To ask for advice on how to deal with rudeness at work

[IamtheDuchessstill]

I am in a professional role and mentor trainees in the profession. I currently have one mentee and a second one who is paired with her for part of the placement. The second one is only with us for a short time, while the former is there for 12 months.

The environment we work in is stressful and there is a certain amount of gallows humour behind the scenes. One of the challenges trainees face is dealing with this while maintaining their own professionalism. Since this second trainee arrived, I have had a number of complaints from members of staff about his attitude. He is very loud and has offended several people with his humour and frequent comments about his lairy weekends. I had a word with him about this with the first trainee present, as his behaviour seemed to be rubbing off on her, though previously she had fitted in with the team well. I was aware that, from a trainee's perspective it possibly sounds like double-standards, since staff themselves can be loud and use our workroom to vent in. However, part of being a trainee is that you can't act like a permanent member of staff does.

They seemed to take it well and have quietened down considerably since. However, I have noticed that now, whenever something controversial, or something that could be considered black-humour is said, particularly by me, the pair of them are exchanging pointed looks at each other. It may sound silly, but I am now feeling that I have to watch every word I say at work. They have also been very muted in their responses to an appraisal meeting I held with them, to the point, almost, of rudeness.

I don't know how to handle this. I want to raise it, but don't want to escalate things and perhaps spoil further the previously good relationship I had with the original trainee, who will be with us for another 6 months. I don't know if they realise how obvious these looks are, and there are several of them a day - more or less anything I say seems to provoke one. I have mentored for several years, but have never encountered this before, perhaps because there has only ever been one trainee at a time in the past.

Any advice from wise and assertive MNetters would be great.

It's simple, each time they eye roll ask them directly what their issue is. You can be polite and kind. Even if they don't vocalise the issue, you can point out that the staff work 70 hour weeks and their humour relates to this and carries them through long hours.

You could also talk about past trainees and how committed and enthusiastic they were.

As a trainee rotating around jobs you are an outsider. Maybe they are just trying to be part if the team. Now they have been told not to do what you do and they are sharing glances because they feel even more distances from the team. Double standards, I think it is terrible. I work in itu which can be emotive and we do not hav double standards for traineees rotating in.

They are not being ear-marked for more senior roles, and several trainees I have worked with in the past work in the same organisation now and I am on great terms with them. I love mentoring and have never had anything like this happen before.

By the way, trainees are not expected to be perfect and devoid of humour altogether, and maybe too much is being made of the earning the right to make jokes comment - that would be pretty joyless. It is more that the types of comments this person has made are very much at odds with our ethos and, since being pulled up on this, the pair of them seem to have decided that any comment with a tinge of humour is rank hypocrisy.

I use to do stupid hours like you describe, and see the interns and support staff clock off at 5pm. I can't imagine complaining to someone because a trainee was talking about his weekend and he had more time off than I did.

So?

It's my choice to do the hours.

You can't be upset about someone talking about their four day weekend, when that's just part of their life at this point. It's like saying someone can't talk about their husband because someone else doesn't have one, or about their car because someone doesn't have a licence.

If the comments are rude or inappropriate then you can deal with that, absolutely. But if it's 'we're going to the beach this weekend because I have four days off' then there's nothing wrong with that, it's just conversation and small talk with colleagues. I hate the attitude some mentors have (and I supervise pre-service teachers) that they need to 'earn' the privilege of speaking with other adults in the workplace. At least one of your students is there long-term, try treating her as part of the team, rather than as a small child that needs to learn to speak only when spoken to. They are adults, learning and doing a role, at least give them the courtesy of treating them like adults.

If you continue on this path, you'll find that you are just producing a whole lot of trained staff who are contemptuous of new trainees and the cycle continues when they get their own trainees. And in addition to that, you'll have a whole lot of trainees and former trainees with little respect for you.

This sounds like a weird workplace tbh. If I was one of your trainees I'd be eye rolling too (although I'd probably have sense to only think about it, not actually do it).

I agree with what pp have said, that if you want your trainees to behave a certain way you need to lead by example. You can't expect people to enter a work environment and pick up that there's some dynamic that means they should act differently to everyone else.

I appreciate that everyone needs a little downtime, especially if they're working 70 hours a week, but it isn't your trainees' fault that the other staff are working 70 hours a week.

So your not jealous of his spare time, but him talking about it upsets people. Sounds like a classic case of jealousy to me.

Every example you have stated is nothing to do with the actual content of their comments but more about timing.

Why arent the trainees busy if everyone else is? Give them something to read, procedures, training notes whatever.

There seem to be several issues, whats the problem?

The trainee talking about his long weekend? (perhaps not the best way for him to integrate but as the time served, well paid, professional surely you can remember what it was like and just enjoy his stories)

OR

The lack of compassion from one trainee (yes that would bother me too)

OR

That the trainees join in with the 'gallows humour' along with the rest of the staff behind the scenes and you don't feel they're entitled to?

I don't know why you're getting a hard time here duchess, quite simply your trainee is a twit. Do you write some sort of a report on him? Do you have a deciding vote on wether he is kept on at the end of his placements?

I'd sit him down and have a very frank conversation with him and if you have the ability to impose any sanctions then threaten them. In this day and age the prospect of a good job guaranteed post degree should be enough to get someone to knuckle down, if not it's his own look out.

I'd talk to the other trainee separately with a different tack. Say what you've said here, that she was settling in well, but appears to have developed a bit of an attitude lately, tell her you're disappointed as you know she can do better than this.

My gut feel is that trainee 1 is salvageable and you should do everything in your power to get her back on track, trainee 2 get him on to his next placement as quickly as you can.

It sounds like you have recognised that to them it probably seems as though there are double standards at play, tbh it seems that way to me and to a majority of the other posters on this thread and we have nothing investing in this situation. My guess will be that if you raise these somewhat intangible issues, looks between them and not showing sufficient enthusiasm in an appraisal, that it will make them resent you more and not change the situation. If you feel that they are more difficult to manage together I would try and improve the relationships with each of them individually, go back to basics and praise appropriate behaviour and good work, I think you're more likely to win them round with that approach than with another talk about their attitude.

Also, when I was a trainee, my mentor (and in fact the whole team) were absolute professionals and modelled the very high standards of behaviour and conduct they expected from us.

Had there been separate and higher and secret? standards that I'd been expected to meet I'd have really struggled.

I don't agree with the 'If you're a Senior you've earnt extra rights'.

I read a book recently 'Leaders eat last', where they stated that in the US Marines, it's the Senior People who eat last and let the Juniors eat first.. it's supposed to create a better team dynamic and holds everyone to the same standard - rather than saying 'Well, so-and-so's been there for 5 years, therefore they're allowed to do X,Y and Z, but you're not'.....

Additionally. If they're trainees... they presumably haven't had much experience, therefore they're looking to more Senior people to show them what good looks like... If they see Senior people acting in a certain way, I don't see why they shouldn't try and emulate it, and it's a confusing message to try and emulate behaviour and then get told off - If that was me, I'd probably be quite confused and not forthcoming with anything as I wouldn't know what would get me in trouble and what wouldn't...

What an odd work environment, don't be flippant, but tolerate other peoples flippant remarks.. I'd be bloody struggling myself tbh. Its an etiquette minefield

It's not so much earning extra rights as knowing what to joke about. It takes a while living that life to know/understand - and do it with an understanding of the "absolute nos".

It's a massive part of any culture.
It's something we all do too ... getting it wrong underpins many hapless characters (Alan Partridge, the Peepshow boys, Father Ted etc). That arrogance + a slight misreading of the situation.
It's not earned so much as learned.

And in some (often graduate or "alpha"/confidence driven) jobs you will get young staff, not only trainees, who basically put their foot in it.

An example I can think about was in youth work. An experienced youth worker can seem to be having irreverent jokes with the kids ... but it's carefully done. An inexperienced one might and have in my experience take this as "it's ok to joke" and then swear or make an inappropriate joke alphandndbout shagging a kids mum in one case!! or get too close to a kid talking about very personal stuff. Then think It's double standards because all they saw was 'joking around' but they took it way too far.
Similar things happen within adult teams.

Mind you I completely agree that in scenarios like this the simple solution is to knock all jokes/banter on the head full stop.

I agree with most about modelling great standards of behaviour when mentoring but I think I know what op means to a certain extent.

If I'm mentoring someone as a trainee teacher I would expect them to be more conscientious with things like meticulous lesson planning than an experienced teacher who has been doing it for years.

I also think it's a bad sign if a trainee is too cocky or does not show a bit of respect and humility to their seniors at work. I wouldn't have dreamt of being rude to my mentor when I was training and I was particularly careful not to overstep boundaries. I sympathise with you there op. One of them certainly does sound like a handful.

It's not a great idea to display behaviour that you have expressly warned them not to exhibit though. That's asking for trouble.

That is really well put Squizita.

Take them out to a bar, get them pissed and tell them that when they are qualified and long in service they can be as banal and inappropriate as you but in the meantime to get on they have to toe the line.

I think if you're a newbie in any job or role you do have to earn your place in the team. You give your experienced coworkers a bit of respect even if they are not senior to you, keep your head down and work hard. This is an unwritten rule of the work place. It may be true that new marines eat first, but they don't get a cool nick name and join in the in jokes with veteran marines who have been in war zones together for years.

All you mention is his 4 day weekend. It's not his problem you don't get one.

It's difficult because you are their mentor so you have to keep lines of communication open. Appraisals should be a two way street really.

Are they doing this to anyone else? although you are their mentor surely it is not only you who is training them. I just wonder if they are doing the looks in front of other people enlist someone to call them on it.

Do you have an 'Education Lead' type person who you can discuss this with? Do you have a written constitution or set of values that you can look at together and discuss what this means in practice in your workplace?

I do sympathise, because I can imagine the sort of trainee you mean as a mentor myself! I am a little surprised that the talk of long weekends is annoying people to such an extent though. My line of work involves long hours and can be incredibly stressful. I wouldn't bat an eyelid at students boasting about their easy life - if anything I'd be quietly smirking at the shock they're going to get when they start working in the profession themselves! It's a sign of immaturity but I don't think it's insensitive to other staff as such.