To find this colleague a bit annoying

[halfacupofjuice]

Hello everyone,

I have been working at a particular company for a number of years and over the years things have changed but mostly have stayed the same. We have recently recruited a new person temporarily, as our previous colleague is off long term sick but will be back soon, but we are all finding her a bit... much...and I don't know if I should discuss this with her ( of course in a diplomatic way). Here are the reasons:

1. She comes across that she doesn't know much about our field, but when you speak to her and talk about certain practices and policies, she knows ALOT but tends to die this down but only brings up her knowledge when I challenge her about her practice. The reason why I'm saying this is because I can tell that she is a keen learner but has been using some of her working days to go on training (to be far- only two) but she has just started with us. Also, she has recently asked the company to pay for a course that she would like to attend, we of course declined as we don't pay for trainings for temporary staff and plus there are a number of us in the office who are very specialist and have worked in the role for many of years with who she can seek advice and support from, so it's not an efficient way of using resources.

1. In our company, we have been doing the same things, pretty much, for many years and then she comes in and has begun to ask us whether she can change some of our practices when working with clients.

3.She has only worked for a company for a month, but already she is speaking to similar companies to try and increase our own resources. This is amazing for our company, but I am finding her a bit much.

What should I do? Some of the colleagues feel that she is a bit much and should just take a seat back. How can I advise my new colleague?

Yep.

You are really coming across as “we’ve always done it this way…”

I think your temp is way too good for you.

Everywhere I have worked, it is normal to offer temps work time to attend training for courses they are funding themselves. It's a very fair compromise.

You sound like a terrible boss. You say you have all this knowledge and when she asked for a book recommendation you just told her to look elsewhere? Great.

My advice it to wait it out. Someone as good as her will soon find a much better role and you can go back to your old ways.

You could well be right about slight changes rather than re-inventing the wheel but your first paragraph is shocking. Fancy her wanting to improve herself and you telling her to read her uni notes 😂

It is easy to get into a comfortable rut at work and to be defensive when new people come it. We used to have a 100 day rule in a previous company I worked for - all suggestions or questions made in the first 100 days with us would be carefully considered as fresh eyes often see things in a very different way. You really come across as quite jaded and not very nice.

Is anyone else hoping the poor person this threads about somehow stumbles upon it so they stop wasting their time and energy with this company

it sounds like a toxic we know better than you because you’re now. Totally unsupportive and judgemental place to work. You sound horrible op

It’s one of this shitty places where being there a zillion years makes you management material cause all the good enthusiastic people are driven out by bullies

Wow, your organisation sounds awful. I'm sure this person is glad she's only temporary and will hopefully go off somewhere else and be successful.

Typical dinosaur behaviour...take note of what people are saying. Clearly this temp is not a good fit for the company. I wish them well in finding something that helps them. Perhaps you need to take a good hard look at your practices and a training course in how to treat and develop staff.

That’s what BlackBerry said before they destroyed by Apple and Samsung.

But that's just an opinion, how can anyone know if it's true, if nothing new is ever tried? I agree with pps who have said your organisation sounds set in its ways. This colleague is showing initiative and interest in what you do, and she's just getting shut down. I feel sorry for her.

20 years in the field, no apparent desire to change/innovate, can’t handle a new member of staff (as it seems like this isn’t a regular occurrence)- maybe you aren’t the managerial type?

Just because you’re experienced, doesn’t mean you are the expert in the room. Having blinders on because you default to years of service doesn’t mean much.

Exactly this. Hope she ends up somewhere that appreciates her.

Are you sure that the way you do things is so perfect that there is no way whatsoever that it can be improved or made more efficient? To be honest, given the way IT and communications and systems have developed over the last "many years" it would, to say the least, be very surprising if that were the case.

You and your colleagues sound incredibly set in your ways.

Shock horror - new employee wants to be trained to do her job properly rather than rely on pestering and distracting her colleagues by asking questions all the time..

Sounds like a bit of jealousy to me !

I've read most of these comments and I believe that most pp's are not really understanding my point of view

Yes, you're right. We're all wrong and you know best. Well you very obviously think you do. So obtuse and closed to change.

No. I don't think she's the managerial type. She's only been working in the field for the past three years. I have been working in the field for the past 20 years! So no, I'm not worried at all 😂

You are so condescending. I can actually hear your tinkly laugh.

I hope she leaves and takes her passion, forward thinking and ideas with her. You all sound like stale old farts who are completely threatened by her.

None of that really accounts for repetition of the same errors, e.g. "trainings" instead of training, and "dies it down" instead of "dials it down".

So you aren't quite the expert in your field that you think?

Auto correct on mumsnet is crap and made worse by the fact we can’t edit posts so you can’t really use spelling here to determine who is native or not.

For example, like today, she asked me whether I could recommend a book to help her learn more about X, I told her to read notes from what she learnt at uni as what would have provided her resource materials.

Few if any undergraduate courses teach everything there is to know about any given subject. I've certainly done a hell of a lot more reading and learning in my field since leaving university, even though my course was directly related to my current occupation. Is the reality that you don't actually know of any such books because you've never ready any as you assume you know it all?

You don’t deserve her! She sounds fantastic, I hope she finds a company that appreciates and nurtures her willingness to learn and develop.

Wow. If I asked a superior for help/guidance/references on a subject and I was referred back to my undergraduate degree I would laugh. Mostly in shock. I can't believe this is real.

And yet you say the company doesn't have enough funds to bring its practices up to date in accordance with what is. current in that field. And that you don't have access to a potential source of resources for clients that this temp does have access to.

Do you not see how you are contradicting yourself here?

Yes, it sounds comparable to, say, an experienced consultant cardiologist telling a keen junior doctor that, rather than read recent research papers on cardiology, they should go back to their undergrad notes and treat a patient on that basis. Or a specialist barrister telling a newly qualified one to go into court and present arguments solely based on what they did in university.