touchy-feely team-building, are job search gimmicks less popular now, and more

[ResidentialBusiness]

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…

1. Am I being a grouch about this touchy-feely group activity?

I work at a school. As the closing activity for today’s professional development session, Fergus (an administrator) split us into three groups, then asked two-thirds of us to stay seated with our eyes closed while the other third stood and moved around the room. Fergus read a series of prompts and invited those who were standing to “connect with” (that is, tap or pat on the shoulder) someone the prompt applied to (“connect with someone you admire,” “connect with someone whose work you’d like to learn more about,” etc.). Fergus read about 10 of these and then had a different third of the group stand and repeat the exercise, for a total of three rounds of affectionate shoulder-grasping.

In the moment, I found this admittedly touchy-feely activity affirming; it’s nice to get patted on the shoulder after a prompt like “connect with someone who makes this school a better place.” That said: isn’t it a bit dicey to ask a large group of people to sit with their eyes closed while others move around them and touch them? I can imagine someone feeling uncomfortable about that for any number of reasons. (For one: I don’t think this would apply to my group, but what if my ex / person-with-unrequited-crush were in that workplace and I didn’t particularly want them touching me? Eek.)

There wasn’t really a way to opt out of the activity without being quite obvious about it. Am I right that this is borderline inappropriate, and what should I have done in the moment?

Yeah, it’s not a great workplace activity. In any large group of people, there’s a decent chance that some of them won’t be comfortable with physical touching (for all sorts of possible reasons) and a non-zero chance that someone might actually be upset by it. (Imagine someone whose harasser is in the room and they have to sit there with their eyes closed wondering who’s touching them … or people with particular types of trauma history.) Will most people be fine with it? Probably. But not everyone will be, and there are all sorts of ways to achieve the same aims of this exercise without making people touch each other / be touched. It’s just so easy to avoid.

Updated to add: I apparently published this without addressing your question about what you could do in the moment! One option was to say when the activity was explained, “I think a lot of people might be uncomfortable being touched with their eyes closed. Is there a different exercise we could substitute?” It can be really hard to find the right words in the moment though (and it sounds like you felt positively about it at first anyway), and it’s always okay to give similar feedback to the organizer afterwards.

2. Have job search gimmicks become less popular?

I’ve noticed that nothing has been added to the topic “gimmicks won’t get you a job” for a few years now. It seems like it was never a massive topic, which makes sense as it’s pretty niche. But it had at least one a year until 2014 with only four posted since, the newest of which is from 2022. Do you think it’s a flavor of bananapants that’s become less common? Have we all been robbed of our gumption? Or are the purveyors of scented resumes and fruit baskets still out there, lurking, waiting until we let our guard down?

Interesting. I do think gimmick-based job-search advice is less common than it used to be; there was a while where it was everywhere. I suspect some of the change is due to generational change; those gimmicks tended to be (although weren’t always) the province of people who had entered the work world at an earlier point in history (where maybe things like showing up in a lobby and refusing to leave until you got an interview were looked on more kindly).

I think there’s more to it than that, though, and maybe the overall shift in work culture has left people more cynical about the job search process and thus less likely to bother with gimmicky stunts. People almost expect to be ghosted or ignored by employers … which in theory could make them more likely to try to “stand out” through gimmicks, but I think it instead has manifested in more exhaustion and less inclination to invest a ton in any one job opening. Less gimmicky advice is a good thing, but everyone being so drained is not.

(None of this is to say that gimmicks have disappeared. They definitely haven’t.)

3. Former coworker insists her job is harder now than when I was doing it

I have a lovely ex-colleague who has recently moved to a promoted post in health care, similar to the post that I recently retired from. We meet up for a coffee and chat from time to time, and some of our conversations (but not all, I’m glad to say) turn to work topics. I don’t mind this at all because I generally enjoyed my job even though it could be very stressful, and I like hearing her anecdotes.

However, whenever I mention any of my experiences, she always says, “It’s much worse now!” One example she gave, when I mentioned a patient who was very huffy with me, was that patients now shout at managers. Well, guess what? They always did! It’s just that this particular patient was huffy rather than shouty!

I do appreciate that I’m no longer in the workplace and my friend is still dealing with difficult situations every day, but it’s kind of annoying to me that she always assumes that I had it easier than her. I really didn’t! I realize that this is not the most important of issues, but could you please suggest a nice way that I could say, “I support you but please stop telling me that the job was easier for me”? I don’t want to come across as defensive or spoil our time together, but it’s really irritating!

One way to approach it is to be genuinely open to the idea that things are worse now! Who knows, maybe they are — but even if they aren’t, being curious about why she’s experiencing it that way might make it less frustrating. So for example, when she says patients now shout at managers when you were describing someone who was merely huffy, you could say, “I always found some patients shouted too, although this one didn’t. But it sounds like you think it’s increased — what changes have you been seeing?” And then if she describes absolutely nothing new, there’s no reason you can’t be straightforward about that and say, “Ugh, yes, that sounds like what I encountered all the time too. It’s really frustrating. How do you deal with it?” (Note that shift at the end from debating who had it worse to how she personally handles it.)

But if that doesn’t solve it, I think you’re better off letting it go at that point. It’s annoying to feel like she’s trying to one-up you, but the path of least resistance is to shrug it off. If it’s really getting to you, though, you could name that: “You often say that the job was easier for me, but based on what you’ve described I don’t think it was. Either way, though, I’ll admit it grates to keep hearing that. I support you and I don’t want to compete over who had it worse!”

If that doesn’t work, at that point you might simply need to stop talking about work!

4. Can I ignore my classmate’s LinkedIn request?

I have a former graduate school classmate with whom I used to be close friends. Among my reasons for ending our friendship was their hyper-competitive streak. They have sent me a LinkedIn invitation, which I find completely inappropriate given the boundaries I had previously expressed to them. I know their reason for doing this is (a) because they are doing well and want to gloat or (b) they are doing poorly and need to compare their Ws & Ls with mine. I struggle allowing them access into my life, as it took quite some effort to extricate myself in the first place.

On the other hand, I know LinkedIn etiquette suggests I should accept; as former classmates, we have many mutual connections. I would like for it to not look conspicuous that we are not connected. Graduate school is weird that way; it is an opportunity to build rich, deeply personal connections, but it’s inherently a professional network.

Are my reasons good enough to ignore their invitation? Or is the professional course of action to just accept the invitation, assume strictly professional networking intentions, and move on?

Ignore their invitation and don’t give it another thought. You don’t need to connect with anyone who you don’t feel like connecting with, and most people are unlikely to notice whether you accepted their request or not, especially if they’re sending requests to a bunch of people around the same time (which is common when leaving grad school). Plus, lots of people’s LinkedIn inboxes are such a mess or they check the site so infrequently that it’s really easy for requests to get lost or overlooked. It’s not a big deal!

5. How to explain an internal job search when I’ve struggled with my most recent role

About a year ago, I changed roles within my company as part of a push for “internal mobility.” I wasn’t opposed to trying something new, but it wasn’t really presented as an option. It has been an ongoing challenge trying to get up to speed and there has been some friction with my new manager.

I’m really not happy with the role, and one of the main drivers is that, frankly, I don’t think I’m very good at it. I can’t seem to grasp the fundamental concepts that underlie the function. I am well into my career, so I’m familiar with the learning curve that comes with a new job and a constant refrain of imposter syndrome. This is … not that. I really just don’t understand. I spend my days feeling like an idiot and a failure. My therapist assures me I’m not. (Yes, this job made me seek therapy)

I am obviously trying to move on and have applied for another open role within my same company. I know that my short tenure at this current position is going to be a question, so how do I diplomatically say that I’m leaving because I’m just not that good? No one so far seems to accept my answer that it is not the right fit, and I’m not sure how to elaborate with out going into why I’m bad at this job, but don’t worry I’ll be great at yours and you should hire me.

I suspect they’re not accepting “not the right fit” because it doesn’t tell them enough. They want to know why it’s not the right fit, so they can figure out if you’re likely to run into the same issues with the job they’re hiring for. (Which is in your interests too!)

So ideally you’d say something like, “I’ve always excelled at X and Y but have found in this new role that Z doesn’t come naturally to me” (where Z is something you’re struggling with that won’t be part of the next job). Alternately, you could make it about your preferences rather than your skills: “I’ve realized I really miss having X be a part of my daily work and want to get back to it.” (Obviously that only works if X is in fact part of the new job, but there are lots of ways to adapt that basic formulation.)

View the full article