The New Guy - Competition at Work

Tonya has been working as a software engineer in RTP for 10 years now. She is part of a 6-person collaborative team. When Covid hit, her job quickly transitioned to work from home, with work meetings taking place over Zoom. While this was a challenging adjustment for everyone on the team, it hit Tonya especially hard because she is a mother with two young children. Lately, she has been very anxious about her position, and is afraid that the newest hire, Gil, a young recruit fresh out of college, is trying to usurp her responsibilities. When the boss asks who wants to take on a new task, Gil jumps right in before she has a chance to consider it, saying that he has plenty of time to devote to it since he doesnt have kids and cant go out and socialize due to covid. Sometimes she doesnt even hear about the assignment until after the fact, when Gil is getting kudos for it. It is not unusual for her internet screen to freeze up during meetings, since her family is also using it for school and teleconferencing. Once, her image froze with a funny expression and afterward Gil circulated the picture on the local social media with a silly caption on it. It wasnt in bad taste, but she didnt want to be a meme. Tonya is often interrupted by Gil during the online meetings and can hardly get a word in. When she does get the rare opportunity to talk, her children interrupt her with requests for snacks or attention. There have been a few times where she forgot to turn off her mic, and everyone heard her talking to her kids. Gil wrote MUTE YOURSELF in the chat in all caps, with several smiling emojis after it. Lately she has noticed that when she is speaking, Gil will turn his camera off. She finds this offensive but is afraid to mention it. When she has an idea for a solution to a problem, she gets nothing but pushback and arguments from the others. Then after a few rounds of argument, Gil will mention the same idea with different words, and the team decides it is the best approach. Tonya is frustrated and anxious and wants to take control of the situation. She thinks that she will have a private meeting with the manager to discuss Gils behavior. She wants to make it clear that he shouldnt joke about her or take her ideas and get credit, and that he shouldnt be the first choice when tasks are doled out. Just because she has more going on at home, doesnt mean she cant still do her job as well as she did before. Using the template below, identify 4 pieces of information from the narrative. Keep in mind that information should be verifiable, accurate, relevant, and clear. For each piece of information, identify the related conclusions Tonya is making. Keep in mind that these are specific to the situation at hand. For each conclusion, identify possible underlying assumptions that led to each. Keep in mind that assumptions are generalizations about how the world works, are often influenced by a persons point of view, and are often subconscious (not obvious) to the person who is making them. For each conclusion, identify the implications (what may happen), if their assumption doesnt hold in this situation. In other words, what might they be missing in their understanding of the situation, that would make the assumption not applicable? What might happen as a result of acting on a faulty assumption?

Information	Conclusions	Assumption bridging information to conclusions	Alternate explanation: What might be happening that contradicts the assumption	Implications (what could happen in the future) if Tanya continues to apply her assumption and believe her conclusion, even though they dont apply to this situation