I graduated this year and started my first job about two months ago. Thanks to the internet I already knew employees work 10+ hours on a daily basis. My team come to the office by 11 a.m. leaves by 5 p.m. and continues the work at home till 9-10 p.m., which is honestly much better than a lot of the other teams, who have to stay in the office till their work is done.
The problem started when this new girl joined my team about two weeks ago. She is the ideal employee. She comes to the office before everyone else at 9.30 a.m. and leaves after everyone, at 8 p.m., even though no one has told her to. Once, I overheard her jokingly telling her mentor he should finish his work instead of talking about going home.
I am not a very social person and am terrible at small talk. I don't prefer sitting with the rest of the team for lunch. It's the only 30 minutes I get to relax. I don't joke around with them. The new girl does. She's a very social person and good at corporate small talk.
The senior employee who is mentoring me works in another office and came to my office for about a week where he met the new girl. Ever since then, he has been rude to me. I didn't want to read too much into it so I let it go. Yesterday, he scheduled an hour-long meeting with me and told me I need to work harder. He told me to stay in the office longer so that I could understand the work better and 'bond' with the team. He said that since I leave early, he's not able to give me work, which is hilarious. There hasn't been a single day when I haven't worked till at least 8 p.m. And I didn't ask to leave at 5 p.m., he was the one who told me to. 90% of the team does.
And then he straight-up told me I needed to be more like the new girl.
It's great for the new girl that she's happy here. She likes the work and the people. She's said it out loud multiple times. But it's not fair that I am expected to act like her. It seems like she's made for this world. I am not. I finish my work on time. I reach on time and leave when everyone else does. I don't know how to deal with these unfair expectations because there isn't any way I am acting like her and sacrificing my life for a corporation.