What trips you up at work?

For some people, it may be their attendance, productivity, dealing with customers, etc. These things were never my problem. In fact, I've always had perfect attendance, always worked real hard, and customers never had a problem with me. I've even been tipped by some of them at food service jobs that doesn't expect employees to be tipped (AKA fast food).

What tripped me up had always been:
1. Stalking
2. Anger/emotional outbursts
3. Screwing/joking around inappropriately

You? And for things that tripped you up, what did you do to improve on them?

In the 90 days since starting this job, I've not stalked anyone (and have no desire to) and #2 and #3 on this list had only happened in the normal range. For instance, no one jokes about pee, ***** and puke, so I don't. I only joke around like everyone else does. And I only show frustration and annoyance the same way as everyone else (e.g. NOT curse ppl out and throw stuff).

I wouldn't say trips up, per se, but there are certain things that I find hair triggering, such as being asked of an employee what to do when she is fully capable of figuring it out herself. Or the "stop everything you are doing" and do this right now types of moments. Both get under my skin in my non work life and here I am dealing with it in a place I'm trying to separate mentally.
One will be hard pressed to get a warm fuzzy feeling from me. I don't bite heads off or anything but right now with the undercurrent of my grams situation lurking under the surface I'm probably venting more than usual. Not in any type of getting in trouble territory or anything like that. But it gives me pause.

IKR. People sometimes get under my skin as well. Lately, my coworkers and hourly managers kept accusing me of freaking out over every little thing. TheyÂ’d even tell me to chill. On the spot. Almost every day. I donÂ’t get it. If I show annoyance the same way everyone else does, why am I the only one who get this accusation?

Among other things. I yell when I burn myself or accidentally hit something. They get on me for that. Plz donÂ’t tell me you stay completely silent when you burn yourself on the fryer or whatever.

And when I joke around, all the sudden IÂ’m too loud. For instance, they found it weird that I kneeled to a coworker and called him lord. Or when I offered to wipe sweat off someoneÂ’s forehead. Yet, someone threw a small piece of ice and it landed into someone elseÂ’s shirt pocket. Or when a coworker jokingly called a female colleague mom. They found that funny.

Even those who like me keep telling me to chill. Seems like i always get crap just for acting like everyone else. I got kicked out of middle school because I acted like everyone else.

You kneeled in front of the coworker? Did I read that right?

As about tripping up or what not, I sometimes have bad time management. Nothing anyone else knows about me but I sure do know I can do better. I don’t really know how to improve. I think it is what it is.

Yes you read that right. I was playing around. How is that different from a coworker calling another female coworker mom? How come other people can play around during down time but I get crap for doing the same thing? I'm imitating other people.

People can get to me, under my skin, etc. But yet I grow attached to people at work too (which is ok to a degree, but I've tripped up over with
infatuation).

I also have a lot of patience, but can get really annoyed... people have told me they had no clue...

I feel like people have clicks and i'm not (nor really was a ) click person, but yet could be a small group person. Just feel excluded a lot, then I realize I tend to avoid at times too.

I've always done better "one on one" with people

.

I realize I can be awkward, but who isn't from time to time?

anxiety , depression, etc all play in too... working on my loneliness

How the corporation manages itself gets to me, big tripping on that ...

I could write a book of my views of injustice and awfulness

Being overstressed at times , etc (but i'm in an apathetic view lately of it all).
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I feel like I wouldn't act very nicely if I had a job..

It wouldn’t make too uncomfortable if someone jokingly called me mom, but I’d very uncomfortable if people kneeled in front of me at work. That’s all right, if the person was ok with it, it’s fine

He wasn't. People were hardly ever ok with me joking around. I put tape and stickers on someone and was finally told to stop. What about that person who threw a small piece of ice and it landed in someone's shirt pocket?

I remember several years ago, Burger King can't handle me saying shoot me a few weeks into the job. They. Just. Can't. But all my life, other people been saying it without getting into ANY trouble. Even when teacher/supervisor heard them, they were never in trouble. It was treated as normal. Or it would be unless I'm the one saying these words.

#doublestandards

Kneeling at work or playing with a piece of ice isn’t the same thing. Kneeling is quite bizarre honestly. Tape and stickers? I think it’s jusf the severity of it that is different.

Now I’m starting to get a glimpse of why a handful of them are turned off. Know why? Cuz bizarre is a strong word.

I asked to drink after a manager and he gave me a weird look and another coworker that's gross. But I saw ppl drink after each other. For instance, I drink after my BF.

I asked to wipe sweat off a manager's forehead. He said no. When I told coworkers, one said it's gross and the other one said meh it's only a little weird. That was during end of summer and it was consistently 90 degrees outside and our AC system is very old. I wringed my hair out and sweat soaked the paper towel and I offerred it to the manager and a coworker on 2 different occasions.

They didn't react very good to all these. But I always thought if I stay away from topics like
1. Pee, sh8t and puke
2. other bodily fluids
3. politics, religion, and sex,
4. hurtful and discriminatory
I'd be fine. None of these jokes fell into these 4 categories. So I must be acting like everyone else, right? I don't understand.

There is so much more to behavior than just the behavior itself. The nature of the relationship must be considered, as well as the circumstances. If my best friend asked to share my drink, that is totally different from my coworker asking me.

The sweat thing would really bother me. Its about personal space and boundaries. When in doubt, lean on the side of more space and thicker boundaries than less.

Wiping someone’s sweat and drinking after people is actually related directly to bodily functions/exchanging fluids such as sweat and saliva. It’s unsafe (herpes could be passed on by sharing drinks) and it’s also crossing boundaries and violating personal space. Managers/coworkers is not the same as boyfriend. Do you really think it’s the same?

Would the personal space issue also apply to putting sauce cups on andy's* head?

*not his real name.
I also did that to another person as well. I guess that wouldn't be bodily fluid. So would that be normal?

Since I couldn't tell the difference between me joking around and other people doing the same thing, maybe I'll benefit from not joking around. Maybe it's the context or w/e, but it baffles me that those tiny unnoticeable details make all the difference.

Sauce cups on people’s heads is a bad idea at work. I think you might be better off keeping jokes to a minimum at work and joke with friends and family.

Reading people, actions and reactions are very complex and subtle. We could go on analyzing examples forever, and still not fully understand what happened as we were not there. Even if we were, people would have varying opinions of what happened.

You are such a puzzle to me, Ruby, because you write very intelligently but you have huge difficulty in reading people and feel compelled to bizarre behaviors. I suppose this is a trait of your disorder.

Is there a type of therapist who teaches how to learn social cues? Is it possible for you to learn if someone tried to teach you? If you got to be the age you are and haven’t learned these social skills, is it possible for you to be taught them? There are infinite variables. I don’t know how you can be trained if you have a disability that prevented you from learning like the rest of us learn these things from birth on.

Have you ever seen the movie Groundhog Day? This movie might help you. The lead character (Bill Murray) has to repeat the same day over and over until he learns how to get the girl to fall in love with him. The movie shows the same scenes with him using different words and behaviors until he gets it right.

The time clock said there’s 64 employees at that particular location. I’ve only ever worked with half of them since some of these people are overnight shift. So of the 30 something people I’ve worked with, 4 are turned off. In fact, i can easily disperse then across a spectrum based on how well I get along with them. These 4 are at the bottom obviously. There’s several at the top. The rest are various places in between. Could these 4 ppl be where they are as a result of my “bizarre” behavior? I put it in quotations because idk what I did that was bizarre besides kneeling to a coworker in an act of worship.

I agree with the comment above regarding complexities. It's truly difficult online to touch upon what it could or could not be.

One thing that I know is touched upon in a variety of recovery types of programs and even in CBT is to swerve away from the comparisons of ones own behaviors and consequences to those of others. I believe it's the part about accountability. Might be something worth exploring?

That might do it.

To put it gently, it does seem you've got some personal boundary issues. You often don't know what behavior is appropriate and what isn't. And then even when you do believe you're acting like everybody else, you may take it too far because you don't read social cues well. (Neither do I, and I've taken jokes too far myself.) That's understandable, given your condition, but it doesn't give you a free pass to behave badly at work. Any time you do something that's considered "off," I recommend apologizing and trying to remember not to do that again. You need not disclose that you have a condition, unless they know already.

Isn't acting like everyone else simply saying what they said and/or doing what they did? It doesn't even have to be the exact same thing, just similar. If the jokes aren't about pee, shyt, and puke, or about politics, religion, and sex, then how could you tell appropriate from inappropriate? What's weird is that I'd joke around like other people do and get told that it's not funny.

I've been kicked out of middle school for acting like everyone else, esp the popular kids. THe cool kids didn't even get into the trouble I did and they're the most authority-defying group. The same thing got me into trouble frequently in high school.

One incident happened when I joked about 420 and marijuana and saying to someone that he posted that stuff on Facebook. It was at front counter but there were very few customers at that time. I remember other people occasionally joke about controlled substances so I imitated them. It wasn't just at my current job, but at every job or school I've been to, people joke about that stuff.

SOme time ago, I joked about egging hourly mgr's house, calling him homeboy, etc. He started joking about murdering me and it went back and forth. Then as the GM was leaving, he said he could hear me from all the way at the back and so could the customers. Then as I was going on break, I was running from the hourly mgr I thought was gonna murder me and slipped and fell. The GM casually mentioned drug test and I jokingly went, "No there's no need for drug test! I have nothing in my system except alcohol!"

At the end, even as the hourly went on joking about kidnapping and killing me and my BF, he seriously bytched about my "reckless attitude." Hmm...are other people who joke around also considered reckless? I doubt that. If there wasn't actually a double standard, why couldn't anyone tell me the difference between how I act and how other people act?

I kind of get what you mean. One of my coworkers says some really inappropriate things to the other employees. Some of them are even in their 60’s. They just laugh at her and they say TMI and stuff. I have a feeling if I said those things I would be fired or worse. So I don’t. I don’t know why. It’s just different for some people for some reason. I get what you mean though.