I mean, c’monn, everyone is here because of MH issues and I still feel like I am the odd one out.
Tomorrow I am rejoining my mates from a training course to start working for the company which organised it. I know I will feel like the odd one out, but then again that’s always me amongst people I perceive as normies( even though many of them are probably or certainly not untouched by MH problems).
Whenever I relax a bit and start sprouting out whatever I feel like, I end up insulting people or imagining that I do, and my social anxieties come back.
I was hospitalised during the training and none of my future colleagues even asked how I felt (with one exception, and the girl didn’t get the job, bless her heart), so I feel it’s my fault, that my attitude was wrong, that people hate me, that I don’t deserve to be anywhere in a group of good people.
Long story short, I am not ready to face the reality of social interactions just yet.
I think I will just be quiet and do my work, smile politely and shut the hell up about anything non-technical. Then again, that’s something I definitely can’t do naturally, so this, and not the Big Learning Curve will be my biggest challenge.
Rant over. What do you think I should do to be well adjusted in my new position? Anyone been through this? Any insights?
That’s definitely a big challenge in some positions.
Some people discipline themselves to just make small talk about sports, the weather, or some other incredibly useless topic that has next to zero chance of insulting anyone.
I have not mastered that discipline.
I just try to stay as inoffensive as possible, and hope I can recover or ignore it if someone decides to take offense. My father blames that for some of my problems on at least one job, but I think it was my psychiatrist taking me completely off of meds.
My problem is, I don’t read social cues at all. Niente. Nada. So I don’t even realize when someone was offended until I am in a position to rely on them and I have to backtrack my actions to see why I was downright put down, and with pleasure. Then the “A-HA” moment comes but it’s too late to fix the matter. That, or I am left wondering what the hell did I do to deserve that type of behaviour?
I think you fit in just fine here. You only just came back, give yourself some time to start feeling more settled.
When you’re dealing with social situations at work, try and remember that all your coworkers are also probably nervous. As long as you treat everyone with respect, nobody will have any reason to complain about you.
As long as you treat everyone with respect, nobody will have any reason to complain about you.
I never had formal complaints or the like. Just the usual people disliking me for reasons that I could’ve controlled were I not so hopeless socially. But I guess that, at the end of the day, everyone has people liking them and people dislinkg them. Also people being dual about it, meaning showing looking even though they secretly dislike you.
Guess I just have to remind myself I am there to work, not make friends, and keep a safe distance if I can.
It is a little disappointing that in a field like IT, it is still often who you know instead of just what you know, isn’t it?
I see your point, I believe, because I have lived through it in technical positions.
At one job: I was very well liked by most people, because they thought I was ‘hilarious.’ (I’m actually a little funny in person.)
But, they kept promoting me, and I ended up being supervised by one manager who didn’t like me. I don’t really know why.
I feel for you. You are going into a situation that requires social skills, without much confidence in your social skills.
Maybe you’ll be fortunate and your manager will love you immediately, though. Then, maybe it won’t matter so much what the other employees think. Many of them may see you as the competition anyway, whether they like you or not, so, maybe you can just focus on impressing the manager? Sometimes it works.
I am far from that, as my intention is not to promote but to get as much experience in as many departments of the company as I can. So if they don’t like me, really, none of my business, if I perform in my job I can move on to a different department.
By the way, my future manager seemed to dislike me from day 1, I met her and the only thing she said was " who recruited you?" Making it sound like I was not supposed to be there in the first place. My gut feeling is she hates my guts and only accepted me because she is way too new in the managing position to get to pick.
I just hope I do not have to request a change of managers any time soon, I have always gotten along pretty well with my managers in former positions. But you nerver know, I guess…
To be honest, if my manager already disliked me, I don’t think I’d be too worried about social skills with employees in that department at this point. I would be concerned about fighting (figuratively) through the probation period, if they have one, and trying to get into another department.
Oh, I always get teased and framed and bullied in psywards. Once I almost got beaten by a fellow patient, luckily someone warned me she was coming for me, so I talked to a male patient and told him about it in a calm voice, and then waited. When she came for me and started screaming, he just stood up and told her to bugger off. I didn’t tell the nurses or the doctors, because they would have put it down to persecution mania and that would’ve prolonged my stay on the place.
Last hospitalisation, I had a crutch and a woman decided I snitched on her smoking in her room, which I didn’t even care about. So as I was walking around using my crutch she threatened me she would shove it up my arse if I used it to draw her attention again. Which I had, but just because she was blocking the way intentionally at some point. But I told the nurses I hadn’t 'cause I didn’t want to explain the situation further and thus have them put me on the same par with that woman, as that normally means they downgrade you to assisted smoking instead of letting you go, and I was ready to go home at the time.
There are more stories like that, but I guess these ones were the closest to violent I got.
Social anxiety is a pain because it’s going to twist a lot of your perceptions. For example, no one probably brought up the hospitalization to respect your privacy. If I knew someone had been hospitalized I would not bring it up out of respect to that person unless they brought it up first, unless it was someone close to me. Also, due to confidentiality it could also be that people other than like your bosses just didn’t know. At my work place the managers are only allowed to say someone took a “medical leave” and nothing more. Often they don’t even say that and we have no idea why someone’s gone.
Being friendly, courteous and helpful will get you a long way in any social or career situation.
This is sound advice. I can do that, yes. I am usually friendly, courteous and very very laid back, also good at avoiding or solving conflicts that involve me in any way. I am not good with being liked for it, but as I said, I never got a formal complaint or even as much as a direct confrontation during work.
Worse thing that happened to me was, some people avoided me. But I guess that’s not that bad in irself.
I woke up to your answer and rested, so really, I can have a good day today.
