hunting, nowhere that makes you feel this bad is the right place to be.

Three things:

• Even if you "should" know the answer to a question you asked. Good people don't make you feel bad for asking, mostly anyway, everyone's allowed an off day but it shouldn't be the norm. It sounds like that might be happening. Speaking as someone writes docs/guides and still gets asked things. Also sometimes that role is reversed, and its me asking. Someone at my works prone to grumpily pointing me at a document or webpage. In my head I'm sticking two fingers at him for his attitude

• Reflect on training or lack of it, bad missing documentation or badly organised sources of documentation. I've never worked anywhere that gets it right, always some mixture of those problems inhibit me, especially when I'm new to a job. It's not always your fault, very often in my experience. Identifying things might help you feel better about how you're doing. Maybe they're things to bring up to improve things? Maybe you can write docs for the next new person? It's why I write docs for things I struggled to learn in my roles

• Keeping your own notes about important things to know can be helpful, as you gradually get more familiar with a role

As much as possible, outside of work, work on letting go of how the day's gone. It's not something anyone perfects, its a constant thing to work on, I think. If you're working from home, try to be ruthless not working a minute longer than you need. Also, take all the breaks you're allowed and aim to forget work as much as possible during during them. Every minute of peace helps when you're stressed at work

It might not be the job for you, or just a toxic environment, only you can judge that tho. Wherever you work tho, I think the 3 things above are useful for assessing what's up and coping

It's good that you have a mentor, but are you using her/him proactively? Are they being helpful or often 'too busy'? Are you seeking their advice when they have headspace and before things become critical?

Who is telling you that "it’s a stupid question and I should know the answer and shouldn’t be expecting to be spoon fed"? This is bullying!

Is there a pattern to the mistakes you make, are their common factors, anything that might be seen as predictable?

Are your projects unique or very individualized, or could you learn by looking at similar projects in the company archives?

These are just a few top of the mind thoughts that occurred to me.

It sounds like you’ve got into a bit of a negative mindset where you don’t believe in yourself, and are telling yourself you can’t do it which creates a self fulfilling prophecy. It’s fine to ask questions, but ask them with confidence rather than apologetically, no one was born knowing everything so you’re doing nothing wrong in finding out the right way of doing things, in fact it’s better than winging it and hoping for the best.

It might sound daft but on your way into work every morning tell yourself “I can do this, I am good at this, I deserve this” on repeat and see if that changes the outcome. It really does sound like a lot of this is down to your confidence.

Have you done similar roles before and excelled?
If yes then consider this workplace is wrong for you. /not a great place to work.

Have you done similar roles and struggled?
If yes maybe you need to rethink your career choice.

If no to both consider the company. Are they supportive? What strategies are they putting in place to helping you improve? What training/mentoring/supervision have they offered?

This isn't all on you . You are new to post they have a responsibility to ensure you know what you are doing and feel confident in your role.

I said recently to dh that I have struggled in a number of jobs I've had. He asked what the support was like and I realised generally it was non existent. But roles I was supported in i flourished.

It could be that the firm - or the division in which you work - is just dysfunctional in the way it operates. I once took a senior position in a huge global company. I was very experienced and knew the industry inside out, but I was up against an MD and a way of operating that just didn't make sense.

I couldn't function in this dysfunctional setup and they wouldn't listen. So I left after less than 6 months, and this was absolutely the right decision. (NB: The division was restructured within a year and the MD was let go...)

So..... it's quite possibly them, not you!

Had to reply when I saw your post as I feel this so deeply! I have been there.

I wonder if I’m right that you have been quite a high achiever, and have worked very hard for this opportunity. Finally getting what you worked for is a weird mixture of relief that you can relax but also panic as it’s only just beginning.

As PP have said it could be a mismatch with the firm or a toxic workplace. However I can’t see evidence of this in your OP. (When you say you ask questions you should already know the answer to, is that just how you feel or how they are making you feel?)

I always tell new starters that it takes 6 months before you start feeling like you know your way around the job 2 years before your feel decent at it and who knows how long before you feel very good at it as I havent reached that yet! (3 years qualified, 10 years in the firm)

If I’m ringing true with you, I don’t know what the solution is but be kind to yourself. Usually people are more than happy to help with the “silly” questions and that is a much better option all around than making mistakes and beating yourself up about them. We’ve all been there.

Please PM me if you want to chat.

Sorry I see you used the word ‘firm’ above so not teaching, but the rest of my pp stands. Although the company may simply not be the right it either, some places can take the mick with grads with unreasonable expectations.

Is it teaching op? Whatever the job is, it’s not worth making yourself miserable over. Sometimes getting very focused on one career when very young doesn’t mean it’s actually what you’re meant to be doing, but you get caught up in expectations from yourself and others and feel you have to stick with it. I hope it gets better but you’re not tied to this career if it’s not for you.

If it’s anything like law for example, I am fairly confident it is just the wrong fit. I’ve worked in a number of law firms over the years and they vary hugely. Some of the words you are using like you shouldn’t be “spoon fed” sounds to me like this is feedback you’ve received and now you are worrying about asking supervisors questions or to check work as this will be seen as not using your initiative. That’s not a reflection on you, it means whoever is meant to be supervising either can’t be bothered or is too busy with their own work to give proper supervision.

I would move to another firm where you will find, under the right management and supervision, you will thrive. Good luck OP. Life is too short to wake up and dread work every day.

Also, don't distance yourself from your friends, that's a good way to ruin your mental health.
Talk to them to get some perspective, ask them if you can sense check your work culture against theirs, give them some examples of what's happened and what the reaction was, and ask how that would have played out at their place... This means you are sharing what's going on for you but you aren't just venting, so they will understand you are having a tough ride and I'm sure will want to support you, but also you get some perspective outside of your bubble to find out if what's going on is typical... Then you can get the context you need to assess what's going on and help you decide with confidence if you should look elsewhere.

If your friends are half decent humans they won't want you to hide that you've landed somewhere less favourable than they are fortunately enjoying... It's the luck of the draw, no poor reflection on you.

Well they don’t seem very kind.

Are you able to say what sector it is? Can you change to a different employer?

It typically takes six months to settle into a job, so you've had some good advice, good to be aware that it's not always you, but also it could just be that the role has a really steep learning curve and it's still early days... Hard to know without you saying anything more specific.

It's a horrid horrid feeling though, and one thing it certainly isn't is a bad reflection on you, you're clearly a capable person, so it's either the sort of thing anyone would find challenging or your induction/onboarding/support is lacking.

Either way if you have a conversation about it with bosses, make sure in your head you remember you're bright and hard working so if this isn't working well the context/environment is more likely to be the issue so the solution is external to you not internal... It's really easy to assume if only you dig deeper or act smarter it would be fine (internalise the problem, blame self) but actually it's more likely to be better training (or whatever) is all that's needed to make it manageable

I employ graduate s and would be devastated if one of them felt like you.

It's the company culture and not you.

Please move quickly and find a nicer culture

Honestly, as someone who worked really hard at their first job after graduating and gave it my all for years even when it clearly was not the right role or company for me...this is a huge blessing for you. You cannot outwork poor company culture or a role that just isn't right for you. Trust me.

All that has happened is you're no longer working at a company that was making you miserable. It's not a huge life failure.

It DOES mean the door is now open for you to work in a company where you love the culture, are excited to go to work every day, feel supported, have colleagues you enjoy working with, and have huge growth and learning opportunities that fit in with your ultimate career goals. That's exciting! You are going to be fine.

Honestly it sounds to me like work place bullying. You’re not being given any support or encouragement and they’re making you feel it’s all your fault. I’d look for a new job. I really don’t think you’re the problem.

Can you find yourself a mentor there outside of the immediate team to work with you?

It might not be the right cultural fit for you of course but honestly I think try and look at this from different angles.

I hated my first job after graduation and felt stupid and like I didn't know what I was doing. I moved to a different company after 7 months and realised the issue wasn't with me but the company I'd been working for. They provided almost zero training, support or direction but I didn't have anything to compare it to so didn't know any better.

I think you perhaps need to work out exactly what you need to feel more confident/capable in the role and then go to your manager with training/support requests. It's better to show them that you're taking this seriously and want to improve than to stay quiet and feel you're not doing a good job.

I qualified as a vet, then lasted six months in my first job. They had never employed a new graduate before and were incredibly impatient about giving me any help or supervision, then were critical when I made mistakes.

Despite thinking it would look bad on my CV, I moved after six months and landed somewhere that was completely different. Obviously I already had enough experience by then so that I didn’t need as much support, but nonetheless I got the support I did need and when things went wrong, I was assisted, not blamed.

It took me a long time to work out that practices that advertised often were probably not good practices to work for and to watch the job adverts for places that came up rarely, as those were often better places to work. You could possibly find out the same by asking about turnover.

Good luck, OP, I hope things improve for you.

Do you go to your colleagues and ask ‘how do I do x?’ Or so you go and say ‘I am about to do x in this way, is that correct?’ So are you asking how to do it or asking that you are doing it right?

Sounds like your confidence is knocked, do you generally enjoy what the job involves? Can you say more about what you do? It could be a bad fit for you, or you could just be thinking you're worse than you are and you're fine!

Perhaps it’s the job, perhaps it’s having everything you always wanted suddenly land and your mind just can’t handle that. There’s also maybe your confidence has been knocked by the first issues? Maybe a list in in order, pros and cons, but objectively see if this is a confidence thing and can you get over it or is it that you won’t get over it in this place but might somewhere else? I had a job I could do in my sleep and once I started worrying I wasn’t doing it right because of a big but now I think about it not that big a mistake happened, I started messing up and worrying about everything daily. I finally moved on to a place with the same procedures etc and totally thrived! Deep breath and also talk to the friends you think you’ve lost. They’ll understand. Hugs op, it’s not worth feeling like this x

If this is the first company you have worked for it may well be them not you!
I am reasonably good at what I do but there are a couple of places I have worked that I just couldn't get it.
I lasted less than three months at one place because they seemed intent on explaining things to everyone but me.....that was an interesting exit interview!
Try looking for the same job somewhere else, if you still have the same problem then at least you know where the issue is.