July 20, 2007
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A Question
It’s on the main blog but I’ll post it here too…
How does someone very introverted, very self-sufficient, very literal, and very quiet go about reducing the stress and frustration level of his student assistant who is very extroverted, very in need of overt compliments, very indirect, and very loud(not volume)?
Anyone?
Comments (7)
good luck with that.
what is he so stressed and frustrated about?
she, and I wish I knew for sure.
It actually shouldn’t be as hard as you would think. Be there for her and always offer your listening ear. “That girl” from my blogs is like that too, and I’m as introverted as you are, but over the last year, she’s told me that I’ve done more for her than any guy she’s ever known. I hear that and I’m like what/??? lol. Just be her friend…
“Just be her friend” Please don’t take this the wrong way, but as her supervisor I’m not there to be her friend. I’m there to supervise her. I do my best not to take her for granted or to see her as a tool or whatever, but there’s gotta be a line and buddying up with a student is past it. Sure if I was still a student and she was a student, effectively a co-worker, it’d be like “hey let’s go have a beer and I’ll give you my ear for a few hours”. That’d be the co-worker approach. I’m trying to figure out the supervisor approach.
Ahhhh I didn’t realize it was that type of relationship. Yeah, that definitely complicates things. I really don’t know what to tell you man…
hmm, that’s a hard one. is there a large age difference on top of the supervisor/supervisee and gender difference?
all in all, it’s not really ur job to be there for her. i’m sure she’s got some family or friends that she’s close with that can help her. not to mention you don’t really know what’s causing the stress in the first place.
maybe just ask her what’s wrong? if she doesn’t want to talk about it then don’t worry about it. if she gives some reason for the stress, then take it from there. it’s really hard in this situation to do anything at all. you can’t fix something if you don’t know what’s wrong with it.
I”m 25 and she’s 23. I suppose I’ll just to have to listen to her(in a supervisor kind of way) and figure out if it’s something inside or outside of work and go from there.
I’d like to thank everyone for their advice. Women……