my supervisor is an extrovert, whereas I’m an introvert. She feels insulted if I don’t share my personal life with her and ridicules me before other coworkers because I separate private and work life and prefer to keep to myself.

I wrote mobbing because that’s what it feels to me: a ritual of hers is to always eat together, a time she uses to ask me questions I don’t want to answer. I usually answer very vaguely, which is not enough for her. If I eat alone, she’ll complaint about why am I being so unfriendly.

She doesn’t understand I need time alone to unwind.

She is convinced she is doing me a favor, but the opposite is true. It makes me dislike her even more.

I simply cannot win. It’s tiring being blamed and shamed for preferring to read a book instead of talking about dogs or sex.

It makes me want to quit.

I don’t know if I go to HR with an issue like this, because they may label me the odd one, the one who’s not a teamplayer and use it against me.

Most people are extroverted and react angrily to somebody who keeps to himself and I’ve been bullied several times for this. Extroverts don’t seem to understand that not showing interest in their sexual lives doesn’t mean disrespect, but simply that I don’t care about it.

  • protist@mander.xyz
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    3 months ago

    OP, I’d urge you to reconsider framing this whole thing as an “extrovert vs introvert” battle. Your boss is demonstrating poor boundaries and disrespectful and inappropriate behavior, and that has nothing to do with whether she’s an I or E on the Myers-Briggs.

    Whether or not you go to HR depends a lot on your company culture. Either way, you need to be documenting specific comments and specific behaviors that are inappropriate first. Every time she asks you an uncomfortable question, especially if it relates to sex, write down what she asked, how you responded (that you declined to answer and asked her to stop asking personal questions), who else was present, and the date/time. Keep this in a personal account, not company. Do NOT go to HR without documentation.

    We don’t know how big your company is, but odds are if she’s a middle manager she’s got people above her already who know she’s a gossip and hate that. If you have any relationship at all with her supervisor, it’s generally viewed as following the chain of command if you bring concerns like this directly to them, as well.

    • teawrecks@sopuli.xyz
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      3 months ago

      For the record, Introversion and Extroversion have a scientific basis. The Myers-Briggs does not.