What am I missing?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I feel like everything I do lately is wrong. I’ve been feeling this for the past 3 or 4 years, but in the past year the feeling has been growing. I’m getting this feeling from multiple people, both at work and at home.

Throughout my life, I’ve been told by my parents, family and friends that I should be confident and feel free to express myself and my opinion. I feel like I’m getting conflicting messages:

“Show confidence in what you do.”
So I do that and get, “Why are you being so arrogant?”

“I want you to bring any issue to me. My door is always open.”
Ok. I do that and get, “If you don’t have anything positive to say, I don’t want to hear it.”

“All opinions are welcome.”
Fine. I give my opinion and get, “Hey, stop being so argumentative!”

It just seems like every time I show confidence, I end up getting reprimanded for being argumentative or criticized for being arrogant. It seems like every time I try to express my opinion, it is readily dismissed. I’m not talking about issues that are politically or socially polarizing. I’m talking about things that I do during the course of my work, or things that I discuss at home as part of running the household or raising the family… just ordinary stuff.

To give you a little background about myself, I am an 48 year old male with a wife, 4 children that are high school age or older. I am pretty much a “Don’t rock the boat” kind of guy. I don’t like to cause controversy and I hate it if I upset anyone. I don’t know if this has anything to do with it, but when I was growing up I was always kind of shy and felt awkward in social situations, especially parties. After about age 24, I learned to overcome my shyness and learned to be more social.

Why do I feel like when it comes to dealing with people that it would be better if I just sit down and shut up? I understand that I can’t make everybody I encounter happy all the time, but this seems so much more than that. Am I missing something? Is something wrong with me? Am I being paranoid? What is it I don’t get? Could I be the guy that people look down upon because there’s “Something strange about him”? Could I be the guy that people look at and think they need to be careful around because, “… he’s a difficult person”?

Should I even care?

2

First, an “open door” policy simply means “I have to say this to seem like a good manager. In actuality, I don’t want to hear anything negative about anything”

Second, frame your opinion as questions that make other people feel stupid if you are right and they are wrong. That works a lot better than “That plan won’t work because it doesn’t follow Regulation A-2” or whatever. Instead, try something like “It doesn’t seem like this plan is following Regulation A-2. Are we able to do that?”

Third, doing your job confidently is great. Proclaiming how much of an expert you are is arrogant.

3

I don’t. Works for me.

4

:You are correct, of course. I don’t go around proclaiming how much of an expert I am. What is happening is that I am doing my job competently and I am capable of doing much more, but others seem to be intentionally double checking my work or criticizing it anyways.

5

I agree with this. Delivery is everything. No one likes to be told their wrong, but if you ask pointed questions and they realize they are wrong that way, it allows them to save face and leads to the same result.

6

There are two issues here: One is that nobody really wants to hear the truth as much as they claim. Every CEO I’ve ever worked for has claimed that he/she has an open-door policy, and not a single one actually meant it.

But it also sounds like your phrasing could use some work. Don’t barge in and say, “This policy sucks” or whatever, even though it’s probably true. You have to say it like, “THIS COMPANY IS GREAT AND YOU’RE GREAT AND EVERYONE IS GREAT I LOVE EVERYTHING BUT WE COULD BE EVEN BETTER IF WE JUST TWEAKED THIS ONE TINY THING.”

Or you could say it like you normally do and just stop caring what people think. Like our president. Both are viable options.

7

Um, no - at least in the vast majority of places I have ever worked or my implementation of that policy as a manager. What “open door” does not mean is “foist upon me all of your problems”. While you are welcome to come in and discuss any issue/problem, at least most of the time you need to have one or more options for solutions to discuss as well. That is the key difference between “…doesn’t have anything positive to say…” and “looks to improve the business”.

8

Maybe you aren’t as competent as you think? (No offense, I don’t know your level of competence)

Who are the people double checking your work or criticizing it? Your boss/manager? Coworkers? When they criticize, do you ask them to tell you specifically what is wrong with it?

9

I’ve struggled with issues like this also. I’ve come to the realization that there are a couple of things going on:

  1. There are nuances that I didn’t pick up on. For example in this case:

“Show confidence in what you do.”
So I do that and get, “Why are you being so arrogant?”

It’s possible that you went overboard on how much confidence you displayed, which was then perceived as arrogance. If you’re like me, you struggle with how much is enough when it comes to social behavior. It’s also very possible that one person thought you weren’t confident enough but it was a different person who thought you were arrogant when you tried to comply with the first person’s suggestion.

  1. I used to feel that other people know how to get along in society and it was just me that was socially awkward. (I used to be painfully shy.) It took me a LONG time and some very uncomfortable encounters to realize that sometimes it’s not me. Other people also struggle with social encounters. Or sometimes they deliberately snub you because they don’t give a shit that they’re rude. If you’re insecure like I was (and still am to some extent) it’s hard to not perceive snubs as me doing the wrong thing to be treated that way.
10

Yes, that is definitely part of what I am going through. I was shy and insecure growing up and while I’ve made a lot of progress, I still feel insecure about a lot of things, especially when I know my actions will effect others.

To answer manson1972:
I wouldn’t say it is explicit criticism, but little things that I pick up on that my boss or co-workers do that say to me that they don’t trust me. Like if I get a call from someone that needs tech work that I know I can do, but boss seems to go out of his way to tell me not to do it and let someone else instead. It’s like he is intentionally keeping me from doing things for some reason.

11

And when you went to your boss and said “Hey boss, sometimes it seems like you don’t want me to work on certain things. Is there something you don’t like about my work?” what did he say?

If you haven’t done that, then do that.

12

Dragwyr, I believe part of your problem at work is you are not doing enough of what I call “Politic’n”.

I get the impression you are the type of person that keeps to himself at work and doesn’t engage in a lot of idle chit-chat with coworkers.

It’s not that YOU lack confidence, it’s that people lack confidence in you. If you try to connect with people on a more personal level, I’m sure their confidence in you will go up.

And also, don’t be afraid to toot your own horn (This is something I struggle with myself). When you do something good or above and beyond what you normally do, make sure your boss is aware of it by sending him a short, but humble email.

13

This could be a number of things, and as mentioned, you could tactfully inquire about this. In our office, it might be because my boss wants someone else familiar with the work and practicing it from time to time (so we aren’t one-deep in our essential functions). Maybe he needs someone else to take on more work, someone who doesn’t have enough or needs a push or more experience. Maybe they see you do the lion’s share of the work and want to spread it around.

14

I’ll second this. I tend to call it “smoozing” or “putting out”.

Other people don’t want problems, they want solutions. It’s all about them. Approach people with “here’s how I’m making your job easier” attitude. Instead of starting out a conversation with what’s wrong, start it out with what positive change you want to make. And then back it up with what your change is going to improve (which another (positive) way to say “problems”).

Instead of a reputation of bringing up problems, you’ll get a reputation for bringing up solutions. Be the messenger they don’t want to shoot.

15

Is there an established method for reporting work required and work assigned? If all work requests are supposed to go to work@company.com for the manager to review, but people are coming directly to you, that is a problem. A good rule is to say something along the lines of “Well, it sounds like it could be X, but let’s go through the right steps. Write it all out and send it to the email address and it will get assigned.” I learned the hard way that people describing what they want to do around the microwaves or coffee pot are often leaving out vital details of the project. After a few instances in my youth when said people showed up in my boss’ office saying “Well, BeeGee said it would be easy to do this.” to hedge my bets more often.

16

I get where you’re coming from. Sometimes I think it’s best to be brutally honest and frank, but it usually gets a negative response. People don’t like hearing statements like that, because it sends the message that I think they’re wrong or disapprove of what they’re doing. I like to frame my assertions with humor, but it’s usually too sarcastic and cynical to get positive feedback.

One thing I’ve tried doing is using a softer voice. I act like I’m a little insecure and looking to the person for guidance. I also found that it helps to to tell the other party “I’m wanting to make this into an algorithm, like a decision tree. Can you help me to decide what to do when situation X comes up?” If they say something I don’t agree with or think is wrong, I ask them “Can you clarify this part? This is where I’ve been having problems.” That’s when I make suggestions in the form of “Have you considered…”

17

ANS: A descriptive title.

18

I agree with this approach in general, but only if you are at least in part sincere. I’m thinking of times when I mulled over a problem for a while, and came up with what I thought was a great solution. I would present it someone else expecting them to agree with my brilliance :slight_smile: and just be a rubber stamp, and they’ve responded with a piece I didn’t think of. I’m never working in a vacuum and don’t always know what is in place in an area affected by my proposed idea.

But, yes, definitely go in with what you think is a good workable plan, but don’t assume it’s the only plan or the only perfect plan. I find this has been true in my job too. I would want to write the final draft of something and assume it is fine as is, because I’m a pretty good writer. I’ve learned (especially if you work in a place that has group decision making) to just do my best draft and not be attached to it. It WILL be updated, and often for the better as different eyes see it.