Annie
Thanks for your post and link which I read. it was useful.
Of course your point of view is quite valid. It is more often than not, my interpretation of events which make it worse.
And I have had problems in other workplaces as well as in other situations. Stems from feelings of inferiority I fear.

But I’d like to focus on whether Buddhism is going to be useful to me or not in regaining self-esteem. When I was younger, I did have some low-self esteem issues but they were manageable because I worked on my appearance and fitness. I felt good about how I looked. of course I still had problems of feeling confident in a group., afraid to voice my opinion. Now (in my fiftees), I am much fatter, starting to wrinkle, bit slower to catch on, (teach an old dog new tricks?) and perhaps more sensitive to perceived criticisms. However, I think when I was young I let people walk all over me, just I didn’t notice. Now I notice it and no longer want to be a doormat. I see someone used the analogy of the tiger and the teddy bear on another site. people need to see both the tiger and the teddy bear persona in you. I tend to project too much of the teddy bear persona, wanting to be cute and loveable. it’s all about boundaries and the workplace requires our boundaries to be stricter than normal. I tend to be over friendly, overly familiar and kind of toothless. The assertive tiger persona is hard for me to perform. I don’t enjoy claiming my rights to other people when they step over my boundaries or I am not mindful of what is happening in the heat of the moment(haha ! mindful… so maybe Buddhism is helping).
I want Buddhism to give me solutions to getting on with my work colleagues and gaining their respect. But all I get from Tibetan Buddhism is “be compassionate and fully present”. Surely we need to protect ourselves from people who are likely to walk all over us given the chance? What is the teaching on that? I used to be a Christian and a similar teaching was “turn the other cheek”. How about emphasising assertiveness more in daily life? How about talking about maintaining healthy self-esteem? These are my core issues and maybe they are better treated by psychology and counselling rather than religion. Too much emphasis on compassion and loving others regardless of their behaviour, is setting us for mistreatemnt in my view. We need to survive in the real world. Yes meditation has helped me I admit but it won’t solve all my problems I fear.

esp if they do not have higher education or high level jobs

very true