Hey Malady,

You definitely have a point. Interpersonal issues have definitely held me back a lot too. Holding everything in, and then blowing up at the boss really doesn't go over well, I have discovered. Also, one of the reasons I didn't get into graduate school the first time around was something to do with interpersonal interactions. Currently, my T is identifying "not understanding interpersonal feedback" as the number one issue I need to work on.

Definitely, that stuff matters. Maybe someone who has a better grasp on how to manage it than I do could write an article for next time? Or maybe someone can give us some pointers here in this thread.

You know, none of it is entirely our fault. Clearly, your employers were not behaving appropriately, but apparently you didn't play the game, and they didn't like that. In my case, quite often other people are being inappropriate, or maybe even abusive (some of my employers have been real gems too!), but maybe if I had the social skills to be able to deal with it, I could have had better outcomes. In some cases, standing up for myself all along instead of letting it build up might have done the trick.