[CosmicRose]

I've never worked at a place I felt comfortable in. I worked in a retail clothing store when I was 18 for only about a month, and quit because my anxiety got so intense. My coworkers would say things like "Just look busy" so I would fold the same pair of jeans like ten times on a slow day. When it actually got busy, I was a nervous wreck on the cash register with a line going out the door. My coworkers would take advantage of me by constantly texting me and saying "Can you cover my shift?" I felt so uncomfortable.

When I tried to be a phlebotomist, I would get so nervous at the hospital trying to take other people's blood with a needle that I would shake. People always gave me weird looks and it made me really self conscious, so I quit that too.

I really worry that I will forever feel uncomfortable at work, in any job. Being forced to stay somewhere for 8 hours a day seems so unnatural to me. It causes my anxiety to go through the roof, especially if other people are criticizing me or judging me. I think the issue comes down to feeling inferior.

I don't understand how someone can be at work all day every day with zero issues. What is wrong with me?
Does anyone else have workplace anxiety? Any tips or advice?

[Can't Stop Crying]

I have a lot of workplace anxiety....I don't have any good tips....I don't think there is anything wrong with you...

I feel like I always have to "prove" myself

I feel like I am a fraud

I am abnormally scared of making mistakes

The only thing I try really try is to focus on the task at hand and take it one step at a time. Not always successful at that though.

[cool09]

Being forced to stay somewhere for 8 hours a day seems so unnatural to me

You summed work up perfectly. I've always found work and doing something repetitive for 8 hrs/day completely unnatural and having no consternation towards work as strange. I've always felt like I belonged to someone else whenever I worked and people were forcing me to conform to what they wanted (and I've worked in many different types of professional and blue collar jobs: from an engineer to cemetery worker to office cleaner, etc.). I'm not built that way inside. I can not just turn things off and on when people want me to. Work relationships have always been the strangest relationships for me. Personal life and work life are like completely two diametrically opposing things and it all seems very unhealthy and unnatural. I can't give you any advice on how to go about it. I still have not figured it out.

Work has to be unnatural because on the weekends I could never spend time doing anything for 8 hrs straight. That sounds insane to me. I watch some people at work and I have no clue how they do it. Ever drive by workers in a field picking fruit or vegetables in the summer and wonder how they do that 8 yrs/day, 5 days/wk? Or truckers that drive 50-60 hrs/wk for 25-30 yrs? Boggles my mind. I would go loco.

[CosmicRose]

Yeah I look at some teachers and I'm like how can you stay in a perpetual classroom every day of your lives? Or even my mom, who has been working the same office job at a large university since I was born - 22 years! She still has a few more years to go before her retirement and I'm like how does she wake up at 7:30 am every day and go to the same office with the same people, the same duties, its so weird to me but she does it without even questioning anything! If that were me I'd probably go crazy and toss my computer out the window and run down the hallways screaming lmao

[offthegrid]

It's very relieving to know other people question "work". I have and people think I'm lazy for it. I guess it's different if you're doing something that you're comfortable with..or you're doing slightly different things through the day. I've been able to paint for 12+ hours a day but not the same things and I have to be excited about it. Or in the case of the field workers you're physically moving your body. But your typical office job, I don't get that.

[Sufferedindividual]

I understand compeletly where you are coming from. I've had two office jobs now and I am extremely unconfortable at both of them. I now work as a bank teller talking to customers at the drive thru and it sucks because I am not a good talker and I can't deal under pressure. Also everyday I am so conscious of whether or not my coworkers hate me or not because I am always getting weird moods and looks with them. I am the newbie there and I am extremely awkward and since I am in training now I just sit and watch.

[CosmicRose]

Yeah those "weird looks" are really...weird! I've had that in school and in other work environments. Its like people are judging you with their face without having to say a word. Ugh. They might also feel uncomfortable about being there and that might be why they are giving you weird moods and looks. Dunno