my supervisor is an extrovert, whereas I’m an introvert. She feels insulted if I don’t share my personal life with her and ridicules me before other coworkers because I separate private and work life and prefer to keep to myself.
I wrote mobbing because that’s what it feels to me: a ritual of hers is to always eat together, a time she uses to ask me questions I don’t want to answer. I usually answer very vaguely, which is not enough for her. If I eat alone, she’ll complaint about why am I being so unfriendly.
She doesn’t understand I need time alone to unwind.
She is convinced she is doing me a favor, but the opposite is true. It makes me dislike her even more.
I simply cannot win. It’s tiring being blamed and shamed for preferring to read a book instead of talking about dogs or sex.
It makes me want to quit.
I don’t know if I go to HR with an issue like this, because they may label me the odd one, the one who’s not a teamplayer and use it against me.
Most people are extroverted and react angrily to somebody who keeps to himself and I’ve been bullied several times for this. Extroverts don’t seem to understand that not showing interest in their sexual lives doesn’t mean disrespect, but simply that I don’t care about it.
As a fellow introvert, I’ve found that being meek and timid about uncomfortable situations just invites more trouble from extroverts. The best way to handle it is to be direct and firm. If she wants to be nosy, then drop all the gory details:
"I’m an introvert and I don’t feel comfortable sharing my personal life with coworkers. I know you, as an extrovert, want to be involved in everyone’s personal lives and there’s nothing wrong with that, but as a leader and a manager, you need to understand how to change tracks and adapt to your subordinates’ needs.
“I need time to myself to recharge; being around people is mentally and emotionally draining for me. It’s not something I can “fix,” it’s just the way I am, and no amount of exposure to people or social events will ever change that. I need you to understand that and adapt to my needs, in order for you to effectively manage me.”
I worked my way up the ranks in the US military and eventually found myself managing people. As an introvert, I found it extremely difficult to get out and talk to my subordinates. But I soon realized that the mission wouldn’t get done unless I did my job, so I quickly learned how to fake an extroverted personality while at work so I could talk to people and ensure mission success. Then I’d go home and crash. I’d spend my evenings either sleeping or bundled up, watching TV or playing video games, just to recharge so I could do it all again the next day.
But one of the things I learned was how to adapt to the needs of my subordinates. I had one guy who was a complete fuck-up. Couldn’t do anything right without someone holding his hand. So I either had to be very hands-on with him, or delegate that responsibility to one of my subordinate leaders.
But then I had another guy who grew up in a ghetto being plagued by corrupt cops, and he hated anyone in an authority position over him. Why he joined the military, I dunno. We were all about authority and respecting rank and file. But if I even spoke to him, he would shut down and then be unproductive all day. As long as I left him alone, he was my hardest and most productive worker. So I learned to leave him alone and he practically did my job for me. Maybe your supervisor needs to learn that lesson with you.
“I’m an introvert and you’re an extrovert” is frankly an awful way to frame this dynamic. Besides being a binary descriptor that has little basis in reality, OP’s boss acting way out of line has nothing to do with their being an extrovert
It’s more about framing the conversation in a way that helps OP’s supervisor realize they’re at odds with each other, socially, and that the supervisor needs to make changes, not OP. I know it’s a bit blunt and direct and may not exactly describe their relationship, but I’ve found that being direct and binary with extroverted people generally gets them to the point faster, rather than beating around the bush with complex descriptions of their dynamic.
And the supervisor being an extrovert is definitely a part of the problem in this case. They’re ignoring signals from OP that they don’t want to be social, shaming them for it, and forcing public interactions in order to change them. This is classic extrovert behavior which is making OP uncomfortable.
The topic of discussion is definitely off-limits and deserves a conversation with HR, but the supervisor still needs to understand that OP’s antisocial behavior isn’t a problem. Otherwise, the discussion will change to be more work-appropriate, but the behavior will remain.
I didn’t read your whole comment, but from what i did read I can say this is basically the correct answer. The only thing I’d add is to also include nice sentiments and productivity explanations.
Like:
“Hey [person’s name], do you have a couple minutes? I wanna have a quick chat. I wanna let you know that I’m a significant introvert, which means i need alone time and and social boundaries. I think you’re a very nice person and i appreciate all the efforts you’ve made trying to connect with me, but that actually makes things more difficult for me. It emotionally stresses me out, and that in turn also reduces my productivity at work. I think you’re great, but it would be really helpful to me if there were no extra social interactions with me beyond what’s needed for our work to get done smoothly. I know you have good intentions when asking about my personal life and striking up conversations, and i honestly appreciate that intent, but it would be great if I could have social interactions kept to the minimum. I really appreciate your consideration on this stuff, thanks.”
People often do things they enjoy when connecting with others, tlhinking that is what others need–especially extroverts and mostly when they aren’t self-aware. e.g. when my wife heads out with friends she tries to plan things for me to do (or even friend hangouts) so I won’t be bored. But that is her as an extrovert thinking how she would be if I went out. I have to reexplain each time that I won’t be bored–i will catch up on reading, podcasts, bike ride, etc, enjoy some solitude, and if I felt the need then I would reach out to a friends.
You may need to have a candid chat and explain that as an introvert you need quiet alone time to recharge your battery–while extroverts charge their battery by being busy or outgoing.
I’m sorry that you find yourself in an environment where you struggle to freely be yourself. I can strongly relate to this. I feel like I have to be constantly on guard and protect myself from people and it’s a shitty way to live.
Standing up for yourself often feels uncomfortable in the moment, but you are very likely to regret not doing it. Whichever of the various tricks in the comments you feel comfortable trying or have hope will help, go for it.
I’m an extrovert. That’s not the problem. This is social bullying. Please don’t frame this as “extrovert” behavior. This is reprehensible social interaction. As an extrovert I would NEVER talk about personal experiences at work. I would NEVER ask anyone to participate in my conversations unless they clearly wanted to. Stop conflating extroversion with bullying.
The problem is caused by a combination of extraversion and low social intelligence.
Extraversion isn’t the problem, and I didn’t get the sense that OP was saying all extraverted people are like this. But the problem is undoubtedly related to the boss’ extraversion
OP, I’d urge you to reconsider framing this whole thing as an “extrovert vs introvert” battle. Your boss is demonstrating poor boundaries and disrespectful and inappropriate behavior, and that has nothing to do with whether she’s an I or E on the Myers-Briggs.
Whether or not you go to HR depends a lot on your company culture. Either way, you need to be documenting specific comments and specific behaviors that are inappropriate first. Every time she asks you an uncomfortable question, especially if it relates to sex, write down what she asked, how you responded (that you declined to answer and asked her to stop asking personal questions), who else was present, and the date/time. Keep this in a personal account, not company. Do NOT go to HR without documentation.
We don’t know how big your company is, but odds are if she’s a middle manager she’s got people above her already who know she’s a gossip and hate that. If you have any relationship at all with her supervisor, it’s generally viewed as following the chain of command if you bring concerns like this directly to them, as well.
If you’re in a reasonably sized company, do NOT go to HR. She might get fired for her behavior, you WILL be fired for starting a fire. HR does NOT like fires.
I had the good fortune to battle the CTO of a multinational who couldn’t keep his hands off the employees. Everyone was too afraid to speak up, I was not. The CTO was fired. One day after he fired me with the full support of HR, because “you are incompetent in your job”. Mind you this was after multiple stellar reviews of my local superiors
This is terrible advice.
OP needs to set boundaries in a paper traceable way after establishing then in person (an email of “dear boss lady, I want to eat lunch alone, kthxbye”), and track violations of those boundaries (dear boss lady, today you sat with me at lunch after I asked you not to, please explain why). (Obviously be more professional).
Then after a few violations, OP can go to HR because suddenly the boss lady is starting the fire; there is a clear history of personal boundaries not being maintained, leading to a hostile work environment.
This only doesn’t work when the company is like 5 people and HR is your boss’s cousin or whatever.
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Like I said, whether you should go to HR will depend a lot on your company culture. In all the jobs I’ve worked, I’ve had HR departments that would’ve taken your complaint seriously and not allowed you to be retaliated against in that way. Btw, what you’re describing does sound like retaliation, which is totally a lawsuit you could pursue
For the record, Introversion and Extroversion have a scientific basis. The Myers-Briggs does not.
Extroverts don’t seem to understand that not showing interest in their sexual lives doesn’t mean disrespect, but simply that I don’t care about it.
I was on the fence until this. This is extremely unprofessional and, if I understand correctly, could even get the company sued. Here’s how I’d personally handle it; but take this with a grain of salt because I’ve never actually had to deal with something like this before:
First, talk to a lawyer. Tell them what’s going on an get their thoughts and suggestions. The suggestions following may be way off-base.
Then, start keeping track of every time she brings something like that up, and log how you responded, how it made you feel, how she reacted to you response. You’re collecting evidence for a lawsuit on the basis of a toxic and highly unprofessional work environment that’ll hopefully never actually happen.
Once you have enough info that you could potentially launch said lawsuit, double-check with your lawyer and then you go to HR.
YOUR LAWYER WILL LIKELY TELL YOU THIS: DO NOT THREATEN A LAWSUIT. DO NOT EVEN HINT AT A LAWSUIT. DO NOT MENTION ANYTHING ABOUT A LAWSUIT, PERIOD. IF YOU MAKE ANY MENTION OF LEGAL ACTION THEN YOU WILL DESTROY YOUR CHANCES OF HAVING A POSITIVE OUTCOME FROM THIS MEETING. THEY ARE ALMOST GUARANTEED TO FIRE YOU AND THEN IMMEDIATELY LAWYER UP. THEY MAY EVEN ATTEMPT TO DESTROY EVIDENCE IF THEY THINK IT’S PREFERABLE TO A SUCCESSFUL LAWSUIT.
Make sure you log your interaction with HR as well; what you discussed, if you felt your concerns were heard during the meeting, and then make a follow-up log a week or two later to note if there was any change as a result of your meeting.
If there was no change, talk to your lawyer and consider trying again (and log everything again), and again, do not threaten, mention or even hint at any kind of legal action whatsoever. You’re trying to give the company ample chance to respond to your concerns.
If there was still no change, go talk to your lawyer about the possibility of pursuing legal action. It could be legitimately worth it, especially if they decide to fire you after your first or second meeting with HR.
Your goal is to have a paper trail so long and thorough that you can hang them with it (figuratively, in court) if necessary.
Make it clear that your supervisor is trapped in your conversation, not the other way around. When you have to be professional, be professional. But the rest of the time, talk about the dirt between the planks of wood at home. Talk about the sedimentation process of your aquarium’s gravel. Basically the moste innate and boring topics that no normal human would bring up, repeated ad nauseam.
Make sure to take long pauses just to resume talking. Remember to take your time while monopolizing the conversation trying to find a word your forgot about.
Remember to mispronounce every word, especially if he corrects you but be sure to keep plausible deniability just in case he accuses you of doing it on purpose.
Remember to always blame everything on something that has no connection to it.
Remember to enrich your diet with garlic, to use terrible flavored candy or just skipping a meal for extra word flavor, if you can take the reputation hit.
Remember the magical phrase: “that reminds me of” and all variants of it.
Remember to look into his eyes, and to alternate between them and another part of his face as if something is wrong with it. Keep affirming that everything is alright while staring at that part.
Change the subject. All the time.
Have terribly strong inconsequential opinions and remind about them all the time.
Monopolize the conversation, but make him want to cut you off or talk. I
IMPORTANT : If the other party is silent, state how comfortable you are with this silent friendship.
Remember to look into his eyes
I don’t know if it’s some neurodivergence or if other introverts feel the same way, but that is something I personally find very difficult and uncomfortable and I can’t hold eye contact for more than a second or two at a time. What feels natural to me is to look at a person’s mouth when they talk.
Would it help if i told you that you are staring at meat?
Sure hes a man, or woman, but first and foremost meat.
Sometimes this meat yells, sometimes this meat looks at you.
But lets all keep in mind, ladies and gentlemen, that any interlocutor be it beast or man is just meat.
You probably cooked meat also, just saying.
So take your time admiring the meat, stare in what it thinks it’s soul is in, his personal comfort be damned!
Just dont take this advice as an excuse to dehumanise this person of course, as I heard some meats hold a scary skeleton within. But hey, you cant see that most of the time, its meatgavanza for now!
Not sure what that’s supposed to help with. I’d be even more uncomfortable if my steak had eyes and made eye contact than when a person does it.
If you work at a company with a competent HR department they will be very interested in hearing about how your supervisor is forcing you to eat lunch with her while she interrogates you about your sex life. That is 100% not appropriate in HR world. Just don’t ever believe anyone in HR is actually your friend, stick to the truth always, and document everything. Literally, keep a log of everything. If you end up in lawyer world they will be very happy that you have documentation of dates and who was there and what happened.
Sounds like you need to communicate your desires. This is not limited to extroverts. It’s harder for us introverts but not impossible.
I’d ask for them to stop. If this isn’t followed, something written. If this isn’t followed, time to involve someone higher. I’m very reluctant to involve HR, they’re going to fuck with you very likely. However, your supervisor’s supervisor might be able to help. Important to slowly escalate and make a paper trail if the initial verbal ask doesn’t work out.
Also, did I read that correctly that sex is being discussed? As in sexual intercourse?
I like answering with completely bullshit made up stories. Over the top, but still comprehensible. It’s obvious they’re fake, but there’s no hard proof of it.
“What did you do this weekend?”
“I went to the second, secret Burning Man where they immolate an actual man.”
“I went to the third, even more secret Burning Man where a man immolate himself and we sat around him.”
When I saw the title, my first reaction was to talk it out and explain your feelings to her. Once I read the rest, though, I changed my mind.
This is shaming and bullying. Sex is also a huge no-no. A supervisor should know better. HR is probably your best option.
I know that for years it’s been popular to say things like “HR exists to protect the company, not you.” In many cases, that’s still true. However, companies (and society in general) have become more sympathetic to issues like yours. They’d rather discipline people like her than deal with the multimillion dollar settlements that people like her cause.
One note: document everything brought up to HR. If it is a small HR department, they could very well be friends with the supervisor and take their side. HR does indeed exist to protect the company but it is also made up of people (often extroverted ones). Documenting everything can help you out if there is any sort of retaliation. A threat of a lawsuit is absolutely something that can make a company be very apologetic and much more generous. I have had several friends that made sure they documented everything and were given six months severance when there was a possibility of a lawsuit.
HR does exist to protect the company, but sometimes that aligns with your needs. In this case, HR is likely more interested in avoiding a sexual harassment case (which would cost the company), so they’re probably going to hear you out.
Right, HR is there to protect the company. Your manager is (almost always) not the company. So if the manager is doing something fucky, that’s what HR is for.
Exactly. As the mandatory sexual harassment and money laundering trainings have taught me repeatedly, if the company knows about it and doesn’t do anything, they’re equally liable (and in many cases even if they don’t know about it). So stopping inappropriate behavior is in their interest.
HR isn’t the employees friend, ever.
But that’s where you start the paper trail. It’s really the safest bet
Especially if the topic is sex, as OP claims. Like WTF.
Boy, I’m real hesitant to go to HR. May as well ask to be fired.
It really depends on the business, culture, climate. The better places I’ve worked, this kind of interest is genuine, an attempt to foster better relationships at work. Of course, some people are just nosey Nellies…
Without knowing the environment and culture (and the questions), it’s hard to say what to do.
Best I can say is to make it clear you like to keep your work and private life well separated.
Also OP, if someone else feels insulted, that’s on them. They’ve chosen to feel insulted. Besides, how do you know she feels insulted? If she’s communicating that, then she’s being manipulative, using “emotional blackmail”. Look, I’m not responsible for how you choose to feel, that’s on you.
One trick I’ve used with people who continue with questions is to respond with a non-sequiter, something jarring, and use it all the time, repeatedly. Something like “how about the weather”, or “how about those <insert local sports team>”. Make it your catch phrase for when people continue to pry, and don’t be afraid to repeat it. Keep in mind tone matters, so say it like you mean it, like you walked in on Monday after a team did well, or got their asses beat. You don’t even have to like the sport or the team, in fact it’s kind of funny if you don’t like them.
It’s a bit of re-framing the conversation, while also communicating you aren’t interested in the subject, without being an ass. And if anyone complains, well, you were just talking about a sports team.
Agree, hr is more or less a one stop shop to being fired. Op is right, they’ll immediately label you someone who is willing to speak up, what’s the addage? The beach who perks up gets pruned. HR isn’t necessarily there to protect the company, but the status quo. They don’t want anyone making noise, else it is bad for everyone.
I had the luck of working at two places where HR took the real meaning of Human Resources to heart. One place saw their role as maintaining the “resources” in good stead like they would for their machines or tooling, since a broken resource can’t further your company goals. They offeres check-ins to see how things were going, any gripes, any way to spread workload.
Current one has been great too. I had one employee being quite toxic about other employees as an odd way to create internal allegiences and it was creating a difficult situation. I talked with HR rep and they took care of it. That employee now acts professionally.
Sometimes HR is OK, but read the company culture first
A supervisor should understand the concept of respecting people’s boundaries. You could always say something like “Hey I’m not really in the mood to talk right now” or “This isn’t something I want to talk about”. Just a fair warning if you do this, you might get labeled as the odd one the same way you mentioned if you go to HR (the HR one would be a bit worse if I’m being honest).
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Sheila, I’m a very private person and I would like to keep my work and home life separated. I need that to feel comfortable. I’m here to get work done and happy to talk about anything omnoir work.
If you’re ok with being up front with people, you could just say “hey, do you mind giving me some alone time while I eat? It’s nothing personal, I just prefer to use this time to recharge by myself.”
If you’d prefer to manufacture an excuse, you could tell her you’re going to use your lunch hour to try a new mindfulness meditation technique you heard about, and need to avoid conversation during that time.
If you have the option to take your lunch somewhere else where she won’t find or bother you, that’s an option.
I think usually just keeping your nose in your book a few seconds too long before giving short answers to questions, then going right back to reading, is enough discomfort for a person like her that even if she didn’t get the hint that you don’t care to be bothered, she would at least prefer talking to someone else instead.
