Struggling with superficiality at work

[Daffodils9]

I work in the charitable sector. Organisation like many others has recently undergone massive restructure with a lot of redundancies. Whilst acknowledging that such processes are also tough I would say there were elements of this that were done particularly badly. Poor communication, leadership being hostile to any constructive criticism and shutting down discussion spaces, etc.

Now we’re out the other side (theoretically) and we have all these team building things to do where we show our enthusiasm for the new structure and ways of doing things.

What I’m struggling with is a feeling of isolation because to me many of these things are totally pointless and frankly unbearable but most colleagues seem to be able to get on board. I’m autistic so I suspect that’s part of this. I just can’t face writing down my top three qualities of a good team. It makes me physically upset and angry. To me it’s like we’re all in a play. But I don’t want to be in a play doing pretend exercises that are thrown in the bin afterwards (literally we write things on post it’s then we say how valuable it was and then we throw the post it’s away). More and more of what we do at the moment is like this.

The problems I have are that no one else or very few people seem to feel as strongly as I do. I’m the main breadwinner and can’t find another job at a similar salary in this sector. I don’t know how to move to a different path because I need a salary and I’m in my 40s now plus I feel like I’m going to be unhappy wherever I go.

It’s making me really depressed and I’ve lost a lot of motivation. I’ve been casting around of new ideas of what I could do since the restructure started but I’m so afraid that I’ll make a mistake. I am qualified for this job, it pays well and I like my immediate team. A lot of what I do though seems so pointless and makes me want to cry.

I’m struggling to let go of all the hurt that happened during the restructure where colleagues were pushed out and bullied.

I’ve raised this a little with my team and their verdict is we need to wait it out until the dust settles but that could be years as the new leadership are all very corporate which really doesn’t suit me.

Any advice?

So the powers that be want you to hop to with away days, team building games. and corporate bullshit which you find it hard to manufacture because of your autism. This is where AI can come in as a useful tool. You can use it to generate the corporate speak to hde behind while having a jolly good laugh at management. Treat it like a play in which you have to act your part. This is what your wiser colleagues are doing.

I think your colleagues are right - you need the job, so play the game. Yes, it’s soul-destroying because you haven’t got over the last restructure and this doesn’t feel like business to you - it feels personal a bit like family. But most charities do have to act and think like a business to survive. End of the day they have to balance the books, or the charity fails.

Your top three qualities of a team could be:

1. sense of belonging and mutual support
2. shared experience and values
3. Getting through tough times together

then you could talk about how hard the restructure has been on you

lean on your team - they sound like good people, let them take the lead here