Outsider Experience

Outsider Experience

At one point or another, one feels to be incomplete or out of place at different times or locations. Thus, the idea makes one have a feeling of either staying away from others and workmates or in the environment he or she is. The feeling is often known as the outsider feeling. An outsider is someone who doesn’t fit in, and in most circumstances, they stay far away from the group he/ she is working with or assigned to work with at a given point in time. The feeling that accompanies the individual seeing himself or herself as an outsider is the outsider feeling idea. An outsider has a hard time with what they are working with, and most often, everything seems to be chaotic and out of order. In the health sector, new interns and workers mostly feel out of place in their sites and in handling patients, for instance, if they don’t have enough experience in the field. For the outsider, everything feels awkward in the sector and on the other hand, to the insider who may be an experienced health officer, everything seems ok and working out without any difficulty.

I have experienced the outsider feeling at one point in time in my FW work site. At the initial feeling, before I arrived at the worksite, I had some sense of fright for it was my first time to go and deal with patients one on one. The first time feeling was weird. I felt like I was in the wrong place and out of place, as every patient had different conditions that needed to be handled. The generational gap between other health workers who were already workers in the institution poised a significant challenge for me. The idea that different generation had different beliefs made me feel like an outsider as I could not tell what the best to do and say with colleagues as they may perceive them differently as opposed to what my generation perceive.

Personality issue is another determinant that makes one feel like an outsider (Baines & Cunningham, 2013). As a shy individual, handling with many patients and dealing with many people posed a challenge in dealing with the everyday worksite interactions. Dealing with people and having a different illusion that people viewed me differently made me feel more challenged and have the idea of being an outsider. Finally, the lack of confidence in skills as a new worker made me feel like an outsider. Everyone in the group looked like they are perfect with what they were doing. Being a new worker and fresh from school, the other workers with experience seemed to be knowing everything and knowledgeable about their work, hence instilling the fear in me to work confidently and thus feeling like an outsider.

However, the feeling, people usually overcome the idea of an outsider in different ways. Some overcome the condition themselves while others are helped out of the condition by their colleagues. In my case, both instances worked for me. Overcoming the negative shy personality was the first step towards achieving the insider perspective. Dealing with many patients and different people visiting on a daily basis made it a routine to overcome the shyness syndrome. Interaction with those seeking therapy also helped in building the personality of being open with the clients and hence developing confidence at work. Self-acceptance was another step that helped in making the difference in the social condition. Self-acceptance was another issue in dealing with the secular state. Self-acceptance helps one to develop pride in what they do and therefore working confidently despite the deficiency in their work experience (Leeming & Boyle, 2013).

Colleagues also made it more helpful in overcoming the outsider syndrome. Providing a friendly work environment is beneficial for work to be done effectively. The cooperative nature of the colleagues and a warm, ideal setting for work-integrated well with proper operational systems motivates one to perform effectively. Therefore, the favorable environment helps one to integrate well with the work adapting faster and efficiently, hence overcoming the differences at work, including the syndrome. An understanding that one doesn’t need to fit in successfully in a group is also another way of overcoming the outsider feeling hence being able to communicate with each other efficiently.

 

 

Reference

Baines, D., & Cunningham, I. (2013). Using a comparative perspective, rapid ethnography in international case studies: Strengths and challenges. Qualitative Social Work, 12(1), 73-88.

Leeming, D., & Boyle, M. (2013). Managing shame: An interpersonal perspective. British journal of social psychology, 52(1), 140-160.