Taken advantage of by a coworker...

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First of all....are Aspies more likely to be taken advantage of by coworkers?

Second (and much more importantly) what should I do about it? Whenever I'm on shift with a certain coworker, he does nothing, expects me to do everything, and then has the nerve to complain that I'm hogging all the work. He's not my supervisor..he doesn't have seniority over me (we were hired at the same time). I've hinted at how much he annoys me, but he's not grasping it (or he's pretending not to..) and I'm not exactly the type to have a full-on confrontation (what Aspy is?). I feel like I should bring this to the attention of the supervisor, but I'm concerned that may cause even more problems.

Thoughts? Comments? Opinions? I'd greatly appreciate any help.

Yes, I think we are more likely to be taken advantage of.

You should definitely report this do-nothing to your supervisor. And ask if you could please get an another worker in there with you to take over the do-nothing's share of the work, as you are getting over whelmed and stressed out by having to do the work of two people?

I was like that years ago. Enough being stepped on and a full on confrontation is second nature to me now. In general I learned to just ignore anyone and anything that is unimportant and let my work speak for itself.

But in your case it sounds like this harassment is a seriously affecting your ability to do the job or at least cope with the work environment. If a full on confrontation is not something you can do then seek out a supervisor and calmly and to the point explain the circumstances. Do not go into see a supervisor when your co-worker has you all worked up. In the end though do your best to make sure this coworker is not causing you to make mistakes or look bad. The real assets any aspie has is our attention to detail and quality of work. I found those two things allowed me to succeed despite the most fierce opposition. It does not always work but you have to do what you do best.

Well we have a system of compete to get to the top regardless of who you step on on the way, so it is not suprising people get taken advantage of at jobs. and unfortunately having AS does not help as that interferes with social interaction and such.

same happening with me its done by a new colleague she has made a group and is quite close and friendly with supervisor and manager
she is dumping her work on me and is enjoying herself.
i did complain about her to supervisor but she says that she will explain this girl to be nice from now thats about it and she cant do anything more
i am tired of this bullying, comments etc.

Not sure what its like in other countries but here in Australia my experience has been that you must be careful because whatever you decide to do can backfire. If you confront the person they will often then report you to the boss for bullying or some random complaint (I've never come close to bullying anyone in my life as I'm so timid but have had such accusations levelled against me in the workplace). I've also tried the route (on several occasions) of reporting the bullying. In the first place I'm always told I need to "be more mature" and "sort this out with the other person". Also, often the boss then goes on to victimise you and/or they have a talk to the person you complained about and obviously don't do it very well because that person ramps up their bullying. I was also told on one occasion that the boss is aware of the bully and that they bully everyone but it is easier for them (the boss) to get others to adjust their behaviour - they then ordered me to do whatever degrading things the bully demanded of me.

I wish I could say there is a good and right way to deal with the situation but honestly I've found the only effective way to make bullying stop is to find another job... and of course, you can always be bullied there as well... But, the fact is, some workplaces condone bullying and they are not places worth working at - I've found it best to just keep moving on to other jobs until you find somewhere that the bullying is low-level and not too serious and then just do your best to ignore the bully. I've found if someone is leaving all the work to me it helps to put post-it notes with instructions on their work that comes to you and stick it in their in-tray. Also, if you have their clients phoning you never sort the problem out - take a message and put it on their desk, etc. At the end of the day the boss can see that their desk is covered with phone messages and their in-tray is overflowing so it pretty much becomes their problem if they care to notice.

I did that once. I was reprimanded by my supervisor for "throwing my co-workers under the bus" when I complained that they refuse to answer their phone or respond to their e-mail, and so all their clients were coming to me. I ended up being fired for being difficult to work with, while the ones who did literally nothing received raises.

It might have been worth going above your supervisor or complaining to the HR department if you had one. At the stage of anyone reprimanding me for refusing to be a victim I'm always doing two things - 1) investigating how I may take the matter further within the workplace, 2) answering job ads and looking for a way out. I was once under the impression that if I didn't do as demanded by the bully I was going to be fired. I started making journal entries of the bullying in case I should need it for HR or legal reasons and started answering job ads. I was offered a new job within a couple of weeks so took that as the path of least resistance. Its always better, I think to, jump before you are pushed if its possible - but its not always possible. Supervisors, managers and business owners are no more likely to be any more reasonable or logical than co-workers unfortunately. I don't think there's ever any "right" answer in these situations and what's hard for an aspie is that the "best" solution will vary according to politics and social dynamics so you have to try to work it out each and every time according to where you're working and what's going on.

My HR rep at the time was a close friend of my supervisor. It was not a good company to work for, and a lot of hard working people got fired for stupid reasons (like being too old). We looked into a class-action lawsuit but found we didn't have a good case due to state laws.

I've worked with people like this before. I don't think there's much you can do about it; just be satisfied that you are doing a good job. I would not got to your supervisor - this could lead to a lot of bad feelings and awkwardness at your job.

Ive dealt with this all the time but one thing we have a hard time dealing with because we are so different is confidence. Ive stepped over this boundary myself many times but you have to put your foot down and say no or else it will continue. Dont do anything that would get you fired like cursing or anything like that but if this co worker is at the same level as you there is absolutely no reason as to why you could stand up for what you feel to be right. I work for walmart right now and they are notorious for treatment of their employees and several times ive had to just stand up and say no. I advise you to do the same. Message me if you would like more direct advice and if i can know more about the situation i can help you better

sometimes coworkers who are at same level are very sharp and cunning they are friendly with the manager and supervisor so they can sabotage our career by adding spice to the comment we made.....they will pass up nasty things to the seniors and again there is risk of being sacked
i think we should be nice with everyone.............and if we dont want to do their work we should just make excuses like the computer had virus...or i cant type now i am having headache....that way we dont end up doing their work plus we are not saying it in rude way.

Where you see misery, I see opportunity. I'll try to lay the logic behind it:
The basics:
- A for-profit business does not typically care about individuals, it cares about sustaining its bottom line, selling products for profits, and beating the competition. As such your boss who would be held responsible if the business failed whether it is the fault of one person or many, doesn't care about "he said, she said" scenarios. A good boss cares about his worker's concerns, but his first responsibility is to make sure the business with thrive. He hired you to solve problems for him, not to give him more problems to resolve, especially the kind of problems he would expect you to be able to handle by standing up for yourself (which, in your opinion, is unfortunately made near impossible by your being an aspie).
Trust me on this: You don't want to pass as someone looking to get special treatment for not being able to stand up for yourself just because you're an aspie. By going to your boss to complain about how your co-worker is pissing you off, you might as well shoot yourself in the foot. As far as your boss is concerned, unless your skills are indispensable to the company, or irreplaceable, you can leave and find yourself another job if you don't like this one. If your problem with the other guy does not affect his bottom line, your boss could not care less, nor is he obligated to. He would have to look into it however if harassment, or bullying, or violence, or workplace discrimination related to sex, race, or religious affiliation was involved, because in those cases, the law of the land could very well blow up his bottom line to smithereens in a rather painful and ruthless manner.

- You have to start looking at your relationship between you and your workplace as a business transaction. You are selling skills that the business needs, the business pays you to apply those skills towards their ends. Your work standards are your works standards. That man's work standards are his, and by your own account his laziness also means he is less productive than you are. What you want to do before going to your boss, is document just that: Your productivity vs. your co-worker's. Solid data that you can link to the company's bottom line. That is what you want to present to your boss, not some cry-baby whining about the other guy. The boss is not your daddy nor your baby sitter. By presenting solid data about your positive contribution to the company, you can request a promotion or increase in compensation that will give you an edge against the other guy, and perhaps even make you his boss. Not only you win, but don't have to confront the other guy. Or at the very least you get extra compensation for the extra work, while he doesn't.
And if your boss refuses to grant you the promotion or the raise for whatever reason, do not get angry, just politely thank him for his time, and look for another job while you are still employed ( it makes you far more valuable to a company than someone who has no job and is thus likely desperate, not necessarily deserving, to land a new job ). Once you lock a new employment deal with another company, have the common courtesy of notifying your boss at least two weeks in advance of your switching workplaces, thank your co-workers (even if it doesn't make sense to you, but I'll get to that next with the concept of building goodwill a.k.a karma) before you leave. Hell, even add them to your LinkedIn profile and do not be afraid to ask for recommendations.


Addendum about karma and society:
- In the NT world, social status is one of the biggest determinants of whether you are going to be a survivor, or a victim. You don't want to be a victim, and that should start by not acting like one ( like telling your boss that the other guy annoys you and you can't do a damn thing about it because you're an aspie ). One painless and generally free way of building status, is through good relationships with other people. Good relationships are maintained by goodwill coming and going between two or more parties. You are nice to me, so I'm nice to you. You do me some good, so I do you some good. You do me a favor, I do you a favor back. That is how goodwill (a.k.a good karma) builds between people, and that is how even in the middle of a recession you can remain employed and switch jobs without as much trouble as other people who are less adept at managing a good relationship with others. The more people you know that you have built goodwill with, the wider your and more eager your network of relationships will be in helping you find another job. Why you ask? Well, in short, it comes down to the fact that we are all going to die one day, but can still choose how we will live our life. And if you want a choice in how you live, you have first to make sure you survive. And so you will eventually be forced to determine your chances of survival alone, versus in a group.
In my opinion, social status is like a public rating system. The more people rate you highly, the higher your social status rises. That explains the phenomenon of stardom for people like Snooki, or the Kardashians. They are not necessarily the brightest and most beautiful people, but they know how to build goodwill with the right people. They satisfy something people crave, and get rewarded for it in turn. When your rating is high you are rarely found wanting. In fact you become sought out. If your social rating is low, you are shunned and stepped upon. At face value such social "norms" might not make sense to you, but remember that the human race has been in existence up to this day for a reason, despite wars, famine, plagues and other tragedies that could have wiped humanity off the map. Survival is the single most logical reason why people need to find out whether they can trust and rely on one another. Nobody can take life for granted. You could die tomorrow. However, chances of survival are better as a group acting as a unit than alone, hence the existence of this website for aspies. For individuals to act as a unit, they must trust and rely on one another. And within that unit, if you don't want to be discarded, you need to start adhering to certain types of behaviors in order to gather goodwill and build your social status. For instance, if I don't want to ejected from this forum, I better start sticking by its rules, and not flame people here even if I happen to think they are total idiots and deserve to be cursed out until they die (not that it is the case). If you are incapable of getting goodwill, you might gather bad karma and get ejected from the unit to fend-off for yourself. That is not the end of the world in a society that has laws to protect you even if you are a vegetable, but in places like a third world country, where the law is pretty much an interpretation of the whims of whoever is in power at the time, it technically means that if your parent's social status is not high enough, or you have no strong protector, or you are not very resourceful, you are a sitting duck on a truck lane that's about to become roadkill. Your chances of survival in that world without any social skills and people to protect you is close to 0.

Who Knows Why, what kind of a job this? What do you do? Are you paid a lot or near minimum wage? If you're at a place that pays around minimum wage, chances are they've got rotten management and they could care less

I think the guys is a lazy jerk, fyi.

I am in a similar situation. The place I work is an independent bookstore, which is fantastic. However, things are not nearly as professional as they should be. The owner hired her best friend who contributes very little to the workplace and screws up a fair amount. When it is just she and I working, I have to race to get everything done by closing while she sits there and just crops pictures and then she takes credit for the work I've done. Or, she'll disappear for twenty minutes to hang out with a friend who came in the store. Beyond that, she is incredibly mean and likes to pick on me. I've brought up my professional concerns to my boss but she's so protective of her friend that somehow it becomes my fault.

I leave that place miserable most days because of this kind of stuff (and break down crying a fair amount of the time as well) but I'm afraid everywhere else will be just as bad in some way or another.

I think that employers' sometimes look for any old excuse to rid their office of an aspie even if that excuse is caused by a bullies' lies'. No one wants us to be successful. That seems to be the bottom line. I mean if we are successful and earn a regular pay check and get good benefits' we will eventually possibly get married and have families'. They see we are different and disabled and they don't want us to breed a new generation of different and disabled kids' like us. It is all sort of an economic warfare against aspies'. Keep us down and the problem will go away.