very similar question to my last one but this time with management, not a coworker.

Similar because she keeps pestering me with what to her seems to be an important issue. She doesn't seem to understand that I'm there to work and not to socialize. On our last conversation she told me we're a big family and that I'm welcomed to be sincere with her with a big smile, to me a fake one.

So many red flags I wanted to run, but I still have to articulate it in office speak so she stops pestering me.

Context is an exit interview management is going to use to try and convince me to stay, but I don't want to work there anymore, too much drama and cattiness over dumb crap.

I go to work to work because I need a paycheck, not to make friends.

Where I am there is a new coworker that to me acts needy (think of Slow Horses's Struan Loy), tries befriending me, but he invariably asks if everything's ok. I don't care about this person's life.

The first 2 times I didn't think anything of it, but he asks that every day and it's becoming tiring.

I feel mobbed and stalked, mobbed because he keeps insinuating there is something wrong with me just because I don't ask him about his private life and do my job, and stalked, because he is so fixated on me.

going to HR over this seems ridiculous, but I'm starting to hate his voice.

chorus keeps repeating "dubia, ooh dubia" (something I didn't get here) "dubia ooh dubia, that's what I'm talking abouuuut'

if not dubia, maybe nubia or nuria or buria, seems to be an American singer.

it's not the bee gees and I believe is from the 80's. Melody is: d c c, e d c d c c, f f e f e f e d d, d c c, e d c d c c, f f e f e f g, a a g a g f g, f f e d e f g...

singer sounds a bit like Eddie Holman (hey there lonely girl)

ETA: solved, Robin Gibb‘s song Juliet

I'm finding the hard way that finding another job is a grind: you invest time reading what they want to hire, you write a CV and an application.

Most of the time you don't get an answer, meaning you are that irrelevant to them. Most of these times it is YOU the one who has to ask if they decided for or against. On the limited times they write you back, it's a computed generated BS polite rejection letter.

I asked one of them how many candidates they considered and why they rejected me, but that only made them send me another computer generated letter.

I'd like to know how close I was and in what ways I can become a more interesting candidate, but nobody is going to give me a realistic answer.

It sucks having to need them more than they need you. And I should consider me lucky, because I have a job, but jesus christ, I feel for those who have to do this without stable income or a family that offers them a place to stay...

cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/16125204

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?

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?

cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/14816537

I’m 43 years old but apparently I have a baby face, good hair for my age and everyone believes I’m in my mid 20s, even though I already have some gray hairs nobody seems to notice (so far).

I started the lie: first time I started my last job at a hospital immediately after my bachelor and told my new coworkers my real age (38 at the time) they started judging me: why are you not married, why don’t you have children, what have you done in the last 20 years.

The way these women asked was accusatory, like I’m a failure for being almost 40 and not having children or being single. At that moment I decided next time somebody at the workplace asks me for my age, to blatantly and shamelessly lie: I’m 25, leave me alone.

Since that bad experience I’ve worked at 2 other hospitals and my lie has always helped: patients and coworkers believe I’m 25 because as said I look like it, don’t pester me about children or marriage and while my current coworkers are gossips and need drama to live, they don’t push my buttons because I don’t give them any ammunition. It’s tolerable.

Note that I didn’t lie in my application and accounting and management at my workplace know very well my real age, but my coworkers and direct manager are oblivious to it: On my first day I just told them I’m 25 and they didn’t question it.

Now, I have the body of a 43 year old, meaning I don’t lift heavy patients like a 25 year old and sometimes I come home with back pain. I don’t know if I’d get better assignments if I’m sincere about my age (I’d like that, but is it realistic?). I just don’t want to get to 65 with a broken back. I don’t want drama either, just to work and go home.

I lie to protect myself.

If I need to change this, why and how?

I’m 43 years old but apparently I have a baby face, good hair for my age and everyone believes I’m in my mid 20s, even though I already have some gray hairs nobody seems to notice (so far).

I started the lie: first time I started my last job at a hospital immediately after my bachelor and told my new coworkers my real age (38 at the time) they started judging me: why are you not married, why don’t you have children, what have you done in the last 20 years.

The way these women asked was accusatory, like I’m a failure for being almost 40 and not having children or being single. At that moment I decided next time somebody at the workplace asks me for my age, to blatantly and shamelessly lie: I’m 25, leave me alone.

Since that bad experience I’ve worked at 2 other hospitals and my lie has always helped: patients and coworkers believe I’m 25 because as said I look like it, don’t pester me about children or marriage and while my current coworkers are gossips and need drama to live, they don’t push my buttons because I don’t give them any ammunition. It’s tolerable.

Note that I didn’t lie in my application and accounting and management at my workplace know very well my real age, but my coworkers and direct manager are oblivious to it: On my first day I just told them I’m 25 and they didn’t question it.

Now, I have the body of a 43 year old, meaning I don’t lift heavy patients like a 25 year old and sometimes I come home with back pain. I don’t know if I’d get better assignments if I’m sincere about my age (I’d like that, but is it realistic?). I just don’t want to get to 65 with a broken back. I don’t want drama either, just to work and go home.

I lie to protect myself.

If I need to change this, why and how?