New ish job and feeling anxious

[AliceCabin]

I recently started a new job (about 2.5 months ago) and didn’t have much on for the first few weeks. I was volunteering for internal projects and seemed to be getting good feedback.

Then the client work hit with a vengeance and has basically involved lots and lots of technical / fairly academic reading about new topics to create long, original documents - different to what I did before, as they know.

I have several years experience in my field (finance) and am working with people who have a little less (3-4) but have always been at this company so are very familiar with the ways of working and outputs. They’ve been kind but are very competent and calm, and when I asked how they adjusted to the demands of a new project have sort of implied I should be handling it more smoothly given that for many of them this is their first ever job - whereas I have more experience in the field.

i feel a bit like I’m drowning and after I asked for feedback my boss made a comment which sent me spiralling a bit. He said he thought they need to push me on the technicals more than he had originally thought. Which obviously made me feel fantastic.

Following this I became (physically) ill (a bad cold) for a couple of weeks and dragged myself in but anxiety was high and productivity was low. I’m pushing myself hard but still learning all the processes, how we do things and don’t feel like I’m getting that much support from senior people. I always have to ask what the next step is and feel there is this expectation that I should just be doing everything behind the scenes - eg c.100 pages of technical reading was given to us by a client and I’m getting through it but I feel like the expectation is it need to be done? Things just all feel a bit unclear and overwhelming.

Another boss has very kindly said I was doing a good job and that I had a year to ask any stupid questions but I feel that the perception of me amongst other colleagues (maybe in my head?) isn’t as strong as I’d like. I’m finding it difficult to push through and just keep focusing on the negatives. Any advice would be much appreciated.

Hopeful bump

It takes a while to get into a new role. You’re still finding your feet and sounds like a technical role which I am in. It also depends if you want to coast or excel. Feedback helps you excel and you need to explore it more with your manager to show you are emotionally intelligent and are able to digest it and work on weaker areas to get better. Remember it’s a pay check at the end of the day. Work hard but preserve your boundaries and recharge at weekends and evenings with stuff you like doing. I’ve always found it’s taken me at least 2-3 years to feel comfortable in a job like you really know what you’re doing. Network and cast your net wide. You’ll get there!

Ah OP I feel for you. It sounds like the local processes are so familiar and taken for granted by the people who have "grown up" there that they wildly underestimate how difficult it is for someone coming in from outside. I have been in a similar position (new job, lots of experience with another company but none in their local ways of working). It's like doing the same job but in a foreign language! I remember feeling very helpless and useless.

Keep pushing through. Once you become more familiar with the local custom and practice (and the only way to get that it is by doing the job - it's not the sort of thing in handbooks), your expertise will shine through.

You may have already done all this, but I find asking to see samples of similar pieces of work helpful, to use as a template for the level of detail, wording, local style. This can be more useful that asking questions as people can often do things unconsciously, and struggle to articulate a process they have internalised - seeing "one I made earlier" can be more instructive.

I always think it takes a year to be fully up and running in a new organisation. I started a new job about 2 years ago. I thought it would be similar to my previous job but it was so different. I had no idea of the processes, the way things were done or the expectations even though the work itself was familiar. I had some, let’s say, constructive feedback about how I wasn’t working at the level I had been employed at. Fast forward and I’m all over it, I know what I’m doing, how it needs to be done, who you can or can’t speak to, all the things which are nuances to particular organisations and it takes time to find that out regardless of how experienced you are otherwise