To think my coworkers are rude?

[getmeoutofhere36]

We moved to a mid size town in Ireland a few years ago. I've been working part time in retail and I'm really struggling with my coworkers.

All they do is talk about other people, all day long. It's not that they're horrible to me or anything. But it's like their only topic of conversation is the people around them and the people they know.

AIBU for finding this strange?

Everyone frames it to me as a cultural difference and I'm trying not to judge. But it's so hard, and I can't help feeling like these women are just gossips, actually, and they're the ones with poor social skills. I feel like I'm being gaslit into thinking something is normal and "cultural" when it really isn't.

Example :

It's a four hour shift I'm working with my manager. She spends 1.5 hours of it total having conversations with customers. Each conversation lasts about 25 minutes. The entire conversation is about people they mutually know. The cancer / divorce / death / emigration, new baby / new job / personal business of all these people I don't know, who aren't in the room with us. I can't contribute to this conversation. If we were working together on something before it started, all I can do is stand there like a lemon and pretend to look busy, waiting for it to be over. Or I serve all the other customers while my manager is just standing and talking. Sometimes this happens three times in a row, while I'm doing all the work and she pretends not to notice.

It's so awkward. This happens ten times a day. There is never any attempt to make introductions, involve me in the conversation, or explain who all these people are. She just launches right into it and leaves me standing there. To make it worse, we work with three other women and they all do the same thing. I get that they're used to living in a world where everyone knows everyone else, and maybe it's awkward for them. But am I crazy to think this is a lack of basic social skills? Isn't it just manners to introduce people? Don't they think it's rude to talk about other people's personal business in front of a stranger?

It sounds like you all have far too much spare time to be stood around gossiping.

Most of the friends I've made here are fellow "foreigners" (that's what the Irish call us). The few Irish friends I have been able to make are nice people, but they make excuses for this behaviour. When I try and talk about it it's like they purposely misunderstand me. They tell me things like "people will get used to you", and "you'll fit in more when you get to know more people". But that's not the problem. It's not about how many people I know. It's about the way people act when you're not in their circle. I feel like I'm being gaslit into thinking this is a me problem, when it's really not.

I'm sick of people having conversations right in front of me when they know I can't take part. I'm sick of no-one bothering to make basic introductions. I'm sick of every conversation being gossip about someone I don't know! Can't we talk about books? Tv? World events? Obviously nothing sensitive. No war or religion. But it's like normal small talk doesn't exist here. I try, and it falls flat unless we're talking about the weather. I can get about ten minutes out of that.

Can someone please tell me if this is normal? Have I just found myself in a weird workplace / town / group of women?

It's really wearing me down. I put on a good face, but it feels like I'm being deliberately ostracised for being different. I go home some days and I could cry.

Gossiping is a national sport in Ireland.

It's worse when it's quiet, but even when it's busy my co-workers make their conversations a priority. They'll just stand there and talk while I do all the work.

My boss seems to think that's what I'm there for, and I can't say anything, because I need the job. I can be serving three or four people at one time while she stands and talks. For twenty minutes.

I'm not lazy.

I guess it's a different culture

I once spent two (very long) weeks working in a different city in the UK. All my colleagues at that site talked about was their ailments and their medications. When they got bored with that, they'd move on to their mums' or husbands' ailments.

When I joined the team, I was asked what medication I was on (wtf!) and when I said 'nothing' it was like I didn't exist.

I wasn't sad to go home. Maybe that's what you need to do before your resentment becomes obvious. Why would you want to spend time with such ill mannered, gossipy people?

Your probably in a small rural town where it's fairly relaxed and business is more about keeping customers happy and welcome. (I'm willing to bet you're not in an Aldi or Lidl where getting customer served fast is more of a priority).

It's not gossip or malicious but it's very localised "poor Mary, she's having a tough time with her illness at the moment" or "Maeve & Ronan got engaged at the weekend it's it great""etc.

If you I produce yourself at all "I'm X, I just moved here" people will be more than happy to chat.

It doesn't sound like your boss would have too much of an issue with you taking it handy too.

You have two options - move to a Lidl or Aldi or a larger area - probably only Dublin or surrounding areas. Everyone knows everyone in more rural parts.

O think this is a retail thing - where long time workers form relationships with long time customers.
It would be strange to introduce you into a conversation between another staff member and a customer - surely you just continue doing your job and have your own interactions with the customers you serve.

Talking about people isn’t considered rude here and people aren’t nearly as private, ESPECIALLY in town where everyone knows everyone. Rather I think it would be rude to not enquire how your customers’ family & friends are keeping, especially if you knew they were in ill health or not doing well. It sounds like they’ve all known each other for years and have strong community relationships, something I noticed isn’t as common outside of Ireland. It would be very strange to not ask after people just because a new colleague doesn’t know who they are!

I'm originally from close to a small town in Ireland, I'm really sorry but it sounds quite typical to me. It's not the same everywhere, I worked in pubs before I left and there wasn't that kind of gossiping at all. It's so rude and everyone is not like that. I would try to move to another workplace if you can.

Sounds completely usual and I know what you mean about feeling like a spare part while the conversation goes on around you.

Ive no idea how you crack it- but let me know if you find out/ it would make for more comfortable times with my in laws if I could work it out 🤣😬

They have small lives. Apart from work what do they really have going in their lives? People who are bored and have no lives are generally like this. I actually kind of pity them.

They know all their customers, their families and whats going on with them. It doesn't sound very small to me, it sounds like a very large circle. And I'm certain they don’t need or want your sanctimonious 'pity'.

Gossiping with customers and about them doesn’t mean you have a large circle, it means you’re a gossip. I suspect you are like the women Op is talking about, small town, bored housewife, not much going on, same routine every day. Yup sounds dull.

Thank you 😂

This is exactly what it feels like. Like I've slipped into some bizarre alternate universe, and everyone keeps telling me it's normal. Now I'm doubting myself and wondering if there's something wrong with me. I'm chatty, I'm friendly. I want to see the best in people. But gossip makes me uncomfortable, and I don't know how I'm supposed to participate in these conversations? It's not like they're saying "I just got a new job" or "here's a picture of my new baby". I could respond to that! But it's nearly always about a third party who isn't even there. And I haven't been introduced or allowed in to the conversation anyway, so it feels like I'd be pushing in if I did try to contribute.

I'm not happy here. I wanted to love it. I want this to be a bad situation. But it feels like every Irish person I talk to gets defensive and makes me feel like it's all cultural and I shouldn't expect any better. Finding somewhere to live is such a nightmare here. I don't think I have it in me to go through all that, just to find myself in the same situation in a different town. If this is truly how it is everywhere, I don't think I can stay.

You’re going to have to adapt or move on, OP. See it as a language you’re learning. If you’ve lived there for several years, don’t you know who any of these people are?

I spent many years living in London before moving with a baby to a village in the English midlands that was insular and less unfriendly than just not used to strangers who hadn’t gone to school with you and married someone else who’d gone to school with you. I made a lot of efforts to integrate via volunteering, joining things, inviting people around, but it wasn’t for me. I left, and should have done so sooner.

You also have that choice. Living in a country other than their own isn’t for everyone.

You couldn't be more wrong, but you do you.

Then maybe you’re right to leave. I realised provincial England wasn’t a good fit for me either. It was no one’s fault, just a poor match of person and place.

and on the other hand you sound so lovely.

I get that. I do. And I have customers whose names and faces I would know. I'd ask them if they're off on their holidays and make small talk with them.

And I would understand if it was a smaller town. It's not that small though! There was talk of us getting city status at one point.

It doesn't sound like your boss would have too much of an issue with you taking it handy too.

The thing is, I think she would! Serving customers fast is a priority as long as she's not talking to someone 😂

What's weird is, on the few occasions I've run into someone she doesn't know and we ended up chatting, I can tell she's uncomfortable. Even when I've made the courtesy of introducing her, and kept the conversation to under five minutes. Nothing like what she does to me all day long, and it only happens once in a blue moon. But she's obviously uncomfortable, so she must know how it feels.

On the rare occasions I can contribute to a conversation she's having with someone, she seems really awkward too, and quickly tries to move the conversation back on to something that will shut me out again. Say if someone was talking to her about a medical procedure they were having done, and they were polite enough to make eye contact and talk to us both, and not just treat me like the furniture. If I had had that same procedure done, I might say a few helpful words about it, give some advice and wish them luck. As you normally would. And my manager would immediately look flustered and try to redirect the conversation. Back to Maeve and Ronan's engagement or whatever. Back to me standing there awkwardly smiling with nothing to say.

The other women I work with are the same. It's really weird. It's like I'm not a real person to them, and they short circuit when they're reminded

Time to move jobs or commute into a city for work as it will be more anonymous!

Totally get that. I don't think these are customers she has formed relationships with though? It seems more the other way around. People she knows who are customers in this instance.

The conversations are just so personal, and they go on for so long. Twenty minutes can feel like forever

It sounds like they’re taking advantage of the newbie, by making you do most of the work.

Your manager doesn’t want you to talk to anyone because she has pigeon holed you as the worker whilst she chats.

I understand. I think for me it's just the lack of basic introductions? It's basically three people in an empty room and one person is being flat out ignored. I try not to take it personally, but it's hard not to feel like that's rude.

I'm just treated like I don't exist

I think anywhere very rural with no customers queuing up is like this. Whenever I visit my parents in mainland Europe and we go to a shop with staff they know, it's a full debrief of ailments 😂 as a city dweller I find it embarrassing. They tell me it's normal. The ones who find it normal stay, everyone else moves away!

Also I suspect this is these women's Forever Job, and it's just a temporary solution for you. When someone works in the same retail place/customer service for many years they do, in my experience, get a bit odd in one way or another. Territorial with hints of 'get me out of here but I will never leave'.

Thank you. I've really been hoping it's just a strange town / bad group of workmates. But every time I try and talk about it people rush in to tell me it's just how the Irish are, and make me doubt myself.

I met so many Irish people who weren't at all like this outside of Ireland. I just wish I knew how to find them here!