I'm tired of being wrong for being right...

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I'm getting incredibly frustrated for trying to do the right thing and trying to be me, and being criticized and mocked for it.

My mother is always jumping my ass for correcting people because it's pissing them off. I've tried to tell her that I'm not doing it to make people look bad, but just trying to help. If she only knew that for every time I've corrected someone, there's about 10 times where I could and didn't...

At my job in the grocery store, one of my jobs is to straighten or "face" the shelves at the end of the night so everything looks nice and orderly for the next morning. I see lots of misshelved items, and things out of order, which takes a lot of time to fix. I'm told I'm taking too long by the boss, and my fellow employees roll their eyes when I tell them how messed up everything is. FYI: The whole point of doing this, besides making it nice for the customers, is to keep the inventory count accurate, and the ordering of sold-out products correct. You'd think they'd be more conscientious about it.

I try to give people the benefit of the doubt, and I'm told that I need to stop being so trusting. Ditto for being honest. I'm told I'm too naïve.

I try to live true to myself and my beliefs -- to live an authentic life -- and I'm told that I need to not be such a weirdo and to conform to everyone else.

I do everything I can to be compassionate and kind and honest and decent, and to truly live by the Golden Rule, and I'm told that none of that matters if I don't go to church every week.

I'm at a loss. Is there something I'm not seeing? Why are these things wrong? Is assimilation the only answer?

I think there are a couple dynamics here that you are probably not aware of. The first dynamic is that there's a good chance your fellow employees know they're not doing their job right, but they just don't care enough to fix it. They're trying to get away with being lazy, and you correcting them is drawing attention to their bad work. That's not going to make you very many friends, as unfair as that is.

The other dynamic you're probably missing is the group aspect you find yourself in. You are part of the 'employee' group, and your enemies are bad customers and the management. In a conflict between employees and management, you're supposed to side with your fellow employees in all but the most extreme of circumstances. This is, unfortunately, the norm. Anytime you appear more concerned with what the boss's interests over the employees interests will not only been seen as a refusal to conform, but as a betrayal to your fellow employees.

Your mother is in fact trying to help you. Although my situation is not work related, my mother pointed out to me that a desire to always be right will likely end up making me unhappy if I didn't break the habit. Others told me the same thing. You might want to consider that. Remember what makes you happy isn't necessarily always going to be right, but it could make others happy as well.

Secondly, customers don't care as much as you think about the shelves needing to be organized. As a customer myself, and partially because I am tall, I don't mind reaching a little further back for an item as long as the item is on the shelf.

And lastly... continue being yourself, as I don't think anyone would ask of you to be something you're not. There is no need to conform. But you don't have to achieve perfection or try and correct every mistake either. Some mistakes you have to let go and put behind you.

It is perhaps difficult to accept and difficult to remember, but other people simply do not have the same motivations as you do. They do not care that they are doing a crappy job, and nothing you can say or do will make them care. Unless their inferior work is seriously complicating your work, I don't see what you can do besides let it go, or look for a new job. Also remember, you probably don't need to take the extra time to fix their misshelving because the boss, like your co-workers, probably doesn't notice it as much as you do.

Along with you not understanding their motivations, they do not understand yours, so people will continue to see you as a jerk when you correct them. Your motivation of wanting to be precise and do the best job possible is a foreign concept to many people.

Do not assimilate; continue to do your best. You must, however, remember that other people are not like you and are often not amenable to change.

All valid points, gang.

Many people are very lazy on their jobs, and it doesn't help that most of the people I work with are in their teens and 20s, an age group not exactly known for taking their jobs seriously. I remember my mother telling me once that she was told on her job to stop doing it so well because she was making everyone else look bad.

The only thing I worry about is that I've been fired many times (7 officially, plus several more "layoffs"). And most of the time it was because I didn't do my job to the best of my ability (that, and if my boss told me to do something I thought was stupid or counterproductive, I just didn't do it). I'm afraid to NOT go to extremes on my job now. I have this fear that anything I leave undone will go against me on performance reviews or whatever. I am WAY too old to try to start over if I get fired.

I was raised to believe that if you're going to do something, do it right. The combination of that, my Aspie attention to detail and my resistance to change make it difficult to move past this. But I appreciate the input. Your comments might help me see where I can make changes I can tolerate.

I used to work in a grocery store. I think I might understand what's going on here. You need to develop a system. Maybe you could just take a basket with you and as you find mis-shelved items put them in the basket as you're fronting the shelves. Then if you have time after you're done fronting, try to re-shelve the mis-shelved items. I don't know what the policy is on things requiring refrigeration, though. I mean, how would you know if it's been lying around too long.

This would make sense. That way you don't have to stop, walk to another part of the store, walk back, etc.

I did that once, and got half a grocery cart full of stuff -- steaks in the beer cooler, bags of candy behind the wine, a jar of spices behind the juice. What drives me nuts is how badly customers can mess stuff up. They will root through a whole shelf of stuff and leave it in shambles, not even considering that someone is going to have to go behind them and fix it. They will spill stuff or break things, and not say a word about it, or worse yet lie about it. Another problem we have is stuff not being shelved properly from the beginning. I've found whole cases of an item stocked on the wrong shelf. That is the stockers' mistake, not the customers. I just can't understand why people don't take more pride in their work.

Webalina, I would say that everything that you are doing is right. Wanting to have everything be right and to fix that which isnt, is rightminded mentality. Human beings are by destiny perfectionists, being a perfectionists means that you have reached a degree of enlightenment that most people have not yet reached. Many people don't get that and so they criticize what they have yet to achieve and prefer the lower state their in. You have no need to conceed or conform. Rather it would be better to stick to your principles, promote them, show people the virtues of quality hard work, and encourage them to embrace it. Some people may not tke the advise, but with dedication you reach some people and positivly effect them. Furthermore what you have done is not wrong, it is abnormal. There is a differance between morality and social norms. Moral judgement would look favorably toward your perfectionist tendencies. But social norms, with their relic caveman heritage, are suchpicious about unusual things, especially ones that get in the way of their social operations. BUt when a social norm gets in the way of what is right it is powerless to bind and ought to be replaced. So you really don't need to worry about your ways, but be sure and confiedent in them.