to think if your first office job is in your 30s its too hard to adjust

[spegal]

Hi,

I've started an office job in my 30s, its been a month and still just finding it a miserable and boring existence. Such dull conversations and other people seam to delight in pointing out minor mistakes or picking arguments over little things. To be honest I really don't care about it all, I'm just like whatever its not like anyone is going to die if something isn't perfect.

I'm coming to the conclusion I'm just not an office 9-6 kind of person. Maybe if I had started in my 20s I could of coped. But now I've had such a great life not sat in offices it makes it so hard.

Am I being stuck up or does anyone see my point of view?

Might just stick it out till Xmas for the cash

Baby sloths are THE BEST!

I love their happy, sleepy wee faces.

The orphaned baby sloths though...

And the baby sloths in pyjamas!!!

If you want to be a creative and a self-starter, learn everything you can from within, is my point. If you want to start your own business, you'll be much more successful if you've got a feel for existing businesses.

I want to watch baby sloths!

I agree with the other posters - it's not so much what you are saying as how you are saying it. I know that's hard to explain but there is this hint in your posts of I'm special, more special than the other people here.

Good point, MI.

To OP, also set yourself a challenge to get people to like you. In whatever environment you work, likeability is so important - it is the lubricant to new clients, good work, getting things done by people who have little incentive to help you, promotions. You might as well work on your dull colleagues.

But I haven't dismissed my colegues as plebs or anything... What I have said is I don't connect with them socially and find their interests dull

As I said in an earlier post, if you look at the examples you have given of their interests v your interests, whether deliberately or not you've chosen examples that imply you are looking down on their interests.

SuperFlyHigh you should stop spouting lies.

OK thanks therlow, I can only speak for myself and my abilities. The people I work with I don't know much about, but from what j know I'm not interested in knowing anymore. That's probably selfish,I know.

OK that is a point therlow, but I was just trying to pick examples where we are on different levels.

It's not selfish. It's shallow and aloof. Neither are great qualities, I'm afraid.

Perhaps you should express your feelings to your colleagues via an interpretive dance.

OP: "I still reserve the right to find their conversations dull about cars and the food they ate at the hotel while on holidays in the canary's. Just as they have the right to find my stories about disturbing supplies to school children in Cambodia or working in a monkey sanctuary in Ecuador boring.

I never said I was better, we are just all different. My life does seam to have brought out the green eyed bitch from a few here."

Ah, so you want to take about monkey sanctuaries. Go and find work in the third sector then. Don't work for soulless mammon, even if they cannot help but throw money at you.

As for "green eyed bitch", that's interesting because you haven't said anything that is remotely worth admiring. You certainly have not achieved anything nor have some unattainable lifestyle or towering intellect that makes me feel not worthy. If anything, you seem like someone who will find life a little difficult and hardgoing when reality hits. But I guess nothing like finding out for yourself.

@curiousuze Brilliant! That would cheer the place up no end and give them all something creative and cultural to talk about!

Maybe they find you dull? Office chit chat is just that. You're not there to socialise with these people or have a laugh. You're there to work. If you're lucky enough to meet people at work who are friends, then that's great but work is not one big party.

I've not got the green eyed monster, I'm lucky enough to have a job that I love and trained for 4 years to do.

Why do I think of the "computer says no" character from Little Britain each time the Op insults talks about her colleagues?

Everyone's holidays are dull, whether it's the Canary Islands or volunteering with monkeys. And volunteering with monkeys is probably duller because at least someone's trip to the Canaries might have a few amusing buffet-related incidents in it.

There is little more tedious than when someone says they like ^trarrrrrvelling" - no - you just like holidays the same as anyone does.

What bonds office workers is mutual experiences - Bob's new trousers that are too short, the fact that no one washes up the mugs, the mystery of whose stealing the toilet paper etc etc. People's home interests and their paper qualifications are really here nor there.

Can you really not see how this comes across spegal? Really? Really, really?

I've long had the hypothesis that one of the biggest differences between the UK and Germany is how condescencion/being patronzing is seen. Being "herablassend" isn't quite the same social faux pas in Germany as being condescending is in Britain but even in Germany people would be if you talked about your colleagues like that.

who is stealing the toilet paper. (Obviously under the influence of OP...)

As I said before, they probably do find me dull, its all relative as were all different.

Why will I find life a bit tough? Because j don't like corporate offices?

Basically I've swapped working in small fluffy organisations with a good mission statement to working for a big grey multinational that's just out to make as much as it can, and the culture is grey.

Sorry what did I say about my colleagues that was so condisending?

I think it's Bob lainie.

But why not go back to the small fluffy organisations with a good mission statement?

I do sympathize at one level - I used to do work that was a lot more exciting and involved going to exotic places. There are times when I wonder what I'm doing here in this office. I know why I'm here? Why are you there? If it's for the money, that's legitimate, but if you can't have both the money and the cool factor, you've got to accept the bargain you made with the best grace you can muster.

So switch back. No biggie. Start combing the job ads. See if you've got the requisite skills for those jobs that interest you.

But take the cookie jar with you, please. I've worked all round the voluntary sector and particularly at the moment, against the background of funding cuts, people need pig cookie jars. They really do.

rogue question mark crept into the above. I know why I'm here. Not a question.

OP: "Basically I've swapped working in small fluffy organisations with a good mission statement to working for a big grey multinational that's just out to make as much as it can, and the culture is grey."

You get what you expect. Ever heard of self-fulfilling prophesy? Feel free to bite the hand that feeds you. What does that say about your high principles and lofty aims? How does it feel to accept the money of these grey corporations and then bitch about your co-workers.

Feel a bit sorry for you to have to eat your principles to pay the bills.

So you're there by choice not necessity because you want the bigger salary?

It doesn't sound as if you're quite the free spirited creative you seem to like to think you are.