Frustrated and Feeling Unappreciated at Work

Hi there,

sounds like it might be time to have a tactful but open hearted discussion with someone in the chain of command. What I would do were I in that spot would be to pull one of the higher ups you feel closer with and just mention that you love working here, but have not really received a lot of assignments and ask if there's something amiss in your work, or something that needs improvement. Ask how they feel you are doing in your position. Ask their input as to why you might not be getting some more assignments.

This way they don't feel you're challenging them and you seem really interested in knowing how you're doing.

I, of course, do not know what is really going on in this situation.

If I believe in someone I am serving, the person can trust me to trust him or her about what that person wants me to do; I suppose they need someone who is expert on things, so someone calling can talk with someone who knows the ropes; this can be very important to an operation, while you could take what you have to offer for granted. Think how much you could be helping someone, by answering that person's call. They feel they have and might really have an important reason for calling. What you do for them in even only a moment could be a key to their being able to do what is very important . . . even if it is not you doing it.

It seems possible you have a cause, as you say; yet do you believe in the people you are serving? Do you trust them? It sounds like you might not.

Revelation210Faith said:

I was essentially passive-aggressive to everyone for the rest of the day and I just don't even know what to do.

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If I were to get this way about not getting my way, I would understand that first I need God's correction of myself, before I get to dealing with anyone else. How we react can be an indication of what we really are ready to handle or not. This is how I evaluate my own self. I might, of course, be doing what God wants, but am I mature in being "slow to anger" (James 1:19-20)?

So, I would say seek our Father for howsoever you yourself need correction, then see what He has you doing . . . maybe the same thing, but with much more caring for others and enjoying loving people.

After you have gotten to be prayerful about this, possibly you could request someone to tell you the real reason why you have not been assigned to special projects. They might have a real reason; but > if ones do not keep their word to you, this to me means they are not trustworthy; and so why would I expect them to do what is right for some cause I have?

Just because ones claim to have a cause, this does not mean they are trustworthy for it.

There are politicians who, maybe every election, give lip service to some cause, then they get a bunch of votes from those emotionally attached to that cause, and then they drop it. It is kind of like Charlie Brown each year being tricked into trying to kick the football which Lucy is holding, only to fall on his back when she pulls it away just as he commits to kicking it.

I do not personally know who you are dealing with, but to me the Bible means that people of this world are not trustworthy and the help of men is vain. Plus, Jesus says, "He who loves his life will lose it," in John 12:25.

Are you loving a life which God has not called you to? If you are, you can lose it . . . emotionally and circumstantially. But if it is God's will for you, there will be evil which is allowed to come against it, and we need to learn how to test each situation for the good which God is able to create with us in each situation.

Reacting in a huff or whatever is not submitting to how God pleases to use each situation. Have you read what happened to Joseph, and how God used His situation to help so many people? Genesis 37-50.

You can enjoy loving each person who calls on the phone. People need to meet someone who loves and cares for them There are so many people who do not know how to love; but they might have causes and reasons for phoning you; and you can feed them your good example And what you do with God will have you growing to where you are going with Him.

So, see what God has you doing in His peace in your heart > Colossians 3:15.

Understand somewhat how you are feeling.

I would repent for any hard feelings (Eph 4:26), pray and asks Yahweh to bless the folks I work with, asks Him for His wisdom and peace (James 1:5), fulfill responsibilities knowing that each individual task is being done as until The Lord (Col 3:23) as well as keeping a good demeanor, and praise Him (Psa 100:1-5).

As a Christian we must deny our own will, that we may submit to and rely upon God's will by His Word. As for working we must (again) as a Christian with good will doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men: moreover if we are compelled to go a mile (even with the mere task of answering phones) then we shall go two or more. Lastly let us remember the highest virtue as a Christian, namely Humility, and as the Psalmist said, I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God..(Psalms 84:10); as well as the Lord Jesus telling us that the last shall be first, and the first last: with Him there is no respecter of person's. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

I've been in similar situations. It's frustrating. I've got a couple thoughts.

I'm expressing much of this as questions to think about. Please do not feel obligated to respond to these unless you want me to clarify something or discuss some point further.

The first one is this. Is God trying to tell you something? Sometimes (not always, but sometimes) extraordinarily "failure" is a way of getting our attention. Part of my current pastor's testimony is having had a sales job where in like a month or so (I cannot recall the duration) where he made zero sales. This is a job where there is a typical success rate of like 1 in 20. He had hit 0 for a few hundred (if I am recalling the numbers). God was basically getting his attention with out of the ordinary bad results. Is this God's way of getting you to evaluate if this is where you should be?

Is there something about you that is driving this? Are you the youngest intern? Is there something about your appearance that might be an issue for some type of "look" or whatever that the office might be trying to convey? (Everyone else wears ties and you wear t-shirts and jeans?) Is there some type of "culture" that you do not fit into? Are you too blunt or opinionated? Are you outside of the favored "demographics" for the office? Is this just simply a very cliquish sort of place and you (for whatever petty reasons) are on the outside?

Does your research "fit the narrative" so to speak? Is this group looking for yes-men who will prove the approved line or looking for actual good research? I was an analyst for a few years doing research. I left when I got a boss who didn't want good research; he wanted me to put my name and reputation on a bunch of pretty graphs and meaningless numbers that "proved" what he needed to be proved. I've been in positions where my immediate boss felt threatened by my skills (PhD and expert level knowledge of some things) and shoved me off in a corner. You either wait it out until they get fired or promoted, or you transfer to another department or leave the organization so they don't damage your reputation or career.

Does your communication style fit the environment? I notice in the OP that we seem to share a similar style of writing. To be blunt, not everyone appreciates nuanced detailed writing and presentations. Some people want terse direct bullet points, sound bytes, and definitive recommendations to act on. Some people are put off by anything more than a couple short points and see nuances and details as beating around the bush and proving that you aren't sure or confident of what you are writing. It took me some time to adapt my style to what people wanted. I found that executive summaries and other such things were a good tool. I'd write up the report I wanted, and then create a summary that they wanted.

As a serious question, are your skills as good as you think they are? There has been academic research done that has shown that people who are bad at something can be oblivious to it and indeed rate themselves higher than people who are actually good at it. Are there some people that you can run your portfolio past to get accurate honest feedback? Ideally, find a handful of respected experienced experts who've been doing this for years to talk to. Note that experience is not expertise. Some people with 20 years of experience have 20 years of growing and improving to reach the top of their field, and some people have 20 years of the same year repeated 20 times and know little more than when they started. Sometimes the "expert" of the group is merely someone who has avoided being fired for years or is the boss's best buddy. Sometimes such an "expert" will shoot down good work simply because they don't understand it or feel threatened by it.

Sometimes in life it is worth hanging in there until things change, sometimes not. Learning what you can and waiting for the opportunity to prove yourself might work in some places. Some places put a high premium on "loyalty" and proving yourself over time, in which case sticking around for a long time will eventually pay off. Other places, it is simply not going to get any better and it's time to move on to greener pastures instead of wasting time and staying stagnant. Overall, I'd say I probably wasted about 6 to 8 years of my career waiting for things to improve in bad situations. Now, it so happened that job had flex time and was a 10 minute walk from home so I could spend a lot of time with family and go to my kids' activities. The wasted career time was a calculated trade off for more family time. After the kids grew up, the last couple times the situation emerged, I just left.

Please feel free to bounce any ideas or questions off of me.

/nvm

/nvm

PoetStorm said:

Hi there,

sounds like it might be time to have a tactful but open hearted discussion with someone in the chain of command. What I would do were I in that spot would be to pull one of the higher ups you feel closer with and just mention that you love working here, but have not really received a lot of assignments and ask if there's something amiss in your work, or something that needs improvement. Ask how they feel you are doing in your position. Ask their input as to why you might not be getting some more assignments.

This way they don't feel you're challenging them and you seem really interested in knowing how you're doing.

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My sentiments, ditto.

/nvm

Revelation210Faith said:

Your words definitely ring true to me. Regardless of whether things change in my situation, I think God is using this as a lesson to teach me patience and humility that will serve me well in the future. The internship is over at the end of the month so in the long run it's not a huge deal. After reading your response, I guess the bright side is that this situation happened to me now when I'm an unpaid intern with not much on the line, so if and when it happens in the future, I will be able to respond with proper humility and grace rather than the anger that consumed me yesterday.

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No matter how skilled and conscientious you are, the reality is that situations can change rapidly. You can walk in one day and that immediate supervisor you love that you hired under could be gone and you end up working in one of the worst situations you've had in your life with people who don't want you around. Sometimes you gracefully ride the storm out. Other times, it's best to get out in the interest of self-preservation.

A couple of those times, I rode it out as gracefully as I could. A couple times, it really was God getting my attention that it was time for a change.

One of the things I never really learned (until my body basically collapsed on me last year), was how to successfully deal with anger and frustration. I simply tolerated it and acted as gracefully as I could. I didn't realize that simply acting patient and being polite is a far cry from actually dealing with my internal emotions. I never realized how much anger I had been suppressing over the years and decades at many things. Part of it was that I would usually be mad at systems and processes rather than individuals. If I had been getting very angry at people, I would have realized something needed to change. But since I was "justifiably" getting angry at inefficient processes, bad decisions, injustices, things that needed to be fixed, etc., I never recognized how mad I was at times. Over the years, it took a toll on me physically and emotionally in ways I did not recognize. I hit a point where I was starting to have panic attacks, and during one particularly stressful day at my last job, I almost passed out. That was concerning because I really had never had any serious physical problems before. Fortunately, with no debt and money in the bank (thanks to decades of frugal living), I could just leave that job and take time off. My wife and I discussed it and decided that what our rainy day fund was for. Upon meditation, it did seem God was leading me to a transition as well as forcing me to deal with simply being more healthy emotionally. I'm now semi-retired, consulting, and getting back to normal. It took about 4 months of just sitting outside with my dog and reading my Bible to really calm down and get used to not being in a constant state of high stress.

During the process of de-stressing, I had a session with a Christian counselor who recommended a book on CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy). Basically, it's about re-orienting how you view things that happen in life. He recommended a book ("SOS: Help for Emotions" by Lynn Clark). My first skim through the book and I realized I had spent much of my life frustrated at things outside of my control. For me, it was not an overnight process (and is still going on), but I'm getting so much better at letting things go and focusing only on what I can deal with than I had been. I wish I'd have seen that type of material decades before.

Revelation210Faith said:

I am the youngest intern in terms of age and year in school (beginning University in a month)...

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Good luck in school. The only piece of advice (PhD in physics and life-long learner of various skills and things and an industry expert in a few areas) I'd give is this. Beyond developing good study habits (which is a must!), learn how to teach yourself and master a topic. This is a completely different mindset than effectively studying for classes. The mindset of studying is often based around a class, the required work, and tests. The mindset of mastering a subject is figuring out what the main points are (by reading multiple textbooks and resources), understanding the main points and internalizing them, and then developing the necessary skills to carry out work in that subject. Studying has as a primary goal class performance. Mastery has as a primary goal the internalization of a subject and acquiring skills. I was one of those "smart" people who could quickly understand and remember things and scored exceptionally high on standardized tests. I relied on my natural abilities for way too long before developing good study habits. It wasn't until later in life that I learned how to teach myself new material and skills. That is one of my true regrets in life is that I didn't learn how to do that earlier. I spent way too long passing formal academic courses (and considering myself "educated") largely to the exclusion of acquiring skills I could put into use.

As an example, I got As in 2 years of university German. I couldn't do much with it besides ask where the bathroom was and read some easier books with the help of a dictionary. Now, in my mid-50s, I've learned how to learn much more effectively. I started learning Spanish 2 years ago and now enjoy watching Spanish dubbed and subtitled shows on Netflix and am about 2/3 through the NVI Spanish bible without using a dictionary. Last week, I was waiting at a library, picked up the Spanish version of Jurassic Park to pass the time, and enjoyed reading the first 20 or 30 pages. I run into Spanish speaking people with our therapy dog and can usually have simple conversations with them. Spending less time studying Spanish than I did German in formal classes, and it's actually become a usable skill in my life. One of my biggest regrets is that I did not know how to effectively learn languages when I was younger. I spent much of grad school around native Spanish, Chinese, and Hebrew speakers (in addition to many other languages). Sigh, such a wasted opportunity because I had more or less exclusively tied my learning to taking courses, rote memorization, passing tests, and reading formal academic textbooks.

The old guy with graying hair is now done opining and putting everyone to sleep for the day...

Revelation210Faith said:

Hi everyone. So I currently intern for a Congressman in his local office and though it sounds like a good deal, there's really not a whole lot of regulated work other than answering calls and handling special projects from the staff. Here's where the problem lies; while it seems all the other interns have multiple special projects from the staff and are asked to carry various responsibilities, the staff basically never give me anything to do. In the now 2 months and almost 200 hours I've worked there, I have gotten a total of 1 project(a small one which I finished in a couple hours). Even a project I volunteered for and was promised was then given to someone else without my consent. It's not that I'm not qualified or am lackadaisical about the job, I have an immense interest in politics and have spent hours upon hours both in and out of the office researching policy and honing my knowledge and everyone acknowledges my passion and understanding of the issues. Yet, it's like they overlook me and never entrust me with anything.

For the first 2 months of being passed over, I have stayed patient waiting for my opportunity, but today was the breaking point. There were only 2 interns in today, including myself, yet the minute I walked in, the other intern was assigned to work on a special project outside the office with a staffer while I had to stay and watch the phones, which means essentially doing nothing. Inside my heart, I absolutely exploded. It wasn't so much anger that I was feeling but rather I was soooo frustrated I literally wanted to cry. I was essentially passive-aggressive to everyone for the rest of the day and I just don't even know what to do.

This was a job I had prepared so much for and is for a cause I am incredibly committed so it's so disappointing to feel unappreciated. I know we are instructed in Colossians 3 to work hard, even for unjust bosses, because our ultimate master is God, and to work for God's glory regardless of how we are treated, but I need your prayers and advice that I may follow what God commands because it is soooo much easier said than done. Thanks and God bless

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Do not despair, brother. God can use even what seems to our vision, inconsequential, for something He is working on behind the scenes for YOUR future and hope. His training can seem "invisible" but it surely is training you in the deeep spiritual strengths that are anchored deeeeep in your heart and soul and that are, once they begin sprouting, bear fruit. He HAS His hand on you. Dare to TRUST Him in even this. In the meantime, i'm praying brother. Hang in there. (((hug)))

Colossians 3:23
"Work willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the
Lord rather than for people."

Ephesians 6:7-8
"Serve with good will, as to the Lord and not to men, because you know
that the Lord will reward each one for whatever good he does, whether
he is slave or free."

That's what I often reflected on while being a caregiver...others
mocked the job and called us caregivers stupid for doing such work...that's
work for uneducated people (they said).

I remember the disgusted looks on my friends faces when they found out I
was going to be a caregiver instead of pursuing some type of business woman
role. Those friends dropped me like a hot potato.

Caregiving is thought "lowly" and "beneath one's dignity"...I've overheard this
more times than I care to count. Now to my face family/ friends will say nice comments but when they don't think I'm around, they speak differently.

I worked as a caregiver for over twenty years and it was and still is a job that many look down on and it's not something that parents encourage their job seeking children to pursue. They instead push: be a nurse, be a doctor, be a pharmacist, be a vet, be a teacher etc...I've yet to hear parents say: be a caregiver.

So, I learned early on that my career choice and gifting wasn't going to be something others would applaud and speak well of.
But the Lord has many good things to say about being humble and looking
after others in need.