Need guidance for my work experiences in gov.

Hi. This might be a bit long, but I’d really appreciate some guidance about my situation.

I’m a 26F who has been working in government since 2022. My first job was as a Contract of Service employee, mostly doing secretariat work for several committees, including the executive committee. The workload was heavy: organizing meetings, coordinating with divisions, ordering food, preparing minutes, and editing AVP reports.

I tried my best because I genuinely wanted to work in public service, and that I wanted to learn something new.

However, I noticed early on that people reacted strongly when they learned I graduated from a Big 4 university. Which is understandable. To be clear, my family is not wealthy. We didn’t have a car growing up, we lived in a small house, and I didn’t even have my own room. But coworkers would still make jokes like:

• “Does your mom still wash your baon?”
• "Akala ko may kotse kayo since taga-(Big 4) ka.”
• “Akala ko may sariling kwarto ka.” I tried to laugh it off and explain my situation, but the assumptions were constant. Which was expected, so I didnt let it bother me.

At work, I also felt like my bosses assumed I should automatically be highly capable because of my school. But the reality was that I was handling 2–3 committees alone, often coordinating meetings with little support.

Some incidents that really affected me:

• On my first day, I wore my university jacket because the office was cold. I happened to run into a senior exec while logging in that morning, but because i didnt know her, i wasnt able to greet her. During the weekly flag ceremony, she publicly said in her speech that even if someone comes from a certain university, they should still greet their bosses properly, which understandably scared me a bit.
• During meetings, one of the attorneys would get irritated at me if presentations weren’t immediately available, even when the divisions only sent them during the meeting itself. He even leered at me, saying "Huy, nararattle ka kasi eh, huy" in this interaction, which felt embarrassing in front of our director.
• One attorney even posted a photo on his MyStory complaining about the sandwiches I ordered for meetings, which affected the way my coworkers see my work ethic and started to question me a lot about this situation... When 1) people had been complaining about the pasta snacks from our supplier, so i didnt want to risk ordering it to get a complaint. 2) it was lent, so i was prioritizing cycling the sandwich filling for the season. And 3) why are you attending a meeting and complaining about the food? Some private agencies don't even get snacks for meetings. It felt very unprofessional for me.

Eventually the workload and the constant tension pushed me to resign after 3 years. I had requested for an asssistant and never got one there.

Thankfully, I eventually got a permanent position in another government agency. But a different issue started. When I arrived, coworkers asked if I had a backer. I honestly said I applied through the CSC portal. After that, one coworker (I’ll call him Cyril) seemed to take an unusual interest in me.

On my first day, he asked:

“Masasabi mo ba na mabait kang tao?”

When I answered yes (bc you need to be nice to do communication/coordination, of course) he said:

“Hindi ka nagpapakatotoo. Deceptive body language mo. Di ka bagay sa government.”

He also said he studied psychology at school/online and claimed he could read people’s behavior. Since then he often makes strange comments toward me, like implying that I’m “using psychology to manipulate people” because I studied psychology in a Big 4 school.

Other examples:

• He randomly tried to debate me about religion during lunch. I'm not devout, but the thought of going to lunch knowing he wants to debate makes me anxious.
• When I talked to my supervisor asking if she read a memo in our gc, he made a side comment saying: “pa-psych pa kasi.”, thinking that I ask questions like that to manipulate people to agree with my statements, when I was just asking my supervisor if she read the memo.
• Recently, I even caught him pointing his phone camera toward me for a few seconds, which made me very uncomfortable especially when he knew i was staring back at the camera.

My supervisors say he points his camera towards others too, and that he likes debates with people he deems intellectual. They told me that sometimes if you disagree with him, he actually respects you more. My supervisor said he often videos her (when she has been avoiding to talk to him), and my previous supervisor said that he may have apprehensions about who was my "backer" for the company (which my supervisor feels cyril thinks it may be someone who doesnt get along with him in the office). But honestly, I’m exhausted even thinking about engaging with him. I'm not paid enough for this emotional shit tbh 😭 😭 😭

The problem is that I can’t easily leave my job right now. My family recently experienced a house fire, and we are still recovering financially. I’m also engaged, and I want to help support my family and future plans. At this point, I’m just tired. I can deal with difficult bosses, but coworkers who constantly try to get under your skin are really draining.

So I wanted to ask:

• Is government work always this heavy on impression management? Is there anyone who has navigated this successfully?
• Am I just not suited for this environment?
• How do you deal with coworkers who seem determined to provoke or analyze you?
• How can i bring up my concerns if his behavior is normalized?
• How can I deal with my coworker taking unsolicited videos of me without aggravating him?

I get that there will always be people like this, but if I have to go through therapy for the 2nd time over a coworker experience like this, idk if im capable of govwork environments. I'm just someone with 4 yrs of job experience. Being in a big4 school doesnt automatically give me exemplary policy reform abilities, nor does it allow me to manage 2-3 committees and their sandwiches. It doesnt give me psychology know-how to manipulate my coworkers into forgetting I have a secret backer in an agency that has normalized it.

I have learned many things from my mentors! And I have made a few friends just fine, but if i have to deal with scary supervisors... I'm just freaking tired bruh.

I really just want to do and learn from my job peacefully. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.