AIBU to think I am being treated horribly?

[CompletelyBroken]

(I've changed my name to post this thread)

I'm a grown woman who has returned from work in tears because I am being bullied so badly :(

The training process has been horrible. There's no other way to describe it.

The girl who was asked to train me first is rude, patronising, and deliberately argumentative. She talks to me like I am a child, looks for ways to make me feel stupid and is extremely rude and snappy.

She explains many things halfway and then when I ask follow up questions, she insists that she's already covered it with me. Apparently explaining something in detail and mentioning something in passing are now the same things.

If I encounter something new, she either says 'I've done this with you' or she starts a guessing game- 'So.What do you think you should do?'
I appreciate that nobody wants to spoon-feed me (and I don't want that either!) but there are some things that I have virtually no way of knowing unless someone tells me. There are other times when I'll figure out 90% of what to do and just a need a confirmation regarding the next step. In these scenarios, especially with deadline-driven tasks, it is neither efficient nor effective to get me to sit there for an hour trying to "guess" what to do next.

On most occasions when I ask questions I am made to feel like a stupid nuisance. Often I am given vague answers like "You need to look into it" with no description whatsoever of how to go about it.

I feel small and humiliated and my work is affected because I dread having to ask a question or confirm something with a colleague.

I had one ally in the team but lately he has also become irritable and patronising with me. He has always maintained that this other colleague is very rude and awful (she is like that with him as well) but he has now stared ganging up against me with her.

A couple of days ago both of them refused to clarify something for me ( I had already figured out the issue and the solution, I merely wanted details of a contact that I had no way of knowing). My female colleague first started the usual guessing game with me- who do you think the contact is? What would you do?

I admit I was quite exasperated with all this, and I just cut myself away from the situation by saying "Thanks, i'll figure it out". She kept going after me and smirking and saying " Oh but X, what do you think you should do? Didn't I just explain this to you? that's what I'm saying.... blah blah". I didn't respond and I cut her short because I didn't see the point of this pointless back and forth. I had just about had it.

I emailed the colleague I thought was my friend to ask him for help but to my shock he started the same guessing game and was equally patronising with me. It was evident that he didn't even understand the issue because response I got was completely unrelated.

I finally had to confirm with third person only to have this colleague email me back to say that I had offended him and the other girl because I had "gone against" them by asking a third person. He said that this was their way of teaching me and I should figure it out myself no matter how long it takes.

Now I completely agree that I need to figure it out myself (and that is what I do), but there are times when the issue will be something I have no way of figuring out myself and someone will have to tell me. There will be other times when it isn't feasible to have me or anyone else sitting there trying to guess something for hours on end.

I am tired of being spoken to badly, humiliated and feeling constantly scared and afraid of asking questions or worrying about what someone is going to say to me next. Every time I object, I am patronised and told it's all for "my own good" and this is how I'll learn. Colleagues who are on the same level as I am act like my managers and the whole thing is very paternalistic.

I haven't stopped crying since I came home and I am absolutely miserable.

ask all questions to them by email and ask* them to respond to you by email only.

Stokes

I understand what you mean.

And there are definitely loads of things I've learnt on the job and plenty of occasions where I've sorted things out independently.

But as I said earlier there are things on my job that someone has to explain or you wouldn't know. There are also strict deadlines, so sometimes it is more efficient for a colleague to explain rather than for me to spend 15 mins pouring over the procedure or for us to sit there and play the game of "what do you think you should do".

There are people being trained on some aspects even 6 months down the line, so i definitely don't think I've beeb slow to learn.

Putting a completely different slant on this, do you think this woman is deliberately unhelpful because she feels threatened by you? i.e. once you have the knowledge you will do a very good job?

I train a lot of people at work and I always ask people how they like to learn, so I can adapt my training accordingly. I do not understand this woman's attitude or how she can get away with it. Good luck, stay strong I was bullied at school and being bullied is the pits x.

You've been given some great advice. Lying in particular has covered almost everything I was going to say.

There is one extra thing you could try though.

Buy a dictaphone and earphones. Tell her you'll record your training sessions so that you can "listen back to what you've told me, then you won't have to keep repeating yourself." She'll then be more careful in what she says, hopefully explain better and won't have a leg to stand on if she tries to pull the "I've already told you" thing.

They sound horrendous and very unprofessional. I feel for you.

Aaaagggghhhhh, OP this sounds absolutely horrendous, how can people ( who are supposed to be training you!!) behave like this ? All this back and forth with the quiz questions, do they think it's some kind of gameshow for crying out loud?

I think the only way to deal with people like this is to be utterly professional, keep cool, be firm, YOU teach THEM how to do straight talking and stop playing stupid games eg if that witch you describe says again 'I've already told you that' you say very firmly and politely yes and I would like you to tell me again please as this is my TRAINING In my imagination I would be giving her a good slap mind you!

Great idea about recording the sessions. Say you will be taking the recording home and writing up the notes.

I should have added I do feel for you and how upset you are, I hope you can sort it out, they are stupid stupid people, good luck and stay cool, you are doing well by the sound of it in very difficult circumstances.

As far as the "guessing game" goes...this made me think of a training camp I went to once back when I used to ride horses. We played a game one evening once we had finished riding for the day. The instructor said we were going to play "hot and cold" to find a small object hidden in the room. He hid the object then called the player into the room and told her to start searching. She set off with gusto and he said "Cold....cold....cold...nope, still cold....hmm you're a bit thick....cold....cold...bloody freezing...cold...cold...oh for goodness' SAKE you're useless.....cold" and so on. He never said "getting warmer". You could see the frustration building in the player and eventually she more or less just ground to a halt and stood there looking at him. Then he explained that the point of the exercise was to show us what it's like for the horse to be reprimanded for guessing the "wrong answer" all the time, without being guided towards the right thing; how frustrating it is and how it destroys the will to learn.
You could play this game with your nemesis as an illustration of what that learning system feels like to you.

Agree with the suggestion of recording the training too. Really good idea.

It's really hard to say without knowing the exact scenario - for example, your assumed level of knowledge and expertise. DH does a lot of programming and has had people in the past who ask questions at every step of the way even if they actually know what to do but are uncertain of themselves. It can get very disruptive to his own work and he wonders how they made it past the interview stage ( they have good degrees usually and come from relatively privileged backgrounds). Then often they'll hire someone who has less prestigious qualifications but who has aced the technical part of the interviews and they are valuable because they are very self-reliant and resourceful for the most part.

You poor thing.

It sounds horrendous and I really feel for you.

I agree with getting everything on email and avoiding speaking to her as much as possible.
Also try to find an ally, any ally. Forget about the man, he is clearly weak and disloyal.

I hope the karma bus rolls around soon OP.

mimishimi

There is a lot of scope to get things wrong in my job. And this can often have a domino effect.

So there are times when I may ask a question to double check something but only when it's necessary and not just for the sake of asking.

I don't think company policy will allow me to record anything. But I do note down everything I am taught during training sessions. It makes no difference though- if I say that something wasn't covered because it isn't in my notes, they'll just say that I probably forgot to write it down.

Bullying is horrendous

Can you give us a rough idea of what you do?

I've been thinking about you, CompletelyBroken, you can't record and you haven't got a Union but you CAN ask for a meeting and you CAN take somebody in with you, somebody of YOUR choice, who will not participate but will support you. That could make all the difference.

There's a book recommendation on another thread called "A Woman in Your Own Right" by Anne Dickson. It's on Amazon and is supposedly very good.

How long have you been with the company, not the job, the COMPANY?

I think there is also a board here for employment issues/legal issues. I don't know if they can help but they may be somewhere in addition that you can to for some pointers.

You need people behind you, that much is clear and you need to sort this out HEAD ON, no more taking what's dished up to you. That is incredibly easy to say and difficult to do, I know, but the alternative to handling it is being handled and that isn't working for you.

Get a strategy in place, get help and advice to work out what that is, get your support and feeling of 'your rights' established - and go. You can do this and it will do wonders for your self esteem to stand up for yourself with the appropriate 'tools' and 'props' in place to support if needed.

Could you not make notes like this:

17/04/13 - 10:03 am asked 'rude woman' a question about email address. She refused to give me the answer and started making me guess. I repeated I didn't know but she still refused to answer - emailed 'mr was ok but now being an arse' for details of the email address and he also refused.

20/04/03 - asked 'rude woman' which spreadsheet to add information too and she refused to tell me.

Etc?

That way you are not storing and confidential customer / employee information in a way that would breach data protection but more details of the type of information you have asked for and the refusal of help from your colleagues.

YANBU, i feel for you OP I have been in this situation before and it sucks...

Keep ypur head down, work hard and if you dont know how to do something and your trainers and supervisor still refuse to cooperate raise this as a grievance (sp)

Sympathy OP. It sounds a horrible situation and it seems that your confidence isn't up to going through HR.

It does sound as if your colleague feels threatened by you and may be with-holding vital information in order to feel superior. Maybe her issues (and Mr previously nice's) are a reflection of pressure put on to her from above - regardless, she is not being very professional towards you or showing much regard for the needs of the company.

Can't really offer anything constructive, just keep notes of everything you need to enable you to do your job and keep reminding yourself that soon you will not need her help. Also, note incidents, especially refusal to help and the childish guessing games when you have deadlines to meet...all grist to the mill for the time when you've gained enough confidence to approach HR.

OK, I am going against the flow here. No one deserves to be made to feel bad in their work, to be belittled or patronised BUT at 3 months into the job is there a chance that they are getting frustrated you haven't picked stuff up quickly enough?

Asking you 'what do you think? how would you do it?' may be a way of trying to ease you off the training stage and into a more self sufficient stage.

Can you have a discussion with your supervisor which is a bit broader - so not specific to the training but to how they feel you are doing? Are you on an expected place in the learning curve or are you behind what they would usually expect? Ask for specifics and then think very honestly about whether it is poor training support that is causing this or something on your side.

I say this having had a very difficult experience once with someone - hired in at a mid level with experience that should have been relevant and transferable, but after 3 months she was still asking very basic questions, not using her initiative and the bottom line was she just didn't 'get' what we needed her to do. It was very difficult but we stopped her at the end of her probation because it really wasn't the role for her - she was unlikely to ever really flourish in the job and she was taking too much time and energy from the rest of the team which we couldn't spare.

So there are times when I may ask a question to double check something but only when it's necessary and not just for the sake of asking.

How often is it though? I'm sure they don't think you are asking just for the sake of it but it may be something you are expected to know already (through your degree, prior experience etc) and they are also getting frustrated. Sometimes you just have to do the best you can and let yourself make mistakes.

YANBU if you don't work in the professions or hold a professional qualification necessary for this job. YABU a bit if you are I'm afraid. I only speak from personal experience as I know in my field, I would be "expected to hit the ground running". This is nearly always made a big deal of in interviews or even in agency blurb on all jobs I have been interested in, and is pretty much a given for colleagues that work in different professional fields too.

Even for graduate trainees, the requirement is always that they "need to be able to work on their own initiative" and "be a self starter" - they sort the wheat from the chaff because time is money and they need people to be able to go in and do the job. I remember being at that stage and most of my superiors being helpful at first but kind of rushed. Some were really quite abrupt and you were made aware that you should only interrupt them to ask a question if it was really vital. That was part of the training really - its a field in which you can't be making important mistakes as after a couple of weeks, you were expected to be at a level where you could exercise some judgement. There were also standard systems and checks which everyone in that field was expected to know how to carry out. I don't know if your field is the same or if it is very job specific to this job, but is it possible that you lack the prior experience to do this job required?

ThinkAboutIt... I was of the same mind actually but OP can't/won't answer some of the questions, perhaps she thinks they will 'out her' and that's understandable.

I absolutely think that the 'goading' by her colleagues is unnecessary, as is the ganging up that is going on but at the same time, I don't think somebody should need to ask the same question more than once - twice MAX.

There's a lot of information on this thread BUT it's all from other posters, not from the OP. There's nothing really to advise on because it's all bald statements but there's not the detail to know whether the colleagues have any valid points that OP could be working on to help the problem be solved.

I think the OP is just too sad at the moment to look at it, hence the gentle support rather than prodding - and answers - which would actually be far more helpful.

I had something similar in my first job after graduating. I'd had loads of jobs before and never had any problems. One incident was so bad I ended up going through a grievance procedure for it against my will and was made to feel like I was Insane and Imagined the whole scenario though I had been totally specific with dates, names, incidents. Everyone turned against me during the process.

I ended up quitting for my own sanity (but still suffered ptsd and depression) because I was pregnant and received a pay out to keep me quiet.

They sent me flowers on my wedding day. I nearly threw up.

Yes, it's 3 months into the job but my training only began 2 months down the line due to internal issues.

So I have technically been working for 1 month.

My degree is technical, but not related to this field directly (very few degrees are). Nor have I worked in a similar job before.

I had made this very clear in my application and they didn't have a problem with it. In fact, they have hired several people with varied and completely unrelated degrees.

By the way- I never said I make a habit of asking the same question several times.

But because I've done a three month training plan in one month, there have been perhaps a couple of occasions when I have asked about something for the second time. By no means is that a regular occurrence.

I say this having had a very difficult experience once with someone - hired in at a mid level with experience that should have been relevant and transferable, but after 3 months she was still asking very basic questions, not using her initiative and the bottom line was she just didn't 'get' what we needed her to do. It was very difficult but we stopped her at the end of her probation because it really wasn't the role for her - she was unlikely to ever really flourish in the job and she was taking too much time and energy from the rest of the team which we couldn't spare.

That sounds difficult but it isn't me. There is nothing wrong with my performance on the job and I have been told as much.