Ask HN: Quit a job if you don't fit in the team?

This may not be similar to your situation. I wouldn't advocate anyone remain in a position causing themselves physical or psychological harm. Wishing you well in this decision.

Compared to that four months is not very long. Four years isn't very long, when coworkers watched the twin towers in the break room.

That's the general, but your working remote most of the time means there's very little waiting for five oclock time. You're not at most bull-sessoins.

My advice is to work in-office.

And consider seeing a licensed therapist because mental health is a health issue.

It's been a tough couple of years. Good luck.

Highly recommend trying a toastmasters course, where you can learn some extrovert skillsets.

  For some reason I don't seem to be connecting with my coworkers as well as I 
  expected. (Give a concrete example.) I feel I would be more productive if 
  we were more cohesive as a team. Do you have any ideas how to solve this? 

p.s., I said "we were more cohesive" to avoid the assumption that it's just your fault. It sounds like a team dynamics issue.

Or maybe not, just asking.

This is a critical flaw in thinking.

You are NOT a mind reader you have no idea what their opinion of you is, or what they are thinking.

You are judging a situation you do not fully understand[0] and it is causing anxiety because you are trying to fix a problem that isn't there.

I think you have it backwards. You are depressed and it is causing strain at work. Not the other way around.

Why would a team open up to someone who is sullen and won't even grab breakfast and coffee in the morning? They are INVITING YOU to morning coffee. How much more welcoming do you want them to be? What more can they do for you?

I recommend a therapist and CBT to control the anxiety you are feeling. [1]

Following up: I hear it over and over again. Both of my siblings went onto mild anti-anxiety medication and it made them into a new person. Same with some of my close personal friends. That constant buzzing in the back of your brain wears you out.

0: To be clear, this covers basically every social interaction and situation anyone encounters.

1: I read a book recently called "Positive Intelligence" that I liked quite a lot, that is a sort-of mix between CBT, meditation, and stoicism. I found it helpful in realizing that when you judge a situation, you really only understand a tiny fraction of what is actually happening, and projecting your own shit onto it does not help. And at the end of the day: If they end up actually just being jerks... then screw 'em.

I noticed that I felt a bit alone working at a game studio with a lot of GenX-ers, but once a bunch of fellow GameCube-pilled millennials got hired on alongside me things felt more comfortable.

At first it all felt really phony because, to be honest, I don't care too much what other people do. However, eventually, it became somewhat natural and I began to care about the other person (even if their hobbies may not jibe with mine). And eventually I would begin comfortable sharing my ideas and issues.

This also works for making friends outside of work, once you figure out how to meet up with them in person.

*edit: fixing tenses

You should seek mental health services.

I found myself working with a person who had the technical chops and the socials chops, but was also a perfectionist and found no limit to the nits he was willing to pick. Nothing got a LGTM from him and while pushing team members to improve themselves is admirable, it cannot be done by loading critique onto everything they do.

The problem was that he wasn't a jerk about it. I ended up getting killed by kindness and perfectionism and found a job elsewhere. The lesson I learned was to set a realist bar for success, and never set an impossibly high bar for other people. Doing so decreases morale faster than it improves performance.

My point is that not clicking with a team or even a team member is a perfectly reasonable reason to find another job. If you're miserable despite your reasonable effort then it's time to move on. You don't have to apply heroic effort in order to make things work.

Perhaps the building itself is affecting you?

After years of trying to figure out some immediate family health issues, I eventually found out that my home office had huge amounts of hidden mold behind the walls. One of the downstream health effects of that is that I'm now overly sensitive to... stuff. There now are buildings, stores, corners of stores that I can't think or talk well in. I start forgetting words right away and conversation is hard. And through this I've met quite a few other people that are also hypersensitive to things and places, though with different symptoms than mine. Others I know get sad, or angry, or believe people don't like them, when in places that don't do them well.

This seems to have a lot of similarities: There's a place that your body doesn't want to go to beforehand. It takes a day and some to recover after being there. You feel like people don't like there. You feel like you have a hard time talking there. You been having increasing depression since you started going there.

Not sure how you would test this theory out. The building problem doesn't have to necessarily be mold. Could be something else that doesn't do you well.

Given that you have had good relationships with coworkers before, and these kinds of thought patterns are not your norm, I'd consider it most likely that the problem is not you.

If you are full of dread about going every time, and getting increasingly depressed, GTFO.

Good luck!

Start interviewing elsewhere. Just seeing new opportunities is often enough to provide some relief and sense of perspective.

It took me years to overcome the anxiety and feeling of awkwardness but it's because I didn't understand why I was feeling that way.

Here is what I'll say as some closing advice. No one else thinks you're weird, or awkward or an outcast. You do. They think you're the new guy and it's just going to take some time to break that barrier. Running away is not going to fix it.

in my experience this sort of thing is rarely fixed, even if attempts are made to fix it. (sometimes the fixes are worse than the problem.)

they will try to make you stay because leaving after such a short stint makes them look bad, but if you stay and then things don't work out (for the reasons you have already identified), it's you who will look bad, even if you wanted to leave in the first place.

seeing that this bad look could damage your career, you are correct in feeling anxiety. you should leave and get a new job before said anxiety turns into regret.

From my experience you are way past the need to take actions as those are strong signals from your body you gota get the hell out. You did well to wait. It didnt work: your body is still sounding alarms like firemen rushing downtown.

Dont forget that someone may be responsible for your state and playing with you very subtlely to dig you a grave here. Listen to you, do you feel this is the sound of a person "who doesnt go along well with some group"? We all dont go along well with some group everyday and still sleep at night. You included. No, something's off. Listen to your body, it will save your life, thats what those signals are for.

New job of a few months outcast feeling.

The trick is to figure out if it's your coworkers or your own mind or even a little of both.

There are malicious coworkers that will work to undermine you.

There's awkward coworkers who will seem like theyre dicks but are just awkward.

Then your mind is not a reliable narrator either and can interpret People's behavior inaccurately.

All of these things are possible and there's no real way to know for sure what's accurate.

So all you can do is either work hard and do your best everyday or find a new gig.

There's no objective answer here I don't think because not only do we as your audience not know the context I don't think your mind fully knows the context.

My solution at the moment is to try my hardest and be polite and nice and act excited to be there and take it one day at a time. I also document everything I do in Jira tickets in detail. Ask many questions in Slack so it's documented. If that's not good enough I'll get fired but everything is documented so if any higher ups look into their turnover it will be clear that they're firing people who didn't deserve it.

I think that's all you can really do.

i've been in this type of situation more than once -- i've job-hopped a lot, done a lot of contracts, etc. -- and i am _not_ in that situation right now. praise all that is holy.

i currently dislike my job, but it's more fit, product, and managers, etc. -- it is definitely _not_ because I don't get along with the various nice people I often interact with - who are really sources of joy every day (def not all of them). (i just watched some of a steve kerr interview on youtube and he talks a lot about warrior culture and gave this anecdote about Pop and his just wanting to have a good day, etc.)

that situation -- the one you are in, one that I have experienced multiple times -- is brutal.

my guess is that you could do a million things that might make it slightly less worse over the coming months and years, and you'll end up with a heart attack and depression and all sorts of other niceties.

sometimes a shit team/people/culture/company is just that -- and you _may_ need to get out.

main question i would have is, how do you avoid this happening at the next place? you probably would _not_ be that unlucky, but i'm sure it has happened to others.

i think i have actually landed in this situation after, during the interview process, people told me how _awesome_ everyone was, how awesome the company and culture and whatever was, and then you find out it's all rather shit. like some bad holacracy dream -- everyone acting happy, but is really ready to kill themselves.

some of them might actually have believed it -- and i have almost certainly sold prospects on the awesomeness of our company/team/culture when i knew better. why? i dunno. stupid/evil fucking human psychology prob. "Let's see if you can convert this stupid mf -- I'm not going to suffer alone -- we need bodies -- and he prob doesn't really care -- he's here b/c he needs a job, not a good or ideal job."

start interviewing, get out. you can keep an open mind about staying, maybe make an effort to break things open a bit, change things up, maybe like others have suggested - going to the office more, etc. but def start leaving.

also, i hear hybrid work can burn people out faster than full on-site or full remote. so, if you're not required to be there, don't be. or ask for a couple of full-remote weeks, then ask for one more, then give your notice.