Smiling at work

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Today one of my bosses said to me that she didn't like that I wasn't smiling. I felt like telling her that was her problem and not mine. I don't go around with a grin on my face and honestly I'm hard to amuse. Besides that, imo it was a totally unreasonable time to expect me to be smiling. I was in my cubicle area, alone, working.

Perhaps the one problem here is that she's the person that hired me not too long ago and I pretended to be a happy, friendly, eye contact making NT.

I am really happy in my job. Today I felt sick though. I didn't mention that to her though.

Last week this older man that works there said something stupid about me needing to smile. It made me sick, men telling women to smile. But the problem is bigger than that. People have commented on this forever. What can I say so they will stfu. Who cares if I smile? I'm content.

NT's are by nature demanding. It can be like dealing with small children, because they demand attention a lot, so silly things like suggesting you should smile can be just attempts to get you to acknowledge their existence. They expect everyone to be like them and believe facial expressions to be very important. Unless you boss is being hostile, don't let it bother you.

perhaps I can say the field I work in (I ride ambulances/EMT) is rather demanding in this regard, much moreso than customer service, so it is kind of hard to compare, but I actually enjoy putting on a smile and talking to people now. Much moreso than when I was in school or working customer service.

Shocking for a aspie, I know, but when someone is in the back of the truck with me, anything I can do to make what must already be a pretty bad day even a little bit better for them just makes my day. I recently transported a Vietnam aged army veteran, double amputee, and let him go nuts on me with all of the jokes he could think of. Sure, most of them weren't funny really, but me sitting there, smiling now and then, nodding and laughing absolutely made his day when most days he rarely leaves a hospice room. Even if it forces me to be much more outgoing than I am off the job I absolutely love moments like these.

I am aware what I do is probably not at all familiar to what you do and I am aware most aspies probably wouldn't think of working a job like mine, but what I will say Re: public interaction is just remember that if not to make yourself happy, making other people happy can be immensely gratifying.

They may just be trying to be helpful. In a lot of jobs, smiling at work makes work easier. Simple as that.

It may not work for you, because you are different. But, you really can't expect other people to figure that out.

At least two separate supervisors have had the nerve to ask me "why are you smiling?". One supervisor was a female lawyer. The other was a female Certified Public Accountant. While I am FTM trans. Quite frankly, I found it annoying they had the nerve to ask. It was like they were so arrogant they truly believed they have a moral right to get whatever they want immediately. Large and small. Including nearly inconsequential things like facial expression. They put on a facade that they were receptive to the correct answer. Then when I answered they acted like it was just not the correct answer.

When I was 18 and presenting as cisgender female, a female high school dean had the nerve to tell me "Smile!".

According to the instances in the first paragraph, I smiled when someone deemed I should not have smiled. According to the second paragraph, I failed to smile when someone told me I should have smiled.

Some customer service jobs micromanage minimum wage employees, with protocol governing the most trivial of actions. When I worked at a fast food restaurant, there was a rule that said that you cannot give the leftovers of your employee meal to a friend. Instead, you have to trash it. Failure to obey involves getting fired. Furthermore, sometimes those rules do not appear to make sense.

But since you said you were alone in a cubicle, as a fellow autist, I could not imagine why anyone would tell you to smile, unless they were trying to annoy you.

On the other hand, there are plenty of things I can't imagine, and that does not make them unjustified or get rid of them. Also, even if your supervisor had no reason, as long as the supervisor did not do anything illegal, maybe you have to passive aggressively conform. Otherwise the supervisor could fire you.

Even if the supervisor were to have done something illegal, then what? Then you have to take a videotape and call 911? Take out a civil lawsuit?

Seriously, some neurotypical people have egos much too large, out of proportion to their importance.