[Hatter08]

I just recently got a job and was pretty excited about it so I sort of feel like crap that I'm complaining right now. I've only worked three-hour days so far but I'm scheduled to start full eight-hour weeks soon but I hated working this past week as it was. I just can't stand other people. Some people have tried talking to me already but I just can't talk back to them so I'm already coming across as "different" like I was in High School. I just can't stand being around them for nine hours a week, let alone forty and on top of which I have absolutely no confidence in myself so I really am just convinced that I'm going to fail and its making me feel worse and worse about my situation every day but I can't just quit now. I finally have a job and some responsibility and a chance to get my life together, I just don't know how I'm going to get through this without hurting someone.

[AutismotionalMe]

I'm sorry you're struggling. . . I can't do certain jobs because I don't believe 'customer is always right' and I want to tell them so. . . I've been working with numbers for the past 40 years and I feel very comfortable talking to people about numbers. I can talk numbers but I stumble over the chit-chat people like to do as you pass them in the office - I can give short answers when they ask me stuff - but then to make them stop asking me questions, I'll ask them how they are doing - what are their plans and as they're answering I'm preparing to make a getaway. Learn as much as you can about your job and you'll gain confidence. Become good at one thing. And then branch out to learn the next thing. Don't compare yourself to everybody else.

Take your day in small bits - you're working two four hour terms back to back - so that's just an hour over the three. . . a lunch break. . . and then another longer than three hour bit.

Congratulations on getting a job - what are you doing? (maybe I should have started with that?)

[Hatter08]

Right now I'm just working at a pizza place. Its gotten a little easier since then. It was mostly just nerves. I just get almost homicidal around other people since my mind always automatically jumps to only seeing the bad things in people.

[Koko2]

I don't have any trouble with most customers. It's the coworkers that have always annoyed me. The goldbricking, the backbiting, the Flowers For Algernonian superiority complexes.

[Perna]

There's a whole lot of customers so I like to pretend that at least 1 a day appreciates me, was glad I smiled at them or was pleasant to them. Even if I have non-customer contact, have to clean bathrooms or take out trash and clean up; I try to feel virtuous for making things better for others like I would like it to be for me. If you can think of yourself and what kind of person you want to be instead of what slobs and ninnies the other people are :-) that helps me.

Have you tried sharing any of your observations with others discretely? Sometimes just rolling your eyes to another co-worker about an obvious problem customer can make one feel a bit better or catching a co-worker having a problem with a customer or other co-worker can make us feel not quite so strange and alone?

[nowaitaminute]

Originally Posted by Koko2

I don't have any trouble with most customers. It's the coworkers that have always annoyed me. The goldbricking, the backbiting, the Flowers For Algernonian superiority complexes.

How interesting when conditions become generally unstable, and those of us who have always had to adapt, accomodate and try harder are the ones who are packing serious coping skills for the times. In other words, the playing field is somewhat levelled, and those coping skills are the same for anyone. I think it's an opportunity to shine through these mental 'differences' we sure didn't choose to be born with. Perhaps, when it comes to matters of character (if you've faced your difference in reality, with honesty about how to improve), it doesn't matter. If impairment affects your freewill, that's obviously different. What kind of person do you respect yourself as? What's in your grasp to actualize that? How can you keep that process moving forward? Nobody can answer that for you, but leaving it 'up for grabs' is a disaster. You can only be who you are...you can choose to be the best you. That outlook of positivity helps in the workplace, even when it doesn't work out.