these 2 sentences have me thinking:

  1. I cannot change what others think about me or do, I can only change how to react to it.

  2. It’s not my fault, but it is my problem to deal with.

we had a merger and my department met our new manager. He seemed empathetic and approachable, asking us to stay at our current positions and work together.

I’ve been considering a change for some time because I don’t get along with some coworkers, even though most are fine, but these 3 suck the life out of me.

So I sent this new manager an application that was rejected the next day:

“mr. X doesn’t want to consider your application.”

He didn’t even read it. He seemed so approachable and friendly… this line seems specifically written to make me feel bad, or maybe I’m very thin skinned?

An adult would accept it and move on, but I’m so thin skinned I keep ruminating about it. I want to change how I react to this and other setbacks in life, but I feel powerless.

“It’s not my fault, but it is my problem to deal with”

I’m on the spectrum. I can hold a job, pay rent and healthcare, max my 401k…, but some of my coworkers find me robotic and rude and feel offended if I want to concentrate on my duties instead of talking to them, simply because if I don’t do my job I’ll be fired.

Not all of my coworkers are like this, but some simply don’t see that I do the same they do, except gossiping and bantering, which I find a waste of time.

They feel offended because I like to keep to myself.

It is not fair and I hate it, but it is, apparently, my problem to deal with.

Except that I don’t know how to deal with it. And I don’t want to deal with it, because it is unfair that what others think and talk about you makes your career more difficult.

I didn’t expect this post to be this long.

  • snek_boi@lemmy.ml
    0·
    3 days ago

    I’m sorry about the painful coworkers and the outright rejection. It sounds painful and frustrating.

    You can’t magically change your thoughts, but you can change your relationship with them. I’d argue the single easiest, low-risk thing that you can do with the most positive impact is doing the Healthy Minds program or something like it. It will teach you to relate to your thoughts in a healthy way, as well as develop better ways of relating with other people and with your everyday actions, including your work.

    The broader issue could be one of management, and you could check out the management or Agile literature to learn if that is the case. It sounds like your office doesn’t have good psychological safety, which is well documented to be associated with a sense of purpose and satisfaction in workers, higher productivity, and less defects. There could also be other systemic problems that are hard to pinpoint without understanding the enterprise or team dynamic.

    However, regardless of the external reality, you’ll be well served by learning to better relate to your thoughts, your work, and the people around you. Again, I believe it’s the single easiest and lowest-risk thing with the most assured positive impact that you can do right now.