as said previously I’m a nurse, which means the overwhelming majority of employees are women. Gossiping, being unauthentic, cattiness and passive aggressiveness is a daily occurrence.
My current unit: there are 2 men that seem to be completely stoic (I don’t know what word would describe them better): they ignore drama and jabs, even if directed at them, they are punctual with their pauses, I mean really, 30 minutes and that’s it, and can ignore when other coworkers lazy around, even if it means they have to be the ones doing most of the work, extra work they don’t receive any extra money or recognition for.
I am writing in awe, because as much as I’d like to be this thick skinned, I am not. The feeling of being treated unfairly rubs me the wrong way really fast. My strategy so far has been to lazy around so much as my direct coworkers, even if they’re part of an established group at the ward I don’t belong to. They’re the ones supposed to be showing me around and teach me. If they don’t work, why should I?
I believe this is a trait of mine, something nearly impossible to change, it would make more sense to change the setting than trying to change me, to change jobs. I don’t know how to play this game where I am, in a workplace where most employees are women.
But my question remains to all of you who are this thick skinned: how? I don’t understand it. Don’t you find it tiring? Doesn’t it make you feel like shit when you go back home? Don’t you feel taken advantage of?
There’s two parts:
Highly valuing my professionalism and dignity is the first part. I don’t need to chase money or approval because I can always make more money, get another job, make new friends. What I can’t afford to lose is my respect for myself, my professional reputation, and the self-discipline that makes me effective at what I do.
The second part is what I’ve long called “charitable apathy”. I genuinely don’t care what others think and just try to treat them with kindness and understanding. You know, like children. Teach them if they want to learn, give them a snack if they’re grumpy, applaud their terrible art as long as it doesn’t make too much of a mess. Anyone who complains that this is condescending is exactly the kind of person most in need of your apathy and least in need of your charity.
Since this is the third or fourth post of yours in this vein, I will remind you of previous advice: Part of your job is to get along with your coworkers. It’s okay if you don’t enjoy it; nobody enjoys every part of their job. Just say “hello” and “goodbye” and “I’m getting coffee, do you want one?” and occasionally compliment their shoes or hair or whatever; it goes a long way.
I think your notion of charitable apathy probably only comes across as condescending if in your explanation you make it sound like you’ve never been (or would never be) in a position to receive that treatment from others.
I feel like a few words tossed in to clarify that would probably help people avoid a gut reaction about your ideas.
People might also be getting hung up on the idea of treating someone like a child. I had my kids a little later in life, and I treat my toddlers like adults. What do I do when an adult is crying? I sit with them and comfort them. What do I do if I see an adult about to step in dog shit? Yell to them to tell them a warning to watch their feet. What do I do if an adult tells me they’re hungry? I help them get food. What do I do if adult tells me they want to play with hot wheels with me? I say yes.
Maybe I fundamentally don’t understand how others conceptualize treating a child. I think that term is super loaded. Like the word “savory”. You can ask 10 people what the phrase/word means and you’ll get 10 confident and incompatible answers.
I like the cut of your jib.
Sounds like to me that maybe its not about how thick their skins are but about not taking the job personally. If you view a job just performing a function for money and just focus solely on the job it would look the same. Ignore other peoples drama, personalities, work ethics etc. Just do the job and focus on that ignore the drama, the gossip, and focus on doing your job well.
I manage staff and my best employees would seem stoic but really they just had focus, good work ethics, and a kind of get in and get out mentality. No gossip, no hanging out with their coworkers. Work was work then go home.
As someone in this camp, this is very accurate. I’m simply very selective about the amount of fucks I give at work, and save them for my personal life. It makes me a better worker on top of having better work/life balance.
Right, there’s a reason it’s called “work” and not “fun!”
Do work, get cheque, leave. Why get drained emotionally if you aren’t being paid for it.
Not everything is worth caring about
Because I am completely dead inside already. My skin isn’t thick; it is simply necrotic.
Yeahhh I am so far beyond caring. I go in (or log in when I’m WFH) and I just do the job. There’s drama and people are all doing things and causing issues and I’m just… gonna do the job I’m paid for. There’s no way I’m exerting the mental effort to care about more than “do the job I can eat the food and live in shelter”
Get fucked and/or fired a few times for no good reason. That hide will thicken up might fast. Forces you into a new perspective and resets some priorities.
I’ve learned that the boss can and will be a prick as he pleases (always dudes in my case). Hes going to do that and you can either fight with him and get fired or backburnered, or you can just eat shit and move on.
You can get into pissing matches with peers, but the person who wins is the person the boss likes more. If it isn’t you, accept defeat and move on.
Modern work is just the act of eating shit for money. There is no dignity, there is no payoff. You are just giving untalented clowns what they want in exchange for money. I don’t think any of us wanted it this way, but here we are.
I have fully been broken and institutionalized by the system. I have zero hope of ascending to some lofty position by virtue of my intelligence and hard work. Those who run everything pick their own. Unless you grew up with parents who run everything, there is a very low chance you ever will. They pick their own kind, anyone else is a liability.
Shit flows down… And unless you are in da club…
Honestly the drama sounds like it is the extra work that these guys aren’t being paid enough to deal with. They’re wise enough to know to stay out. Compartmentalization is key here.
Exactly… Why waste time and energy on drama.
Rabbied dogs will love on to the next target thats provides more reaction
there are 2 men that seem to be completely stoic (I don’t know what word would describe them better): they ignore drama and jabs, even if directed at them
It may be that they are just oblivious.
Years ago my wife and I noticed a difference between the men who worked for her and the women who worked for her.
She had to take a woman aside and tell her that her shoes weren’t appropriate for the office. The woman heard, “she thinks I’m a slut.”
The men would hear, “she thinks my shoes aren’t appropriate for the office.”
Science indicates that women generally have more brain space devoted to communication than men. That is typically accepted to indicate that women communicate better than men, but it really just means more of their brain is involved.
Like a person with macular degeneration seeing hallucinations because their brain is trying to fill in the missing information, some women will hallucinate information that isn’t in the communication.
They will also think they are communicating in ways that aren’t conveyed with words. Many men will miss subtle, “read-between-the-lines” subtext because they just don’t have the neural real-estate to deal with it.
Women are also more likely to care about what other people think, simply because they are more likely to be at risk if they piss off the wrong person. Men can usually be a bit more chill because less of the population can threaten them. So it’s entirely possible that those two men don’t care because they know no one is going to kick their ass, so there’s nothing to get upset about.
Men will care a lot about actual aggressiveness. When you’ve had to be stitched back together after being jumped, passive-aggressiveness doesn’t seem like that much of a big deal.
“Women are also more likely to care about what other people think, simply because they are more likely to be at risk if they piss off the wrong person. Men can usually be a bit more chill because less of the population can threaten them. So it’s entirely possible that those two men don’t care because they know no one is going to kick their ass, so there’s nothing to get upset about.”
This is an important factor, and not always a gender thing. I can be thick skinned at my work because I don’t care, if that makes sense. For whatever incomprehensible reason, management where I work thinks I do a better job than others in my department even though I give them all credit and make as many mistakes. So I say what I mean in meetings and the other ladies are amazed that I push so much, one is convinced she’s on the brink of being fired all the time, I have mostly worked at startups and never got in the habit of deferring to management and so I don’t.
That’s just work though. We don’t have much politics here. My one experience with a place like that, with complicated underlying relationships, cliques and people trying to undercut others, I was absolutely useless, no idea how anyone navigates all that. It did affect me, I did feel lost and upset and frustrated.
Men will care a lot about actual aggressiveness. When you’ve had to be stitched back together after being jumped, passive-aggressiveness doesn’t seem like that much of a big deal.
Fuckin a, man.
In the show Severance, you have a innie and a outtie. That’s me.
My innie is here to do the work and make money. Sometimes my innie hangs out with coworkers. Or acknowledge their major life event. But innie does marketing work and adds more garbage to the garbage pile.
My outtie has a family. He loves his family. He takes them to plays and dinners and outdoor events. He paints and watches lame TV. He tells his wife how beautiful she is, his kids how proud they make him.
Their two lives are separate. Innie is focused, driven, direct, and some what of an asshole to get the job done. Outtie is loving, spends time with his family, and paints.
Am I thick skinned? No. Innie is just willing to suck corporate dick and do a song and dance so outtie can enjoy life.
Yecch.
Stoicism isn’t a state, it’s a practice. I think the Buddhists act the same way. None of us will ever become truly “enlightened” but if we keep trying we become better ourselves.
I cannot change your emotions or actions towards me; I can only change how I respond to your emotions or actions towards me. It’s obviously way more complicated than that but yeah, you might be a candidate to read some Seneca or Epictetus. Not going to be a cure all but might help you as you navigate this fucked up world.
I’m not trying to care that much. I work to finance my life outside of work. I don’t think about work when I’m not at work.
If I am being paid to do a job all I really care about while I’m working is doing the job. I might judge people for their failings and look down on them for being shitty, but I really don’t care because I’m just there to do the job I’m being paid to do. I might feel bad if people are talking shit and spreading rumors about me or whatever, but I don’t give a shit because I’m at work to work. If people are slacking off and not working when they should be, that is an issue for management to deal with. If people are spreading rumors and creating disruptions with gossip and drama, that is an issue for management to deal with. I care about doing the job I am paid to do, anything else going on at work is not my problem. I don’t think I’m actually that thick skinned or anything really, I’m just maintaining basic professionalism in what is supposed to be a professional environment.
To me it sounds like you have shitty management and shitty coworkers. You can try to be a catalyst for change in a more positive direction if you want but it might be better for you to find a more professional workplace. Also, I do think if dumb drama and gossip at work bothers you this much finding a job with fewer coworkers or a more independent role would probably be a better fit for you.
As an almost 40 year old man who has worked a few years in different kinds of healthcare (including being the only man in a retirement home). I would get pissed when people being lazy caused suffering (because of lack of care) but that never gave me the go ahead to do the same. I’m better than that.
I also started my job journey working in factories, wielding shops and construction sites. In factories you learn to count every minute and be extremely punctual. You know how many seconds more you can chat before you get a backlog and shit from the boss.
In shops and construction sites people will chew you out and really ostracise you if you don’t carry your weight.
But mostly: Is my job to actually be working during my working time and I don’t give a fuck about what Karen thinks about stuff, she’s shit at everything anyway
It’s quite possible these men have reached the Nirvana of being thick-skinned. If so, we all should be in awe, as that is a rare thing to achieve. It also could be that men are not allowed to show emotion, and would otherwise be condemned if they complained or didn’t “take it like a man”; especially being around a lot of women where they feel even more pressured to show up and be a man.
It’s good to keep in mind that not showing emotions doesn’t mean not feeling them. Men don’t generally act that way with each other because there’s a real and always-present danger of actual violence. Disagreements usually either get solved, or we just bury those feelings until someone pushes us over the edge - and then we punch them in the face.
That’s not an option when you’re a man working with women. You can’t let things escalate because they can take it further than you can. He might be boiling inside, but there’s no outlet for it. We just deal with it and we’re usually quite good at that since we’ve been doing it all our lives.
I feel you exactly the same. I don’t know how my coworkers do it. They can literally get screamed at, called out in a meeting in front of others and it’s like nothing to them. Meanwhile I fight back tears and my voice raises and I panic. In the corporate world that means I’m weak. I’m damn good at my job but in a situation like that I just crumple, and to leadership they don’t look at my projects or outcomes, all they see are those few instances.
It also haunts me years and years later.
After the resulting shit from being friends with my coworkers at my first “real” job, I avoid work socialization as much as possible. I’ve been with my currently company for 3 years and have only given my number to 3 people…two of which just wanted pictures of my dog since I stopped using Instagram.
Nobody knows me that well and I like it that way. Nobody asks me to fix their computer, nobody shares the latest gossip. If they try, I say “oh wow” and then look back at my screen
