Everyone at work speaks to me like shit.
At work, the majority of my team and wider colleagues speak down to me. There’s a huge lack of respect towards me. They over explain, they tell me “I’m learning”, and then proceed to offer unsolicited advice about how to do my job. They talk over me and demand I do things, and when I resist they become more forceful in their tone. They sometimes actually take over my work and make decisions they have no place to be making. They even introduced me to external professionals as “our little (insert job title). It’s beyond patronising.
I’m not a trainee, I started as a trainee and people never let me forget that. But I’ve been there 3 years, and I’m more qualified and knowledgeable than many in my team. I’m extremely competent at my job, my manger confirms this and really likes me, and I even won an award and a bonus at an annual employee conference last year for my work as an outstanding employee who goes above and beyond. Only 9 people won awards out of almost 4,000 employees who could have been nominated. I’m just saying this so it’s clear I’m not some incompetent fool.
I can’t understand why people treat me this way. I thought it might be because I can be quite self-deprecating, but today I was wondering if it’s my appearance.
Most people I work with are 40-55 years old. I am late 30s, but look, dress and act a lot younger because I’m immature and don’t have my personal life together. When I tell people my age, 9 times out of 10 they’re very surprised and say they thought I was in my mid twenties. So I was wondering if it’s like a perceived age discrimination thing, even though it’s imaginary because I’m older. What do think it going on here? Has any actual real young person on here faced this by older colleagues where there’s just a huge lack of respect?
