Teammate Excludes Me and doesn't give me info

Question

I joined my current workplace 6 months back and I am a fresher (no previous work experience). My team initially consisted of just me (a girl) and another guy (who has 8 years work experience).

I thought we get along well. He expects me to include him in any work I do, but he excludes me out of his work. He becomes all defensive and secretive when I casually ask things.

I work day-in, day-out with R and have a substantial knowledge of statistics. Recently, 3 new members (all guys) joined our team and he is taking charge of "training" them on R and statistics, when he has very little knowledge. Now, they have meetings on R & Statistics and I am not even told. They conduct these "brainstorming" sessions almost everyday and I feel bad and excluded. I am all the more willing to help them out, but when they have meetings in a separate room, and they all act all high-and-mighty about it, I feel "Ok, fine. Let them do it their own way."

Should I be worried that this might lead to worse situations?

Answer 1

You don't speak of a team lead or manager.

I see a potentially bad pattern. Accept you have expertise in R and statistics and he does not. You should be performing the training and he should attend. He excludes you from open communication on an individual level. And now he is excluding you on team level. There is not a good reason for 4 team members to have regular brainstorming sessions on a subject and exclude the 1 team member with expertise in that subject. Devils advocate is that he wants to exclude you on a larger level.

Is your manager / lead aware of your expertise in R and statistics? Who assigns programming tasks?

Answer 2

As a fresher, I think you're making the general mistake of not knowing what is expected of you and equally important, how do you know when your boss thinks you're performing as expected. This takes time. You have to observe and ask questions. Pay attention to your boss to find out what he thinks is important. Good bosses should make this very obvious to you, but sometimes they need our help.

You could be worrying about nothing. Who knows, maybe these new people are actually training your boss in R. They could be working on something completely different from you. Because you're being left out, you're looking at this negatively, so you interpret their behavior as being "high and mighty." Are they suppose to act like they're the lowest life-forms on the planet who are accomplishing nothing after these meetings? They could be a bunch of jerks, so make sure you are not being left out by finding out if your boss thinks you're doing your job. Ideally, you would be getting so much gratification from your work, you won't even notice the meetings.

Work with your boss to get more feedback and get it more often. Follow-up on work you turn in. Wait a day and send an email asking if it was what he wanted. Good waiters do this with every customer. If someone says the food was fine, but they hardly ate any of it, a good waiter finds another way to ask the question to help probe deeper. Sometimes we get so caught up with the technology, we forget we're servicing people. They have emotions and personalities and sometimes we need to make them feel comfortable. They don't always have the technical skills to get it from our work alone. Show you care by paying attention and finding out what is important. You never know, it may have nothing to do with the meetings or the three new guys.

Answer 3

It's most likely a part of his job to tutor new people and have an idea about what they're doing and know how they're performing so he can give feedback to your boss on how you're coping in the new workplace.

If that's the case its only natural for him to be included in what you're doing. but not necessary he other way around, it depends on how much your work intersects. You need to make an authority aware of if you're being excluded from crucial/essential information.

When it comes to tutoring, It's not a matter of being excluded, its a matter of roles. Seniors are often used to mentor new people, because the company usually knows their capabilities meanwhile they're yet to learn yours, and you are still proving yourself within the organization. Even if they know how capable you are, they might find you more useful doing what you're doing right now.

It'd be completely different if you'd have similar work experience in the workplace and you'd be more experienced in the matter of what's being taught. You can let people know that you know X and Y and are open to tutoring if its needed but don't expect to be brought in to do mentoring, yet.

You have to evaluate the situation but I think you're not being excluded, you're simply being asked to do a different job than he is.

tl;dr don't take it personally, it's most likely a matter of roles; seniors are often expected to mentor rather than letting that task be assigned to juniors.

Answer 4

I had similar experiences when first joining the workforce after a long time in academia. You have some knowledge and skills that you want to exercise and share, but it seems as though you are not given the opportunity.

What @Jonast92 says about "roles" is true. A workplace is different from academia in that you are expected to execute your role, in other words, "to do your job." New employees coming out of school often try to immediately branch out into different job functions even when that's not what they were hired to do. That's a noble intention, but it is unfortunately incompatible with how projects are managed in many organizations.

That said, there could very well be some feelings of intimidation involved. Your knowledge and the fact you are new may make your lead uncomfortable and standoff-ish. Some workplace-personalities don't handle casual open-ended discussions well and see such things as a threat to their job.

The best thing to do is to perform your specific job role as best you can and develop trust over time with the lead. As you prove yourself, you will gain more latitude and be comfortable with asking to participate in more activities.

Answer 5

I would suggest focusing on doing your work (tasks) at an extremely high level and so that your manager notices your work.

If your manager notices your knowledge in a particular area, such as R, they should include you in future projects.

Perhaps also there is a bit of sexism going on at your workplace or the lead is not comfortable working females.