read right as polite, because they get offended easily.
I’m a male nurse in a predominantly female unit.
How I see a job: I’m there to work and go home and don’t want to socialize. Each of my coworkers is welcomed to talk about work with me, but I don’t disclose my personal life, age or life goals with them. Work and let me work. If you need help, call me, we’ll work together.
How my unit works: there is a group that’s childish and gossipy, don’t know boundaries and act like a clique, but maybe 50% of the unit are people that work and let me work, help me and I help them (with the gossip clique this is not always the case).
I was sick for 4 weeks and I’ve decided this is a good opportunity to establish boundaries, something I’ve never done at my current unit. Why now? Being sick I had time to think what I don’t want in my life: faking interest in the sexual life or my coworkers, knowing who started dating who or what they think of Biden or the second amendment ain’t things I care about. I’ve had a coworker trying to find me a girlfriend a week after knowing me. No thanks.
I’m entertaining other job prospects and I still don’t know if I’m gonna jump ship, so for the time being, I’m here. Where I work I’m forced to eat with the rest of the team, including the gossips, so I’m trapped (because if I don’t eat with them they’ll start asking why I’m so unfriendly or if I’m angry at them and feel offended, they simply cannot understand that sometimes I want time to unwind without them).
What I think I could tell them, next time they start with their inquisitive questions:
‘I’ve worked here for a year already. It should be clear by now that I’m not a talkative person. This is a question I don’t want to answer. And I hope that you respect that.’
‘that I don’t talk doesn’t mean I hate you, it means I have nothing to say’ < I find it ludicrous even having to explain this.
‘I don’t see what that has to do with the job’
‘I don’t talk about religion, politics or my private life with coworkers and I hope you respect that’
should they keep pestering:
‘all right, I need time to unwind, which means today I’ll spend my pause somewhere else.’ and proceed to eat alone somewhere else.
And if they pester yet again:
‘leave me alone’
if by this point some of them start giving me the evil eye and afterwards start ignoring me or treat me differently, time to accelerate my transfer to another unit.
If you like keeping boundaries with your coworkers, what do you tell them that works?
Having a good relationship with coworkers is in general great in my opinion and talking about personal life, politics and religion can be avoided with for example:
- “I’m not that into politics”
- “sorry, I don’t like talking about religion”
- “Sorry, that’s a part I like to keep private” Also always steer conversations towards work topics and problems.
Then there are ways to differently stop conversations like
- “Sorry, I’m feeling tired today” < all nurses should relate
- “Sorry, I’m not in the mood for talking right now”
Then there’s the general fact that often you don’t really don’t have to say anything as long as you listen and ask exploratory questions. I’m autistic and can barely keep a conversation going but this goes pretty well for me without a lot of effort. Just say stuff like:
- “So you’re saying that [literally rephrasing their point]”
- “So does that mean that…”
- “That must have been tricky”
- “That sounds hard/tricky/difficult”
- “Did you manage?”
- “So what did you do/end up doing?”
- “That sucks”
And if they somehow end up being sad and almost crying which happens more often than I’d like to admit you can just say “That sucks” put a hand on their shoulder and wait.
Another option would be to invite them to silence like:
- “I’m spent, do you want to sit over there, relax and eat in silence?”
People are sometimes uncomfortable with silence but not as much when it’s on purpose.
It’s just conversation lubricant. If you feel like the conversation is interesting then “Have you thought about doing X?”.
I can’t stress enough how much people will like you by just actively listening.
But always, be like the British monarchy, never take sides. Instead propose neutral hypotheticals like “Maybe they were having a bad day”. I’ve been in my fair share of gossip but acting as Switzerland manages to just avoid most of it. When people say “Why are you hanging out with X” then responding with “They never did anything to me”. If really pressed for opinion then say “I don’t know all the details so I can’t really give an honest opinion”. If they still press you after that you have my condolences since that’s toxic.
Sounds like a one sided arrangement that’s only good for you and not for the cohesion of the group. What’s the actual problem with connecting to/socialising with people?
I get that it’s annoying sometimes, and it’s fine to have limits. But you’re working in a place where other people are working, some people need socialising just like you need space. It’s give and take. You’re just asking for special treatment because you’re introverted?
Sorry but the excuse that it’s ‘just work’ is bullshit. You have responsibility, you’re an adult, different people different needs, be accommodating to get accommodation.
Some people need socialising
Great, so find some people who want to socialise. Having that need does not give them the right to force OP to socialise if he doesn’t want to. He’s not stopping them from doing it, he just doesn’t want to partake in it himself, and he has every right not to.
OP owes exactly nothing to his co-workers other than doing his job and being polite. If you think he does, then you’re the problem.
Why do you think it’s OK to force someone else into interacting with the world the same way you do, just to please you? That’s not what OP is doing.
Yeah and being polite includes making small talk when people want to engage with you, not be a dude that says “don’t talk to me we just work together”. Work consists of 1/3rd of your life, even more for a nurse where doing a 24hr shift is normal. Not engaging with anyone during that time is being rude, even if you don’t like to talk to people. It’s like the minimum of a social contract.
OP proposed many ways to let his co-workers know he doesn’t like chatting and none of them are what you quoted. In fact, he expressly created this thread to figure out how not to be rude to them
People are allowed to keep to themselves. Why does it bother you so much? Why are you so personally offended by this? I’ve never understood why extroverts feel as if the world owes them attention.
thank you for defending me, but as you can see, being a minority is not easy: a neutrally worded and genuine question is met by animosity because people like maalus simply don’t understand or don’t want to understand. And he get’s upvoted. Even worse, he and his followers assume malevolence.
Just wanted you to know that I appreciate the feeling, but they are more and talk waaay more.
But still, I don’t know what to tell my delicate coworkers.
And make no mistake, this post will also be downvoted…
Stop assuming things about people after reading a single comment. I am not an extravert. The reality of it is - completely ignoring and not talking to your coworkers is weird. Even if you don’t like socializing to a fault, it doesn’t mean you behave like a weirdo when someone engages you in simple conversation. Also, since they are a nurse, they’ll be the same towards their patients? Where is the limit? Bedside manner is important and so is interacting with the people you work with.
Your entire post is a series of straw man arguments that are completely fabricated.
Humans are social animals, you’re the odd one out here from a social perspective, not that you’re not entitled to that choice but choices have consequences.
I’d suggest just ignoring them. You aren’t going to find a better work environment anywhere else unless you literally have no coworkers.
I sympathize with OP. I’m an introvert and have never felt even the slightest motivation to be friends with my coworkers. I don’t care about any of them. I just want to do my job. I understand how I may be the minority in these situations. It’s frustrating but I understand why it happens. It’s tough.
so how do you survive them? and on a daily basis?
Well working remotely helps, ha. But I do have to be on calls constantly with my manager and others. But before when i was office based, it was hard. I had the same struggles at OP. I often just didn’t have the emotional capacity to eat lunch with my team and to engage in bullshit small talk conversations for an hour. It was always the same conversations over and over again. One guy would talk about his kids and complain about his mean wife. Another guy would argue politics. One woman would just talk about other boring bullshit and she was incredibly judgemental whenever I’d talk about my life. The worst was when the COO would sit with us and just straight up brag about the expensive things he owned. No joke. This happened a ton.
I’d eat at my desk a lot. And you can bet your ass that people noticed and some even gave me shit for it to my face.
I may need to clarify this. I didn’t mean to say that I don’t want to speak to anyone at all. That’s just not realistic with most jobs. I just mean that I don’t feel the need to be friends with them, and I’m not interested in getting to know anyone outside of the immediate professional duties we have to perform. I don’t care about their personal opinions or their families. I just don’t fucking care. In fact, I actively don’t want to know about anyone at work. I just want to do my job and leave/sign off and talk to my actual friends/family. I have no room for work relationships. I only have a finite amount of energy and I rather just put that into my work.