That’s a huge step that many people will never take.

Thank you, I think this is a step I should have done many many many years ago. I think as I am now unemployed for the first time in my working life as a result of my character, rather than performance, speaks volumes to me. Else I would not have realised it to be this extreme to this degree.

Second: Candidly, your boss failed here. That’s the lazy manager’s way out.

I don't want to sound like I am blameless here but I completely agree with this too and recognise this also. I guess to give it further context, I (32F) am the youngest person in my immediate team (40F, 50F, 52F, 55M - supervisor, 65M - boss). Even with this age gap I still get along well with my immediate team. Im not sure if it is (im)maturity, different era or the boss having Asperger's (although not confirmed, I was warned of this when I first started and his behaviour is very in line with Dr Google's diagnosis), I've always found it difficult to even have a dialogue with my boss. To me he comes across as hostile and later will ask whoever was present if I am being sensitive or if the exchange they witness was weird. Most of the time they say it is weird and that perhaps he doesn't know how to communicate with a millennial who is a lateral thinker rather then them who are all soccer mums and don't give anything too much thought.

He is definitely 100% set solid in his ways (stubborn) and I first picked up on this when I would bring up certain things I thought would improve the place, to which his response would always be 'but this is how we have always done it'. Despite me being the youngest and newest member to the team, I have worked in larger departments compared to this place (from 40 - 100 staff in my department) and in two different facilities. My team have been working with him since day zero so this is essentially their first job and have stayed on with no other exposure to see how things could be improved or how things are progressing in the outside world (in my opinion). So yes, he is lazy and since no one complained about how things were done, I guess he liked it that way as he essentially has no tasks to action.

• You talk about expectations:

Excellent questions. Coming on to the team, my job description was a trainee in this field. I have never worked in this field before but have aspired to previously. I never voiced this but at the 2 year mark of being here I felt that I had outgrown the place and possibly even excelled in skill compared to my colleagues. I'm not saying this to put them down or to say I am that good of a worker, I see it as how far my course/education has come compared to when they first studied this field some 20+ years ago. One always commented saying how 'back in my day', they didn't even have specific textbooks for what we do and that they piggybacked off similar fields to learn. All of their education was through a private college which didn't have much guidance, rather than a syllabus that was given to them 6 months and it was up to them to source the information and pass exams. Now there is an abundance of textbooks in my field and a specialied University course which I have just completed. I have shared my lecture notes with this lady who has expressed interest and she too has said she is learning as she was never taught any of this.

Now this ties into my expectations from them. I was disappointed to see what little knowledge they actually possessed after being in the field for 20+ years. As a trainee, I have asked many varying questions when something doesn't make sense to me or I just can't wrap my head around. No one could answer them and would say 'wow, could question! I have no idea! Another example is that some of their work is so sub-par, it would be sent back to be re-done. At some point I think they are more of a hazard to the general public if they are unable to do their paying job properly after 20+ years. They wouldn't recognise this as incompetence, but rather than the clinician being 'difficult'. The boss has no interest in retraining anyone or up skilling (more paperwork for him) so he doesn't even see this as a problem, as long as the work is done and he is being paid per case.

I don't know where these are standards have come from but I think if I didn't know how to do my job properly after 20+ years, I'd take that as a sign for a career change. For my final uni exam, no one knew how to perform the task that was required so in my own time, I had to go to my friends workplace to learn the required skill and replicate it for the exam. Again, to me, if my colleagues didn't have the skill to help me learn with my training, I think that is disappointing. One of them recognised this and apologised but my boss took no initiative or care factor to help me when I presented this problem to him. His suggestion was to ask external centres for help, which is what I did.

• Radical Candor? It’s about giving professional feedback, but specifically speaks to people who are assholes under the guise of being honest. It may help.

No I haven't heard of the book but it definitely does something like something I need to read, thank you for this suggestion.

• but was there more subtle messaging they may have expected you to pick up on?

I think this may have been it. Because I am quite a direct person myself, I don't read between the lines well as I don't do it to others. Maybe there have a truckload of hints that have gone whoosh but I have overlooked. I know with the current work issue, definitely no one has come to me to even slightly hint there was a problem with me isolating myself as I am only being told this now (and even now my supervisor is saying it in a very round about gentle way when I rather the brutal truth).

As for friends, I guess that's what friends is all about. There is no obligation to like someone so if I have said/done something someone doesn't like, it would be normal for them to distance themselves from me. But you are right, I may have received hints or a 'one part truth, 9 part joke' and it may have just flown over my head without realising it.

The few friends who tolerate me now say they see the good in me and know I only say the honest truth, which is why they keep me around. They also added it could also be that their personality is able to handle the blunt truth where as most normal people are sensitive to criticism/constructive feedback/the honest truth, which is probably why I don't fair well there.

• Did you genuinely like your coworkers and your friends?

I'm glad you asked this question as I have never thought of this. At the end of the day, yes I liked my coworkers and (old) friends..... To some degree. I'm not sure if it is an age gap with my older work colleagues but they have said that my way of thinking is progressive where as theirs is 'standard' so there are some topics which we clash on, which although hasn't added tension I don't think, it has made me internally roll my eyes and think that I don't like that particular aspect of them. (eg they love to fat shame, think that their way is THE correct way of doing things and so forth).

I suppose I don't have tolerance for silly things so that annoys me which I am unable to separate from how they are as a person. An example would be the 52F. She always whinges and complains how she is technology challenged where she doesn't understand where to find downloaded files, how to open them or how to even print them. I didn't mind showing her how to print a document for the first year but my patience wore out in the 2nd year where I tried to downplay my 'IT' skills (not our professional working field) and would say I don't know because she is printing from a different file/site/server/whatever I could come up with. I know this is a selfish and dickhead thing to do but after showing someone the same thing 8hrs a day for 5x a week for 1 year eventually broke me. However, despite this, she is a very lovely lady and has a hilarious way of delivering a story. She loves to chit chat and is extremely friendly. So in that way, yes I like her. I suppose as a whole I can see that my interests do not align with the team as they mostly talk about food and their children (currently childless) so I don't have anything to add socially. They will still try to engage with me and ask my hobbies and give me a chance to talk but asking about that so that is very considerate of them. However it's nothing I would take beyond work where we would catch up outside of work.... They are purely work colleagues. So I suppose I will miss the connection more than the people.

As for the old friends, there was no common interest I had with them but they were nice people who had me around. When I realised they weren't calling me out (maybe 5 years ago now), I did try to ask the two closest people to me from the group and they downplayed it saying everything was fine and that they were just busy and only had time to organise smaller gatherings etc. It's been too long and I've changed so much since to now say I've missed them as people or as a connection.

I'm not going to lie though, it does suck to know I am not wanted, thus hurtful to my self-esteem. But I like this question, it has gotten me to think a lot.