Is it me or is it the job?
Hey, I want to start off by saying that I know I’m still young and still figuring things out, but lately I can’t help feeling left out and unappreciated at my job.
(Sorry this is a long one)
I’m 23 (F) and I’ve been with my company for almost 6 years. Through leadership changes, lack of raises, and little support, I’ve stayed loyal because I genuinely care about the company and the work we do. For most of that time, it was just me and my oldest coworker who consistently stayed. Back in August, we hired two new people, and another coworker stayed after being there for about a year. We all get along pretty well now, even though things were a little rocky in the beginning.
The thing is, all of my coworkers are older than me by about 4–16 years. They’re all either married or have kids, and recently the coworker closest to my age got pregnant. I’m genuinely so happy and excited for her, but ever since then, I’ve started feeling like I’m outside of some “club” I don’t belong to. I know part of it is probably me pulling away too. I haven’t been as talkative lately because I have a lot going on in my personal life, on top of trying to help our small company grow because I’ve become so emotionally attached to it but over all I feel like I don’t have anything to contribute in their conversations anymore.
I constantly feel left out of things, misunderstood, or like my intentions are being taken the wrong way when I’m honestly just trying to help. For context, I work for a very small company in a rural area. I feel like we should start modernizing and improving some systems, but every time I try to introduce something new, the coworker I’m closest with and who also happens to be the oldest employee (was unexpectedly promoted after a sudden leadership change this year) tells me things like, “This is too complicated,” or “People have been complaining about it.” The confusing part is that no one has actually told me they complained, so I never really know what’s true.
What frustrates me even more is that she’ll approve something when I show it to her privately, but once I actually post it or implement it, she becomes passive-aggressive about the details or how executed it the things she approved. She wants to get rid of most technology and go completely back to paper systems, but I honestly feel like that would make everything harder and more disorganized. It feels like anything new I try to do is automatically seen as “too confusing” or “too modern,” yet there’s no real effort from anyone else to improve things or use tools beyond the one website we already have that barely gets used.
So on top of feeling left out socially, I also feel very unappreciated professionally. I love my job, and I love the flexibility it gives me, but I’ve started harboring negative emotions toward my coworkers, especially my boss/coworker, and even toward the job itself. It’s gotten to the point where I feel like my performance and attitude are being affected.
Deep down, I know what I probably should do which is leave and find another job but I’m honestly terrified. The job market scares me, and this role feels very unique. I’m so emotionally attached to this place that I feel guilty even thinking about leaving, especially because of how much they’ve talked badly about former employees who quit. I would want to leave on good terms, but even that feels difficult sometimes.
My boss/coworker also makes passive-aggressive comments that make me feel trapped, like saying, “You need to tell me now if you’re coming back after our unpaid break or we can’t move forward.” It puts me in a situation where I feel pressured to say yes, especially when it’s said in front of everyone else. To be fair, she does apologize sometimes if she feels she was too harsh, but other times she doesn’t.
She has been like an best friend to me and every was fine until a couple of months ago so I feel like I should talk to her but at the same time maybe I’m overthinking and need to grow up???
I hate confrontation, and my instinct is always to just sweep things under the rug and avoid conflict. But at this point, I genuinely don’t know what to do anymore.