read right as polite, because they get offended easily.
I’m a male nurse in a predominantly female unit.
How I see a job: I’m there to work and go home and don’t want to socialize. Each of my coworkers is welcomed to talk about work with me, but I don’t disclose my personal life, age or life goals with them. Work and let me work. If you need help, call me, we’ll work together.
How my unit works: there is a group that’s childish and gossipy, don’t know boundaries and act like a clique, but maybe 50% of the unit are people that work and let me work, help me and I help them (with the gossip clique this is not always the case).
I was sick for 4 weeks and I’ve decided this is a good opportunity to establish boundaries, something I’ve never done at my current unit. Why now? Being sick I had time to think what I don’t want in my life: faking interest in the sexual life or my coworkers, knowing who started dating who or what they think of Biden or the second amendment ain’t things I care about. I’ve had a coworker trying to find me a girlfriend a week after knowing me. No thanks.
I’m entertaining other job prospects and I still don’t know if I’m gonna jump ship, so for the time being, I’m here. Where I work I’m forced to eat with the rest of the team, including the gossips, so I’m trapped (because if I don’t eat with them they’ll start asking why I’m so unfriendly or if I’m angry at them and feel offended, they simply cannot understand that sometimes I want time to unwind without them).
What I think I could tell them, next time they start with their inquisitive questions:
‘I’ve worked here for a year already. It should be clear by now that I’m not a talkative person. This is a question I don’t want to answer. And I hope that you respect that.’
‘that I don’t talk doesn’t mean I hate you, it means I have nothing to say’ < I find it ludicrous even having to explain this.
‘I don’t see what that has to do with the job’
‘I don’t talk about religion, politics or my private life with coworkers and I hope you respect that’
should they keep pestering:
‘all right, I need time to unwind, which means today I’ll spend my pause somewhere else.’ and proceed to eat alone somewhere else.
And if they pester yet again:
‘leave me alone’
if by this point some of them start giving me the evil eye and afterwards start ignoring me or treat me differently, time to accelerate my transfer to another unit.
If you like keeping boundaries with your coworkers, what do you tell them that works?
Having a good relationship with coworkers is in general great in my opinion and talking about personal life, politics and religion can be avoided with for example:
- “I’m not that into politics”
- “sorry, I don’t like talking about religion”
- “Sorry, that’s a part I like to keep private” Also always steer conversations towards work topics and problems.
Then there are ways to differently stop conversations like
- “Sorry, I’m feeling tired today” < all nurses should relate
- “Sorry, I’m not in the mood for talking right now”
Then there’s the general fact that often you don’t really don’t have to say anything as long as you listen and ask exploratory questions. I’m autistic and can barely keep a conversation going but this goes pretty well for me without a lot of effort. Just say stuff like:
- “So you’re saying that [literally rephrasing their point]”
- “So does that mean that…”
- “That must have been tricky”
- “That sounds hard/tricky/difficult”
- “Did you manage?”
- “So what did you do/end up doing?”
- “That sucks”
And if they somehow end up being sad and almost crying which happens more often than I’d like to admit you can just say “That sucks” put a hand on their shoulder and wait.
Another option would be to invite them to silence like:
- “I’m spent, do you want to sit over there, relax and eat in silence?”
People are sometimes uncomfortable with silence but not as much when it’s on purpose.
It’s just conversation lubricant. If you feel like the conversation is interesting then “Have you thought about doing X?”.
I can’t stress enough how much people will like you by just actively listening.
But always, be like the British monarchy, never take sides. Instead propose neutral hypotheticals like “Maybe they were having a bad day”. I’ve been in my fair share of gossip but acting as Switzerland manages to just avoid most of it. When people say “Why are you hanging out with X” then responding with “They never did anything to me”. If really pressed for opinion then say “I don’t know all the details so I can’t really give an honest opinion”. If they still press you after that you have my condolences since that’s toxic.
