I am a late 20s, well educated and highly capable person with 5 years of experience in my field. I recently left my first job where I spent 4 years and was highly regarded and remembered as an invaluable asset to the team. Most of us were similarly aged and got along really well. It was a super busy yet incredibly chill and fun team among a pretty buttoned up Fortune 500 company.
I am now in a similar role but on a more formal team in a smaller-ish company. It’s a technical industry that I’m not experienced in but I’m assured constantly that it’s not required and we are able to consult with technical experts in the field. This is all fine and something I was used to at my old job.
What’s ruining my self esteem and making me question everything I do is in the convoluted business jargon and acronyms thrown around by every level of employee. It’s to the point where I’m coming up on a year in my role and I still feel lost because I’m busier trying to decipher what people are talking about with technical industry terms laced with jargon than being able to contribute to meetings and conversations or answering questions. I feel that I’m viewed as incapable due to this. It’s also extremely cringey to hear “let’s circle back” 20x a day.
When did we normalize this way of operating? What do I do? I don’t want to sound “dumb” by constantly asking people to rephrase their question or explain to me like I’m 5. I also don’t want to take up time from meetings to ask about stuff like this when it seems like everyone else understands.