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Hi. I did well in school, but I don't do that well at work. Just recently, my manager told me I fail to see the big picture.

School was easier: the path is laid out for us and we just need to, more or less, follow it. At work, not so much. Everything is ill defined and you're sort of expected to “learn by osmosis” (by going to meetings, listening to your team chatting and then forming an understanding). I'm terrible at this and the consequence is that I don't always prioritise my effort and work well.

The obvious answer is to ask, but I'm not always aware of what I'm missing or the explanations come with loads of other lingo and assumptions about my current knowledge. After failing to understand an explanation, I feel I shouldn't ask again for fear being labelled “dumb” (after all, everybody else seems to be doing well). I also try to take notes, but after a while I just end up with a pile of disjoint pieces of information.

Has anyone felt like me? Have you found techniques and strategies to cope with this that you could share?

Or anything really. Points of view and opinions are very much appreciated as well.