Things that are currently annoying you

A twitter account I'm following is doing the a-guest-a-week thing, and this week's guest started with "Being heteroflexible is biphobic" and "Polyamory isn't stigmatized unless you're queer". This is gonna be a long week.

 

Update: he's blocking people who "want cishets to invade the community" (AKA point out that acephobia uses the exact same arguments he's using) now.

 

Next up is allies, so I'm muting them.

 

Rain. Cramps. Bad coffee. Software with poorly designed user interfaces and unhelpful documentation.

 

My brain is fixating on a thing coming up soon that I'm excited-nervous about, a thing that I have (almost) no control over when it happens and no idea when it happens - other than soon. (Like, if it hasn't happened in about a week, I'll remind the other person about it, since I get the impression it would probably happen by then, if they remember and nothing goes wrong in their life in the meantime.) Excited-nervous about the thing, but have no idea when it'll happen and no real control over when it happens.

 

I am not ready for 90F weather

 

Things that were annoying me:
Some genius decided to sew the tag onto my shirt using god-damn fishing line
Now this shirt doesn't have a tag, and also my neck has finally stopped itching

 

Second guessing myself on everything. There was a mothers day post I wanted to put up then I laughed, thought to myself, who'd want to read that bullshit, didn't do it.

Lawsuit. I am getting sued by my cousins for land I didn't even know I owned. WTF. -_- This was two months ago. Yesterday I got a suspicously low ball offer for it. I want to talk about it but I can't figure out how without rage slamming my keyboard; another thing I'm annoyed about.

And that damned woodpecker. I know, I understand that I'm in it's world, that it belongs and I intruded but UARAGAGaghgghhg birb, your loud ass is about to be struck by a slingshot.

 

fucking drivers ed is gonna potentially fuck up my plans but i wont know for sure til tomorrow and the uncertainty is killing me

 

WORK ANXIETY FUN TIME 8D 8D 8D

The manager says it's okay for me to pause the conveyor belt briefly to make sure I don't have things slip by, and to work out jams and whatnot. He's specifically complimented me on the fact that I do so, and encouraged me to continue doing so when necessary. With the acknowledgement of, you know, not too long, so it doesn't cause big jams.

Unfortunately, a couple of my coworkers seem to disagree with that. One of them comes up the line to grab things to bring down to their station, never talks to me if they can help it, and looks irritated in my direction pretty often. Their expression is significantly different when talking with others, so I know it's a their-feelings-regarding-me thing, rather than a their-general-expressions thing.

It's annoying, because I can't just dismiss it as someone being petty and passive aggressive and stupid. What if their irritations are legitimate? What if they're annoyed that I'm not doing things, or doing things wrong, but have some reason why they cannot communicate the corrections to me? The guy who trained me for the task I've been doing this last week did a really mediocre job about it. Told me about... four things, two of them were basically "ask someone else to do it for you," which is fucking unacceptable if I'm going to pull my own weight.

I panic when I'm corrected on unfamiliar things in the moment that they're happening. Like saying "hey catch" to a person walking by on the sidewalk, and telling them they have to juggle them. Very, very different than somebody who's on a baseball field, and anticipating that stray balls may come their way.

The managers made points of telling me that, if I need any kind of accommodations, to let them know. I'd like to assume those weren't empty polite mouth noises, but a genuine offer for the sake of making sure all employees are doing tasks they're well-suited for that won't result in injuries. So I want to find some way to say to the manager... I don't even know what? That if there's things I'm not doing but should be doing, I want someone to tell me--- preferably someone who is not currently rushing, stressed, and annoyed. Like to talk me aside at the start or end of the shift and talk about it, so I can properly process the information. If I know that people will do so, then I can process mid-shift, annoyed-interruption types of corrections as advice rather than as you're doing this wrong and you'll get in trouble or fired if you don't fix it now.

 

asking for accommodations is a good idea, i think, and the wording you used here to explain the accommodations you need sounds really good. like, it explains the problem really well and tells them how you'd prefer to solve it.

and ugh... that coworker... even if their concerns are legitimate, i'm sure there must be a better way for then to deal with it than that. like, the way they do it seems almost specifically designed to set off anxiety, though it probably isn't actually as intentional as that.

(disclaimer: i've never had a job, so i don't really know how jobs work. but yeah... this is what i think of the situation.)

 

I'm used to retail hell, where half the job is to smile and placate even the most pissy and argumentative of people.

As far as I can tell, the coworker's body language and behavior is the frustrated fuming I have to do this sort, but I can't tell which kind of it without more input from them.

• Possibly the Ugh I hate new people who don't know what they're doing, in which case there's nothing for me to do but ignore it and continue doing my best to learn.

• Possibly the I guess I have to do everything around here body language that my mom used when she was pissed off at people and wanted to feel like a martyr, because ~obviously~ if we weren't already doing things, it was because we were unwilling to, because she knew they needed to be done, it was obvious to her. And, ~obviously~, if we asked questions about how to do it, or expressed irritation with doing it, then we were going to drag our feet all the way, and it was easier for her to do it herself.

(which is part of why it's upsetting me; familiar anxiety that I never found a satisfactory resolution to.)​

• The big thing that I'm worried about is that it might be the I know there's no point in telling you because I know you won't change. I've already had one time where I got flustered and frustrated at somebody who told me there was a different way I needed to do a thing. But unfortunately, they told me in the middle of there being too many things for me to process, so I went AHHHH. I don't remember how I verbalized my agitation and need to take it in pieces, so I don't know if the previous coworker complained about me. What if I have a reputation for getting upset when people correct me? I don't want that!

I want as much of the information to be laid out clearly in advance as possible, so that I build an internal structure of how it all works. Then, I can add exceptions and weird rules and temporary "hey, do it this way for a bit" instructions as amendments. Like my brain is the conveyor belt system, and most of the things just ride the belts to their destinations and I act accordingly, and temporary interruptions or exceptions are packages I manually handle. Less juggling.


The problem is... I'm used to retail hell. Where you don't get accommodations, you suck it up or you get a different job---with encouragement, if you don't take the hint. I'm used to corporate say one thing, but really do another. Stuff like having 10 different ~number 1 priorities!!!~ and anyone who asks "so, which should I work on first?" is being obstinate or refusing to do their best with all the tasks.

...idk man, is this just another of my spectrum traits?

 

@swirlingflight ah, i see. that does make sense, what you said about why the coworker is doing it. none of those reasons, however, make what they're doing any better.

and wanting info to be laid out clearly in advance makes sense, whether it's spergy or not. it makes it so you're less likely to make mistakes or misinterpret what people want, whereas when info isn't laid out clearly and subsumed in all sorts of social dances, it is genuinely hard to understand and get things right and be certain that you're getting them right. like, it's not an unreasonable thing to ask for.

so, i think you should ask and that, even if it turns out that they were doing the corporate say one thing, do another thing, it won't be the end of the world. as you said before, the consequences of you losing your job and then not being able to get a new one fast enough - the worst case scenario - would mostly be emotional (and yeah, that'd hurt, not denying that), not... i don't know what word i'm looking for, but anyway, the worst case scenario wouldn't be severe, i don't think. it would hurt but you'd still have somewhere to live and people to support you and other stuff like that.

 

@unknownanonymous the risks and potential rewards of asking for that are better than the risks and rewards of staying quiet and stewing in my anxiety... yeah, i can see it.

 

:D:D:D glad i could help!

 

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa buying things is so stressful why did i think i could two week vacation on my own

i hate having to be responsible for so many things i overwhelm and shut down so much. agh

 

The very faint taste of a very specific brand of bottled water here, which I can only describe as "Always triggers intrusive thoughts about it being poisoned".

 

my siblings and their friends keep climbing onto the roof when they hang out at our house, and it gives me anxiety because my brain goes "ROOFS ARE NOT MEANT FOR SITTING, THIS IS BAD EVERYTHING'S GOING TO SHIT HELP HELP".

Though i know logically it's probably okay and the roof can hold them and it's the kind of roof stuff that's not gonna slip and they're being careful; i still have a visceral reaction to seeing something i learned was a Thing You Cannot Do from my grandma (who had a long list of Things You Cannot Do which you were never to break unless you wanted to be on her shit list and trust me, you never want to be on her shit list).

 

I have to make a phone call and I am aggressively avoiding it.

 

Sorry for the double-post, but: