Dear Boss,
I started a new job abroad. It’s a small country, and I’m adjusting well. I lived as an expat for six years prior to this in a less developed country, working in a much smaller, less professional company, and I know how much worse things can be in terms of working conditions, pay, and general living standards. I’ve been treated 1,000 percent better by this company than I was by the last place I worked, and I try to tell them that, but they don’t listen. They seem convinced that it’s only a matter of weeks before I find out what it’s “really like” here and quit. To be fair, my first day was admittedly shaky. My boss, Jake, wasn’t there to provide any guidance, and I essentially had to fill in for him with no training. Once he got here, things improved a lot.
And yet I keep hearing “everyone hates it here” and “the last person in your position left after three months, we thought you’d be gone by now” and “Jake is only nice to you because he doesn’t want you to leave like the last person did.” Apparently, the last person in my role “brought her dog for emotional support,” and I’m not sure why. It’s like they don’t understand that I’m a different person, and if I have to hear about that damn dog one more time … Another former colleague who worked at this company warned me the company was going to wait until I started and then pull a bait and switch on me. So far, they haven’t. One of my colleagues (another longtime employee) quit within the first week, which has made our department understaffed and resulted in me doing less of the job I was hired for. This was unfortunate, but not the company’s fault.
Jake has been nice to me. He’s a stickler in some ways, but I’ve found him generally easy to get along with. One colleague told me he pulled her aside and berated her for 20 minutes about a misplaced comma. This is not behavior I’ve personally observed, and I’ve been in numerous meetings with him at this point. Around me, he’s been extremely even-keeled.
The company does not have high turnover, and I think the last person in my job was just a bad fit. The people who complain the most are those who have been here for 20 years, and when I point that out, they respond, “Well, we have nowhere else to go, so they can treat us however they want.” That’s true in a way, since they’re locals and this company is the only game in town in this industry.
I find myself wondering if my standards are wildly askew and whether I should be waiting for the other shoe to drop. Is this a me problem or a them problem?
I don’t think you should frame this as “Is it a me problem or a them problem?” because it might not be anyone’s problem. You could just have different expectations from jobs and from bosses, and you might have different levels of sensitivity to some of the annoyances that come with any job. That doesn’t mean any of you are wrong.
Sure, it’s possible that as soon as you’re comfortable there, Jake will turn into an ogre, the company will switch your job duties, and you’ll understand what everyone is complaining about. But it’s also possible that what you’re seeing now is what you’ll continue to see … and that you just don’t object to the things that have your colleagues so riled up.
Some people are able to work with managers who are widely considered “difficult” and don’t find them especially tough to work with. Sometimes that’s because they have a thick skin, and the things that bother other people roll off them more easily. Other times they just “get” the formula for working with a particular boss in a way that’s not intuitive to others. (For example, I used to work for someone who a lot of people disliked, and I had a great relationship with him. What worked for me was that I was always candid with him, didn’t get intimidated by him, and knew how to disagree with him without coming across as adversarial. Other people who applied that formula did pretty well with him, too. Everyone else hated him.)
It’s also possible that because your co-workers have been there for 20 years, they don’t have a lot of outside experience governing what is and isn’t reasonable for them to expect from a boss or from a job. Or, who knows, it could be a cultural difference, too; since you’re coming into a new culture, what feels reasonable to you might just be calibrated differently than it is for them.
It’s still worth keeping all the warnings in the back of your mind, because if things do start feeling off to you, that will be helpful context to have; you’ll be more likely to spot it quickly rather than second-guessing yourself the way you otherwise might be tempted to do. But unless and until that happens, it’s reasonable to judge based on what you’re seeing — and so far, what you’re seeing feels okay to you.
Related: ‘Is My Job the Problem, or Is it Me?’
‘Should I Even Bother Job Searching in This Economy?’
Dear Boss,
I’ve been wanting to leave my job for over a year, but the tough market has led to only a few interviews and no offers to date. Even if I did get one tomorrow, what once would have been an immediate “see ya!” to my current employer is now giving me pause. I do have fairly high job security in my current role and would be concerned about being laid off at a different company. I am also very burnt out. The prospect of pausing my search only to be pushed to work even harder at my current job amid the chaos of my colleagues being laid off — me too, possibly — is depressing.
Do you have any advice for thinking about whether to change jobs in a tough market combined with the current instability in the U.S.?
Don’t pause your job search. Interviewing for a new job doesn’t obligate you to accept a new position if it’s offered; it just expands your options. You can assess any job you’re offered on its own merits. Maybe it will be with a company or in an industry that’s reassuringly stable or reasonably insulated from the current instability. Maybe it will be for a big enough salary bump that you’d be more willing to tolerate more risk. Or maybe none of those will be true — but they’re all possible, and so you should keep searching with an open mind. If you get an offer, compare it to your current situation and decide accordingly. But it doesn’t make sense to close yourself off from options before you even know what they are.
Keep in mind, too, that you’re not comparing “perfectly secure current job” to “risky new job.” You’re saying you think it’s likely some of your colleagues could be laid off, which means your job could be at risk as well.
Ultimately, you can’t avoid all risk, but the more options you have to choose from, the stronger your position will be. (Plus, if you do get laid off from your current job, you won’t be starting from scratch with your search.)
Related: How to Find a Job Long-Distance
Find even more career advice from Alison Green on her website, Ask a Manager. Got a question for her? Email askaboss@nymag.com (and read our submission terms here.)