as said previously I’m a nurse, which means the overwhelming majority of employees are women. Gossiping, being unauthentic, cattiness and passive aggressiveness is a daily occurrence.
My current unit: there are 2 men that seem to be completely stoic (I don’t know what word would describe them better): they ignore drama and jabs, even if directed at them, they are punctual with their pauses, I mean really, 30 minutes and that’s it, and can ignore when other coworkers lazy around, even if it means they have to be the ones doing most of the work, extra work they don’t receive any extra money or recognition for.
I am writing in awe, because as much as I’d like to be this thick skinned, I am not. The feeling of being treated unfairly rubs me the wrong way really fast. My strategy so far has been to lazy around so much as my direct coworkers, even if they’re part of an established group at the ward I don’t belong to. They’re the ones supposed to be showing me around and teach me. If they don’t work, why should I?
I believe this is a trait of mine, something nearly impossible to change, it would make more sense to change the setting than trying to change me, to change jobs. I don’t know how to play this game where I am, in a workplace where most employees are women.
But my question remains to all of you who are this thick skinned: how? I don’t understand it. Don’t you find it tiring? Doesn’t it make you feel like shit when you go back home? Don’t you feel taken advantage of?
For some of us, being treated unfairly is just another part of life we need to get used to. I’ve had to deal with this a lot with my bio family. I feel that even though it was really shitty in a lot of ways growing up, you learn to be grateful for the lessons it teaches you. The men who are being stoic are really just conserving their emotional energy in exchange for their mental and physical energy because they probably don’t have much of the former. We’ve had to learn well to compress emotions as much as possible just to live in peace. We conserve our emotional energy for the things that matter most to us and yes, it feels like shit sometimes. But it’s a familiar feeling. It makes us us.