Very depressing meeting at work today

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While the presentation itself had some stimulating things, the whole message made me feel like I might as well have had a giant arrow pointing at me. The whole point of this 2 hour meeting was that we need to start hiring people to work for our stores based on personality rather than skill. They said skill can be taught to anyone. (I guess....maybe!) So basically if you're shy, quiet, and not bubbly than this company isn't supposed to hire you. The only positive thing in the whole meeting is they said they believe work should be fun and we should all work on having fun in the stores and hopefully having more positive morale this way. I'm all for that, but everyone that has gotten to know me knows I'm quiet and a bit on the shy side. I am polite of course and I try to be helpful to our customers so that I can't be blame for not having good customer service skills and all that crap. My husband works for the same company I do and even told the manager of the new store I got transfered to that I'm not extremely social but I work hard. She appears to be ok with it, unless she was just saying that because she didn't know how else to answer him saying that.
Sorry I'm just going on a tangent. I just feel depressed right now because I feel like they might as well have pointed at me and said "We don't appreciate your hardwork and shouldn't have hired you because you have a sh***y personality" ! !! ! Yes I do believe my personality is boring and sh***y but I don't know how to change it! I just don't. I'm an aspie, I shouldn't be discriminated against dammit!

Ha! They hired you, you have proven good "skills"-based performance, and you apparently have a diagnosed neurological condition. Hopefully someone took minutes at the meeting. Write down your experience at the meeting, including what was said and who was there to witness it. And if they fire you?

Sue their pants off!! !!

You're right patternist, I know deep down it was meant to gear everyone up to be the best (they even talked about Michael Phelps giving it an extra push to win the gold medal). They probably didn't realize they were hurting anyone's feelings, but they did. I'm still trying to feel that deep down I know I'm a hard worker, I've had numerous people tell me that. So I can really in the end only do my best. I just can't help but feel though, that suddenly I'm expected to walk in with a huge grin on my face and break into "Oh what a beautiful morning" LOL.

Trust me, if they fired me they'd have one hell of a lawsuit. Of course I'd hate to do that and I don't really think they'll fire me. The only thing is I never really told them I have aspergers, so they probably could use that as their defense. I'd still try though, since I think that would be a terrible thing to fire someone for. Unless I was just treating a customer horribly, which I haven't.

Hi there,
Perhaps you need to take a step back here.
You have a job and it sound as if you're doing it well - you're polite, hard-working and do your best to help your customers and it seems those qualities are noticed and appreciated.

If we feel we're a bit deficient in some way it's so easy to take things personally when they weren't intended to be - been there, done that and I'm NT. Just because you're not a naturally bubbly person does NOT mean you have a boring, sh***y personality and that you should have to try to be something you're not.

As regards being fired - I don't know what the Disability legislation is where you live but I cannot imagine a company risking legal action, or even bad publicity, by firing someone with AS just because their personality 'doesn't suit'.

I really think you're worrying unneccessarily, so relax and start to have a bit more of that 'fun' your employers are keen on!

I did try throughout the afternoon to step back and analyze this from a different perspective, and I know you have a point Emen. I do feel deficient so I do take this meeting personally. Even though I've been told I do a good job by some of the people I've worked with, I've also been labeled "weird" and "too quiet". So that always sticks in the back of my mind. That's the only thing that really bugs me with NT's, that often-times if you aren't a very friendly person as far as going the extra step to strike up conversations and talk about their personal lives (whole empathy factor playing in now) then you're weird and too quiet and all the other stuff that causes me to simply feel I won't ever fit into the world on a normal level, and that I really must be deficient. I really am going to try to be positive though, and I know that the main point of the meeting was to boost morale and perhaps not point fingers at everybody (ok, me...)

Good grief, Nettie! Who do you work for, the Disney corporation?

While it may be important to have good "people" skills, especially in sales or public relations, technical skills are what get the job done!

I once worked for a company in which only the permanent people were "People Friendly," and the rest of us were hired on a quarterly term (engineers and technicians) or a temporary (production and maintenance) basis. That company didn't last long, because just about the time someone became adequately experienced, they were let go in order to be replaced by a more happy, peppy person.

Of course, these new people got the job because everyone is on their best behavior duirng the interview, or at least seemed more friendly that the people who had been there a while.

Even the engineers soon realized that they could take what they had learned to other companies - competitors, mostly - and be treated as a regular employee almost from the day they walked in the door!

When that company of happy, peppy, back-slappy people finally woke up and saw the red ink on the ledger, it was too late. They were on their last client, and he wasn't too thrilled with the delays and empty promises from those smiling faces; and when his contract came up for renewal, he went with a competitor.

I wonder if those people are still smiling?

Suddenly I got this mental picture of me putting on a big bunny suit or something ridiculous and walking around smiling at everyone and acting like a fool. It gave me a good laugh Perhaps I will suggest it at the next meeting