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?

How are her sales figures, compared to yours ?

They have the social skills they need for their social context, which is the ability the OP finds so mind-boggling, to hold vast amounts of knowledge of a large number of people and keep it straight in their minds and be able to assimilate new stuff and assign it to the right individual, plus to know that the person who just walked in is the affair man’s wife, or cocaine person’s cousin, so subject change needed. The OP standing there looking disapproving as they discuss someone affair or cocaine habit is signalling her disapproval and reluctance/inability to ‘belong’ as much as, I don’t know, spending years living in rural France and refusing to say ‘Bon jour’ before asking for what you want in the local bakery because why should you, you don’t care how she is etc etc. You need to adapt to where you live. If you can’t or don’t want to, move on.

I’ve lived in several different places in five different countries, and the foreignest and loneliest I’ve ever felt was in a village in England, despite having lived for many years in London and another city. I gave integrating my best shot, but it didn’t work. So I left.

Had you spent much time in Ireland before moving there, OP?

And have you lived in Irish cities or bigger places? Do you have local friends? Is it only your job that’s the problem?

I really don’t think it’s that kind of retail!

"I just don't understand how they can know so many people. It feels like they each know about a thousand people"

That's the thing, that actually do. There's only about €5million people in Ireland. Everyone knows everyone, or at least knows someone who knows the person they are looking for it's tiny.

Honestly (and don't want to sound creepy), if I wanted to find an English lady, in Ireland about 3 years, working in retail in, with a female manager and in only about 3 possible towns in the country, it wouldn't be difficult to find you by Friday.

It really is that small. I grew up in the country, everyone knows everyone. I now live in Dublin which is more anonymous but having been here several years, it's also getting small.

I suspect you are in a town where the majority of your co-workers are from the area, they have never left, they went to school together, their kids now go to school together, they've been in the same job for life since they were young and there isn't much going on other than people so they talk about people. With a retail wage and the cost of living in Ireland, there isn't much money left to do much outside Ireland. They are mostly happy people. It's their way of life.

It's not malicious gossip, it's limited options and experiences. Sense of community is very strong in Ireland, there's no doubt about that but I can't imagine anyone is deliberately trying to exclude you. Most of those people are probably actually your manager's friends, and then it's awkward because someone who doesn't know then is there listening to the conversation. I know it shouldn't be but that's the way it is.

You might be happier if you got a job where confidentiality is a priority - i.e. medical receptionist, insurance company, local bank etc. The staff there won't be as free to discuss people's personal lives as much.

If there's any multinational companies in the area too, they've gave a more diverse workforce so the local element will be more muted.

I don't think it's necessarily confined to Ireland, if you were to take an entry level, non skilled job (I don't mean that to be derisory, it's just factual) in any area of the world where all the staff were born and raised in the area you would have the same issue, albeit Irish people will probably talk more.

It's not a problem they have with you, it's just their way of life. Social connections are heavily prioritised.

All that aside, this job is making you miserable. The reasons is really irrelevant- you're unhappy so you need to do something different and now you know the area to avoid - schools, creches, the post office, undertakers etc all going to give you a similar experience - try places more suited to what you value.

There's nothing wrong with you.
There's nothing wrong with your co-workers.
It's just incompatibility.
They are happy. You are not. So if you want change, you'll have to be the one to make it.

Something can be cultural and still be asked bad thing. They're not mutually exclusive.

I am with you OP, I would hate this.

I have no interest in constant gossip and I would also be concerned that my colleagues are not to be trusted and are also gossiping about me behind my back...

Small towns/villages can be like that and it is not my type of environment.

Get a job somewhere else or move all together! it sounds like you would be better suited to a busier location with more diversity.

Good post from @DoYouReally. And I agree that, without sounding sinister, we probably know people you know, OP. It is a small population, in which social connection is prized in small places, particularly.

I live in a city of a quarter of a million people with a lot of foreign-born inhabitants, and said to my SIL yesterday something completely generic about a friend’s husband having been called to give evidence in court about a particularly horrible violent assault that happened a couple of years ago, and which he witnessed/intervened in. Without me saying another word, she both knew the crime I meant, where it happened, that the victim’s best friend is a relative of my SIL’s, that she’s only beginning to recover now, that she knows the victim’s mother slightly from her aqua aerobics class, and several other things. You might find that ‘gossipy’, or as impacting on the privacy of the victim, but it comes from a fundamentally community-minded place. You’re not private, no, but you’re not alone with things.

Like I know a few of the drug dealers who operate out of a park not far from my house. I know one of them grew up a few doors down from some friends of mine, who his (uninvolved) father is, where he went to school, and why he was in a coma for weeks and now has an obvious blunt trauma injury to his head. He can’t just be an anonymous crime stat to me.

It can be hard to make up juries here, even in a city, because people have so many connections.

I lived in and enjoyed the anonymity of London for many years and chose to move back, and accept the good with the bad. If it doesn’t work for you, it doesn’t work. But it’s no one’s ‘fault’ any more than it was the fault of the other parents at the English village school DS attended for not being friendly to me. It’s a mismatch of individual and environment. @DoYouReally has good advice on types of jobs to avoid in future now thst you’ve realised this doesn’t work for you.

I would hardly compare gossiping to holding vasts amounts of knowledge 🤣 but agree she needs to adapt.

The OP standing there looking disapproving as they discuss someone affair or cocaine habit is signalling her disapproval and reluctance/inability to ‘belong’ as much

I wish people would stop saying I'm standing there looking disapproving. I'm really not. I'm serving someone else or trying to look busy with a task, most of the time. I feel like I can't look approving or disapproving, when they're discussing people I don't know, so I try to keep neutral. If something is really extreme it's hard to know what to do with my face. I admit that. But most of the time I'm smiling and trying to look approachable, because that's my job!

spending years living in rural France and refusing to say ‘Bon jour’ before asking for what you want in the local bakery because why should you, you don’t care how she is etc etc.

I know you were just using this as an example, but I smile at everyone all day long. I'm more likely than my co-workers to wish a customer a good day at the end of an interaction.

Had you spent much time in Ireland before moving there, OP?

Short visits with my partner's friends and family, mostly? Of course I noticed everyone had a wide social circle and liked to catch up, but I didn't see anything like the gossip I see in my current workplace. Maybe I was blind to it

And have you lived in Irish cities or bigger places? Do you have local friends? Is it only your job that’s the problem?

We haven't lived elsewhere. We're here for DP's job really. He's Irish but not from the town we're in. We had more Irish friends when we first moved here, but over the three years a lot of them have emigrated. The cost of living is hard on families and the housing crisis is unreal.

Most moved to Australia and it's hard to keep in touch with the time difference. It's probably contributing to my sense of isolation. It feels like our friend group is emptying out around us, and it's hard to replace them.

There will be any people in each of these towns that will have only recently returned home, mainly to raise their children.

They'll have worked abroad or on bigger cities too. They too will find village life snd the claustrophobic nature of a lot of it, especially the partner who isn't from there.

Starting asking the question "have you lived here all your life?" as you own screening question. Those who have are probably not going to be your type of person - those who sad, I returned home after living in Dublin or abroad for years etc are more likely the people you will gel with. Especially depending on their response to, do you miss it at all?

I have a colleague who is originally from the UK. Married his Irish life and move here when their kids were young and he found it tough with all her relatives snd the close knit community. He has often told the story that despite everyone bring friendly, they would always invite him over to watch the game when Ireland were playing soccer or rugby. His now best friend is the guy who said yes, when he asked him if he'd join him for the English game the following week. He said he just wanted to find someone who actually enjoyed sport regardless of who is playing rather than someone who was just a bandwagon supporter.

Start using a filter question to find the type of Irish people you would like to spend time with.

I'm surprised so many people have voted YABU, I can't imagine anything more boring (or rude) than what you've described. It's so weird how your colleagues find so much to talk about random third parties but don't seem to actually do anything or have any opinions themselves! Perhaps you should ask them to introduce you to the random people they are bitching about who have a coke habit or are cheating on their partners - at least they are actually doing something with their lives and might be a bit more interesting.

Seriously OP, if it hasn't changed by now it won't. You need a new job! I've worked a fair few places, retail, hospitality, office, professional jobs, police - yeah there have been a few people in each that have bored on about themselves or their own dc too much but a) at least that's them not their cousin's neighbour's dog, and b) they've been in the minority and everyone else has either been really interesting or at least happy to chat about, if not world changing in-depth intellectual discussions, tv or the news or whatever.

There's a saying, 'Great Minds Discuss Ideas; Average Minds Discuss Events; Small Minds Discuss People'

Thanks. I appreciate you taking the time to make this post, and the one further down. I think your analysis of the whole situation is probably accurate, and I appreciate the advice.

The only part I think I disagree on is that the women in my workplace are happy and their gossip is not malicious. Looking back over some of my own posts in the clear light of day - now I've accepted I can't make it work here - I think there is a negative energy I've been picking up on in these conversations, and that's why I find them so draining to be around. Maybe malicious is too strong a word. But definitely petty and unpleasant. There's a tone most of the time. Like they're judging others or trying to knock them down a peg. "She's lost too much weight." "She'll regret that divorce." "She doesn't have what it takes to stick with that course." And a lot of the time it feels like they're sharing someone else's misfortune not because they want to rally round and help them, but because it's a juicy drama and they want to be the first one to share the information. They're excited. It gives them a sense of power, and I think excluding a "foreigner" from their conversations does the same.

But it doesn't matter if they're good people or not. Or if people are right or wrong for saying their behaviour is part of a wider culture. Trying to understand them won't solve the real issue, which is that I'm not happy where I am. And it's on me to fix that.

Thank you to everyone for helping me see that.