Published on 12, July, 2020
Hello everyone, it's me with a question again.
I find professional relationships very hard. The main reason is because I feel that they seem so fake to me.
Small talks? People who don't really know me or care about how I feel nor have time to hear my real answer still ask me "how are you today?", "How was your weekend?".
Lunches and team activities?. People whom I don't know but I can't actually get to know or ask personal questions because we are just colleagues and not friends. Still it's expected to find something to talk about for more than an hour?!. Most topics in that setting don't interest me and seem superficial.
Team work? Ok, that one is easier because we actually talk about work and it fits our relationship description "colleagues" and it doesn't seem like a superficial talk, but they confuse me at times when they change their opinions about the same thing or it comes across as if they want to push their views and opinions over others. I become very unmotivated to share my view because I know that most probably eventually it won't be applied anyway and it's just waste of my power and energy.
Sometimes I say things that cause their face expressions to suddenly dramatically change. I spend hours trying to figure out where the misunderstanding was. In one occasion they were talking about an awful accident and I found something about it funny and I started laughing and everyone looked at me as if I'm a psychopath. I'm actually hypersensitive and have overwhelming high empathy.
The style of talking as using formal sentences and professional words to sound smart and so on. Dressing in an office suitable manner which is so damn superficial because it serves no real cause other than sounding and looking in a certain way even if it doesn't reflect your true self in anyway. I can't present myself as a professional. I can present myself as Ree...
How do you manage professional relationships? Any tips on how you make it true to yourself and not exhausting while thriving in professional relationships?
I had many years as a Service Desk manager having to meet suppliers, end user with requests or complaints and all sorts of people wanting something from my team so have plenty of experience with this.
My solution was to get some books on making small talk and use these to build a mental list of things to talk about and practice the art of asking people more about the things they are interested in so that they carry the conversation as much as possible.
I always would try to set expectations at the start of anything work related - ie get the work stuff out the way first then we can chat, or (better) you can get some time back in your day to not have to spend it speaking with the propeller heads in IT.
With the ones you meet more often, pay attention to what they talk about and ask for updates, or at a stretch, ask for advice on something they have a special interest in. This should get them going for a while and you just need to listed and feign an interest.
When there is some subject being talked about that is likely to be sensitive then don't say anything, just listen and if they ask why you are not expressing an opinion, just say you are taking it in and processing.
Ultimately you are highly likely to need to mask at work when dealing with others professionally so learn how to do it well, and try to create a working environment for the rest of the time when you can be more authentic.
We are on the 10% or so of the population who have these sorts of issues and to expect the other 90% to adapt to us would be impractical I think, so in the occasions where we do have to engage with them, lets arm outselves with the tools to survive.
That would be my take and advice.
Very helpful. Thank you