Work challenges!

[EllaMozarella]

Hi MN
I’m feeling so stuck & hoping for wise words.
Earlier this year, I was made redundant & struggled to find a new role that was paying enough/that I was a good fit for. I realised I should just get any job as needed to pay bills & got a job in an office.
I am in a situation where most of the team are about ten years younger than me (including the management) and there also seems to be total confusion around processes and policies.
Everyone is very lovely, friendly on the surface but I’m starting to feel quite frustrated as there is an expectation you ‘just know’ how to do things and it’s almost frowned upon to ask questions or question things.
I don’t feel psychologically safe re raising things around procedures/support/safety and when I ask my line manager a question he usually looks put out.

I’ve been there 3 months, there really are so many things that are niggling away at me, would you start looking for something else? I’m still on probation & unsure if I’ll even pass as I really feel like I don’t know what I’m doing due to the lack of guidance & confusion.
I feel lucky to have a job, but am also very spun out a lot of the time & worried I’ll get stuck there!
-what would you do?

Do you have weekly 1:1s with your line manager? Are you asking queries of them on an ad hoc basis? Would it work better to set up some recurring (brief) meetings to capture those queries?

Well done on getting back into the workplace. Your confidence appears to have taken a battering from the redundancy. Try not to hyper focus on the team being younger than you

Thanks for your reply @MyrtlethePurpleTurtle- no weekly 1:1 & literally never. A few opportunities to ask questions about my area of work. I share a particular responsibility with another colleague & I get the sense he is also frustrated about the lack of clarity (he said as much but then looked mortified because of this bizarre ‘just get on with it’ culture). My last job was much more regimented & support was extraordinary.
I really need to move on I think…

Definitely look for something else, it won’t get better!

Most places I've been, I've ended up writing procedural documentation, because you can't just know. We had a discussion only yesterday that you might be the world expert in our technical speciality, but that still won't tell you how things are configured here, how often we back things up, what paperwork you need to do to get access to the system, etc.

Regular tasks should be documented. Anything you have to do for regulatory reasons should be documented. Common problems and how to investigate/resolve should be documented. It means that any newcomers will be able to refer to something to help them pick it up. You get consistency, and make sure the things that need to be covered are covered. It also shows you know what your work is. It doesn't set things in stone, because docs should be reviewed and updated regularly.