A
female
age
30-35,
anonymous
writes:I've been feeling really down. After graduating from uni I finally landed a full time job. Not something too challenging but with opportunities.. Until I found out I can't even do the simple things.From day one I always felt the managers were expecting alot from me from the way they spoke about me, about how intellegent and confident I was because I'd been to uni.. Thing is my role is a receptionist/admin assistant. Its not a difficult job, but I'm struggling with the most basic tasks. Things like setting rooms up, I just got told to do it one day, no one told me how and I ended up having to ask which really knocked my confidence. Simple things like afew weeks ago I was asked to create a spreadsheet for some data, then today I got approached to ask if I had done this weeks, no one told me it was a weekly thing. I admit I could have asked but i can't as "Is this a weekly thing?" for every task I'm given. I'm not sure if the manager expected someone else to tell me it was or for me to ask. I have been told how to greet important visitors, except on one occasion I was told by someone who was working with the director to take the visitor straight through when they arrived. I later got a telling off for this as the director always likes to be told they have arrived which gives her time to prepare. Fair enough, but I was told different. Even so it's the smallest, most simplest things that because I've never been in that sort of job before (I came from retail) I have never done and I'm bound to make mistakes.To make it worse, I'm on 6 month probation. I had a reivew last week and the majority of it was good, however my manager said one thing that was concerning him was I had a very confident interview, and now hes failing to see me put that into practise. Of course I was confident, I had practised for it. Just as if I was to talk about something I know I would be confident, but the fact is I've never done a job role like this, and because making silly mistakes or "not using my own initative to fix a problem" - when really I can't do that when I'm still taking in how the company and everyone operate, its making me look bad, and I fear I'm disappointing them.I have been there 6 weeks now and its not a difficult job. There are times when i don't have things to do but I always offer to see if anyone needs help. Where the problem lies Is working for the director as she is severly dyslexic herself and doesn't explain things very well. Both my mum and another new employee has said I seem to have been thrown in at the deep end. I can't comment because its not a difficult job but you never know whats on the other end of the phone and the only training I had was shadowing someone for 1 day, so I'm still unsure how various courses and services within the company are structured etc. Its one of them organisations where things just happen and you just go with the flow.I love it there and I want to be good with what I do, but I fear they will let me go because I'm not as good as they thought.. The other thing is I have always been abit "backwards" I can do the advanced things, however I struggle to know the basics and to take in information, and often need things explaining more than once. I have told my manager this and explained that i want to learn and they understood. I'm just slow and when I'm new I don't understand the simple things. I was tested for dylexia at school, just the basics, spelling, left and right etc and it came back fine so they weren't interest. I guess I'm just very slow.. There is also a good chance I had viral menegtis at the age of 14 as thats when these problems started, these included getting very easily distracted, struggling to be motivated for tasks I didn't really like, learning difficulities and general understanding. It wasn't until these problems started that they linked my illness back to have likely been viral menegitis.I don't want to loose my job but its really knocking my confidence and in return my performance isn't the best. I'm worried they'll get rid of me. What can I do? Or is it a case of it is just me being thick and I need to buck my ideas up?
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female
reader, Honeypie  + ♥, writes (25 March 2014):
 Start by organizing your thoughts and jobs/ tasks you have performed over the last 6 weeks.
The make your self a BIG old binder.
Make a tab for DAILY stuff.
-add all the things you have to do daily.
Make a tab for WEEKLY stuff.
-add all the things you HAVE to do on a weekly basis.
Like you spreadsheets and so forth.
Have a tab called conference.
-add the list of what you need to remember for setting up the conference table/meeting room.
Make a tab with guests.
-add what you NOW know is the procedure. How to greet, how to call and then WHERE to take them.
Have a tab with phone numbers of the people you KNOW you can rely on to ask questions. JUST BECAUSE you went to uni doesn't mean you AUTOMATICALLY know how to do stuff, so if you know there are people you can ASK, add them.
BUT DO remember if you ask someone how to do something, add it to your folder, so you don't have to ASK the same question over and over, because you by now KNOW this.
YOU have been thrown in the deep end, now it's time to swim, Nemo.
YOU can do it.
GET organized, it will help you feel more confident.
NEVER be afraid to ask questions. Asking questions is how you can learn.
My Mom taught me the binder method, when I started to work at age 14. Granted it was JUST as a sales clerk at a bakery, but it's a thing I have used my whole career. My first binder had info about what grains and/or seeds were in the bread, what ingredients cakes, petit fours, cookies, pastries. What days we had deliveries, how to take down orders neatly, how to do the till, end of the day counts, even how to clean for close up. Everything was in the folder.
In MANY of my jobs a copy on MY binder was used to help new employees.
YOU DO need to buck up, but you have tried to swim for 6 weeks and you are not quite making it, so figure out what you need in order to not just keep head above water, but to start swimming with confidence.
For ME (not saying it works for everyone) but my binder helped me. My OCD (I kid you not) has helped me too because I'm really good with routines. FIND your routine.
YOU can do this.
A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (25 March 2014): I've been in very similar situations myself but my bosses were vile to me.Around your age I graduated with a First Class honours but the job market was so awful that I had to take a secretarial course and work as a PA. For a vile woman. And then a vile man. And then a not so bad company. And then I changed career entirely.What I would say to you is that I totally lacked confidence and self value and, whilst my bosses genuinely were horrible people and I was terrified of losing my job because I also had a child to support single handedly, it was my own self esteem and self confidence that caused me untold misery. The trick is to learn NOT to put yourself down - I can see very clearly that you are already starting to undermine yourself with your doubts and inner questioning of why you may be 'bad' at your job. Working in offices to begin with can be an absolute minefield and, if you are female, you are expected to be both subservient AND proactive. It's not an easy combination for many women who have been university educated, but it's not at all impossible to 'get it'. The other trick is to learn to take a very, very proactive attitude. By this I don't mean to imply that you aren't already trying, you are. What I mean is that a proactive attitude is a skill that has to be learned - it means learning to anticipate potential needs of your boss. You are not a mind reader and you simply won't know what a lot of these needs are. But you can start by simply writing down or logging on a computer exactly what you do every day and asking yourself and other relevant people some simple questions: eg. Is this a 'one off' thing or do I have to do this regularly? Is there anything extra related to this task that I could be doing that would help the workflow of the office and help my boss? If someone gives me a 'wrong' or 'contradictory' instruction what do I do to avoid confusion in the future eg. should I assert the rule that my boss has already given me, should I accept what the other person is now telling me what to do? How can I assertively ask for extra training if the company is not being forthcoming with training? How can I check that my boss is happy with my work without seeming insecure?These are some of the questions you can start asking to get yourself in proactive mode. The company will have been attracted to your seeming confidence at interview because in all likelihood they KNOW that they don't have proper training in place for someone in your position and they are hoping to find someone who is confident and assertive enough to fulfill the role without any major complaints. It's unfair, yes, but that's office life and there is NO point at this stage in complaining about it. If you do that, it will simply confirm your and their worst fear that you lack confidence. What they want to see is someone who will at least not cause trouble and fit in and, at best, someone who can anticipate OR show that they are learning to anticipate what is needed to create efficiency in the office. Your role will be to create a stable, efficient working environment in which your superiors can feel safe and secure to flourish in their roles. This is where the subservience comes in - you are in a supportive role and will only flourish in terms of how you support others in doing their jobs to their best ability. That's until you decide to move on to another role with more scope.Please don't undermine yourself and your intelligence. You don't have to surrender your intelligence forever just because you are learning a new role. I know it's hard but there's honestly little point in comparing university life and intellect with what you are doing in the office, which is all about learning rituals and systems and supporting practices. It's effectively asking you to switch one part of your brain into sleep mode and activate another. As soon as you realise that, you will flourish. But if you keep undermining yourself by wondering why one part of your brain isn't 'kicking in' in this new context, then you'll simply make yourself depressed and ill. Recognise that you are effectively' growing' another mindset, from scratch. Your bosses don't really care about the content of your university education or of whether that stimulated your brain - it simply looks attractive on paper and for the company to have an employee with a university education and it shows that you have some stamina and staying power. It's nothing unusual for bosses to feel that way, it happens in the majority of companies. That really is as far as it goes for them. But just because they're not engaged in helping you to extend what you've learned at university doesn't mean you have to now use your own university education to undermine yourself - which is what you are starting to do - and don't use it as 'proof' to yourself that you are useless. You're not. But what's happened is that you've 'grown' one part of your mindset and the other is relatively, but not totally, underdeveloped. This is why someone working in an office since 16, but without uni. education, might seem to be able to do your job 'better' - they've simply grown one part of their mindset. Where it differs for you is that although you are in 'catch up' mode for now, once you have caught up, you will be able to go further because of your education. For now, learn the rituals, learn to anticipate, learn to grow your confidence ask for regular feedback on your performance. And accept that you are learning and that whilst this feels embarassing and scary, it is the only way that it can be. Of course it's not fair that you're not getting proper training. But a huge part of office life is learning to deal with many, many instances of unfair treatment and not having good systems in place for resolving them - it's not like you can tell teacher or complain. You have to learn other ways of dealing with it and it will come - a huge part of that is learning whether being 'right' or 'fair' is better than causing fuss and upset to your bossses and drawing negative attention to yourself. You can't always insist on justice. Instead of putting yourself down, inwardly reward yourself every time you do something right or make a small step forward. You sound quite self punishing and it's a habit worth nipping in the bud now or it will get worse and worse. However artificial it feels, create a little space in your brain to say "well done' every time you do a tiny part of your job right.
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A
female
reader, Sensible Alice  +, writes (25 March 2014):
 It does sound like you've been thrown in the deep end without much consideration given to training. It might be an easy job, but it's being made harder by the fact that you aren't sure what you need to be doing. The only way to find out is to see the relevant people. Tell them that at times you feel you aren't doing the best you can because you just aren't sure what needs to be done. Ask them to explain exactly they need you to do on certain days, times and the protocols they expect you to carry out and write it down. Don't be afraid to ask questions. How will you know what they expect of you if you don't? Once you clearly know what you need to do you can set about doing it with confidence.
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