these 2 sentences have me thinking:
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I cannot change what others think about me or do, I can only change how to react to it.
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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.
The worst problem in this world is that we will all be endlessly told to just work on ourselves and make ourselves better every time we have to deal with cretinous motherfuckers who will never spend a single moment of their life working on self-improvement or being a better person.
Some days I really wish that China's social credit score thing was real, but actually effectively applied at real anti-social people. Like right-wing fucking thugs who chose to cough all over people during COVID because they decided they were smarter than scientists and doctors and it "must be a hoax!"
I wish there was a system to force these people into doing some basic fucking self reflection and choosing to be better.
Genuinely, my entire life has been spent being prosocial and trying very hard to be a good person, and every time I fall apart because I'm surrounded by selfish fucking asshole idiots, it's my job to get the fuck over it, never their job to become better people.
As for you, specifically, a healthy workplace is one that doesn't judge people for being different but instead sees the hard work they do and accepts that every individual has their own needs and can be healthy and productive in the workplace without being just like everybody else. I am so sorry you're experiencing this, because you don't deserve to. Your accomplishments at work should be the measure of whether you matter, not whether you are sociable enough that's just silly.