Can I survive as a newbie?

Being new in a working organization is never easy. You have to get used to the new environment, dealing with your bosses and your colleagues as well as the work load. Normally, newbie will have a hard time fitting into their working place initially because there are a lot of stuffs newbie has to self learnt such as the values, rituals and cultures of a workplace. Organizations don’t normally communicate their cultures, mission and values in detailed. If you are lucky enough, you would get nice colleagues who would be willing to teach you new things and help you solve problems you face. However, most senior colleagues are either too busy to teach you or they just can’t be bothered to help you.

Besides, new employees also face conflicts in the workplace. Conflict in the workplace can be due to many reasons. Perhaps the most significant cause is when someone feels taken advantage of. This might happen when a perfectionist boss demands the same dedication and commitment from employees as he or she exhibits, but does not compensate them for the late or weekend hours or a boss who has a habit of yelling at you in front of your coworkers or critical comments about your work during meetings and excluding them from a group lunch or team meeting?

Life can be difficult for new employee as well because of the existence of workplace bullying which is very common nowadays. At some point in your career you’ll be bullied somehow or rather. That is why many people prefer to come out on their own and be the own boss instead of working along with other people and having to see to their faces or being manipulate by them. In the U.S., where the practice is being studied, an estimated 37% of workers, or about 54 million people, have been bullied at the office or repeatedly mistreated in a health-harming way, according to a 2007 Zogby International survey. People are lack of awareness about the bullying that could happen. Most new employees would just keep quite even when they are bullied in order to prevent from loosing the new job they applied.

In my case, it was hard for me to adapt myself into the organization I first work for. It was a primary school. I worked as a temporary replacing a teacher who went to deliver baby. I remember on the first day I felt so alone, lost and insecure because I didn't know anybody yet. Moreover, I was stress having to teach the pupils as I have no experience before unlike the other qualified teacher who had been through proper training. The stress caused me to loose appetite and I lost weight terribly. However, not long after that I was fortunate that there were few took initiative to talking to me and we made friends. They were so helpful to me, teaching me stuffs and helping me how to handle difficult students. I was so grateful to have them as an encouragement to me otherwise I don’t think I would last long working there.

We bound to face challenges in working place anyhow but it depends how well you can handle or manage the obstacles. Being ‘’different’’ from the dominant group in the workplace creates additional barriers. Hence, sometimes we have to sacrifice our own culture and values in order to adopt the culture of the organization and survive!

Share with you a video of workplace bullying.

And how to deal with difficult people at work.