Need some advice here…I’m about 3 months in and a senior male associate told me to just google it when I asked him a question. I told him that hurt my feelings. After apologizing that he said that meanly but was just offering advice he has completely stopped responding to me. Was I oversensitive? Just not sure what’s going on here…

In my perspective you may have been a little over sensitive. I have also told people to google things. Its just a form of direct feedback to stop people from getting in the habit of using their manager as a crutch for questions that they could proactively seek out themselves.

As a boss, here's my take:

* Before you ask a question, make sure the answer isn't already available to you. Y'all have research skills and are supposed to be critical thinkers. I'm happy to answer more complex questions or educate on matters requiring more nuance than google can provide, but do the minimum first so you can ask an informed question.

* Unless your supervisor called you a name while also telling you to google, I really hope you didn't literally tell them they hurt your feelings. Wow. That's a sure way to earn a reputation as a soft, insecure and immature individual who doesn't understand the difference between professional and personal interactions. Your boss gave you professional critical feedback that you should use to improve; your boss can be friendly, but your boss - at this stage in your career - is not your friend.

I agree with the other woman in here about young women needing to grow a thicker skin. I have had two F direct reports who cried every time I gave them a performance review - and most of the review was praise! Never would one of my M reports do that. I'm a kind person, so I naturally pulled some punches with those women, and in turn their performance continued to suffer until it was harming the collective team and in one case led to a PIP. I'm not suggesting women turn a blind eye to real abuse or discrimination, but you have to get past the myth that everyone has to love you and give unending praise. Learn to be your best advocate, don't turn into a pile of mush whenever your cute manager or nothing-but-business boss talks to you, and play the corporate game!

Last night I commented on this post offering some general advice for any associates that would stumble upon this thread. This morning I saw a lot of activity and re read all of OPs responses. Unfortunately, I’m noticing many red flags 🚩 and I’d like to address some of those.

OP, people in this thread took the time to respond to your post not only because we wanted to help you (that’s probably only 5% of the reason) but because we are hoping other young associates see this and take our advice. Yes, we hoped you would learn from this experience. While it may seem like people are hammering you even after you acknowledged your mistake, we are repeating the same message because we are trying to reach a larger audience. Your assumption that each comment was meant for you is wrong and somewhat self centered. My recommendation would be to work on figuring out why you took a lot of the offered advice so personally? Yes, several responses have been out of line but why assume they are all intended for you? The one about females was not really specific to you, so why not just ignore those posts? You say this post is being shared, as if people are laughing at you, when in reality we are commiserating with each other about our own struggles with the people we coach. Those struggles have nothing to do with you. The only thing that matters is how you apply what you’ve learned to other experiences. It won’t always be your lead telling you to google something. There will be variations so you need to be prepared to have a better response in the future.

One of the most difficult realizations that I made in my early 20s is that I’m not the only one with problems. People are going through worse. Actual bad stuff. Mothers having babies ripped from their arms. Individuals that are so sick that it has destroyed not just themselves but their families. I’m very sorry you suffered trauma as I can relate to that (I’m still trying to put myself back together). But this is an online forum where people are going to be more direct than they could be in person. Yes, several are cut throat but try to learn from what they are saying because for whatever reason the people you work with are unwilling to give you such direct feedback in person. Best of luck and feel free to DM me if you would like to chat.

You’ve got to get some thicker skin. Yes, everyone is told to ask questions, but be aware and ensure you aren’t using that as a crutch. I hate asking questions but it makes it so much easier to ask than to dig. If you did find it on google then you should turn inward and really reflect to see if you can’t figure it out on your own. Yup, google it before you ask another question. Don’t use him as a crutch. Also, and this will sound harsh so brace yourself, try to avoid talking about feelings in the work place — you are getting paid to be there, it’s not a friendship. Good luck!

Honestly, I get pretty annoyed when somebody asks me something they can easily google. It takes you the same amount of time to google vs ask, but when you ask, you are also spending their time. That’s not fair.

This is going to sound harsh but based on your responses here… it seems like you should spend less time defending your feelings and more time actually googling stuff/figuring it out on your own. He may have said it in a rude way unintentionally bc you’re taking up his time with questions you can answer yourself.

Few things:

-Why is him being male relevant to this exchange? Seems like you’re associating certain traits here.

-Did you try searching on your own or are you just sending your questions upwards?
Learning moment.

-Are you responding to the advice, or the attitude?
Seems like the latter. The advice is fair.

-Is this pattern behavior, or otherwise aggressive?
Doesn’t sound like it is.

You sound overly sensitive. It’s not his job to coddle you and make you feel ok about everything. Train and teach you? Sure. Part of that is direct feedback, which can be done best on the spot sometimes. Does this excuse rudeness? No, but neither is being direct inherently rude.

Sometimes you need to put your adult pants on and let things roll off instead of choosing to die on every hill.

It sounds like he was being direct, not rude. There is an expectation of resourcefulness in every job where you make an effort to find the answer before asking someone else. He responded accordingly so you can learn that the proper course of action is to figure it out yourself sometimes. Him “admitting” that he could have said it differently sounds like he was trying to smooth things over after you made it awkward. Unless he was inappropriate or unprofessional, saying he “hurt your feelings” isn’t useful in a work environment, and getting upset over a simple comment makes it seem like you can’t take criticism

I think being told to Google something is actually pretty normal! I don’t think I would’ve told them it hurt my feelings tbh but also kinda weird that he isn’t responding in general to you now.

Hey OP, I’m seeing your responses to other comments re: feeling bad and wanted to let you know that you really, really don’t need to overthink this. The overall point is that you’ve got to learn to brush off things that would normally upset you in your personal life because work is…not personal. You don’t have to feel bad about what you said and it’s definitely not that big of a deal. Treat this as a learning experience for the future and leave it at that. He’ll get over it (assuming he is even still bothered) and as long as you move forward professionally, so will he

Delivery is everything. He very well could’ve meant for you to Google whatever but I’m sure the way he said it could’ve been different. Also, no need to tell him he hurt your feelings. This is work. Just move different. It’ll be better for you in the long run

I’ll add on here as well, although I think OP is probably ready to move on. Anyway, I once told an associate to google something and felt like a complete jerk afterwards. I ended up apologizing to him and I regretted the apology because my message was correct; the delivery not so much. Since this incident i make my associates walk me through the steps they took to figure out the answer. If none then I ask them “how would you find the answer?” and usually they come up with a good game plan for finding the answer. Only when it’s a valid question that I know they won’t find on their own will I interject. This is actually a lot more work than answering their questions directly but I’m trying to get them to become critical thinkers and solve their own problems. When I send them back to look for their own answers I also warn them that if they don’t find the answer within x amount of time to come back to me as we don’t have time for them to be spinning their wheels.

If you got your feelings hurt after being told “Google it” - I’m surprised you even made it this far in your professional life. You’re gonna be having your feelings hurt everyday at that rate 😂

The thing that suggests to me you were being oversensitive is that you're complaint wasn't "he spoke to me unprofessionally" but "he hurt my feelings".

I would reduce communication with a colleague to the bare essentials as well if I thought by engaging with them I was incurring the extra (non-billable) task of managing a grown adults feelings.

As a former personal assistant, being self-led and resourceful will take you far in life. If the information you are seeking is something you can most likely find on your own, try to find it first then confirm. Senior leaders have big-picture thinking to do and may get have less patience to sort out smaller things in the weeds. Don’t take it personally though! We are all living and learning — even at work!

You're definitely being oversensitive.

This is all kind of bonkers. Boils down to two things for me. 1, don't ask stupid questions at work. A stupid question is one you could have researched yourself. I'm curious exactly what you asked but...sounds stupid.

Also there is a chance that this isn't the first time you have annoyed this person. People usually snap at you the 5th time you annoy them and the first 4 times they bit their tongue. Are you annoying? Think carefully, try to be objective and step outside of yourself.

And second, if you were abused and have trauma you need to be in therapy to help work through that and you need to understand that the world does not owe you gentle interactions for your entire life just because you had a hard upbringing. You need to realize it's not the planet being inappropriately cruel to you, but rather, you are hypersensitive to criticism and that's because of you and not bc your colleague is necessarily abusive.

I'm all for people being somewhat emotional, ie, human, at work, but your career will not flourish with such thin skin.

Yea you're being way too sensitive about this. Is this your first job? You're in for a rude awakening if you think this is bad... I've had friends in public accounting tell me about getting thrown under the bus multiple times by their seniors. Have you gone through busy season yet? Things will get way worse since we're overworked, sleep deprived and stressed.

Don't take thing too personally and definitely stop asking questions about things that can be googled.

My best guess is that the reason he came off as brusk was because he was already frustrated with you asking questions you could have googled and he reached the end of his patience. Learning moment for both of you- he needs to set expectations early and before the point of frustration, and you need to learn to be a bit more resourceful and respectful of other people’s time.