Work promotions

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This is probably going to turn out to be a rant, so thanks for your patience if you read all of it.

I was recently promoted at work, and there is A LOT to keep track of, and it's exhausting because of executive dysfunction. Still, I'm trying to keep lists in order to get things done efficiently. I am an editor by profession and I do best when I'm doing that work, as opposed to doing the mundane detail-oriented tasks. I've been working for my company for over five years and the promotion I was given is only a few months old. I'm flattered that they think I can handle the responsibility, but I sometimes feel overwhelmed and confused. not to mention that the confusing social aspects of the job leave me stressed and nauseous by the end of the day.

A few days ago I was called in to have a job performance review, and I was given a "verbal warning" about my communication problems. I felt like I was before a firing squad: I met with three people, all of whom are my supervisors. They kept harping on things I thought I had resolved months ago, as well as one small detail I'd overlooked this past week. Then today I was reprimanded through e-mail by my boss and he CC'd all three of the supervisors, which felt humiliating to me. The thing he reprimanded me for was something I have struggled with for a long time, and it's embarrassing because I feel as though I should be able to do these things better than I'm doing them. Now I'm terrified that I'll get a written warning, too. I enjoy my job and I enjoy the things I'm good at, but when it comes to things I don't know or don't care about, I ignore them completely. I wrote an e-mail about this today to the one supervisor I think will be sympathetic, but I don't know what that will accomplish. She hasn't said anything.

Anyways, thanks for reading.

How much time do the things that you don't know or care about take, if you were to do them?
If they don't take up too much time away from editing, I would try my hardest to learn to do them and not ignore them.
Ignoring things that need to be done for the job, even if the things are dumb and boring, looks bad to supervisors.
In most jobs, there are probably lots of little things that one doesn't like doing and doesn't want to do, but also can't just ignore them.

This kind of thing makes me mad.

You should be technically covered by the ADA. But in order to be covered, you would need to be medically diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum, and you'd have to take that written documentation into Human Resources. If you just tell someone you're an aspie they are legally able to demote or even fire you.

One thing that I've noticed is that aspies have a hard time doing things that don't make sense. You kind of mentioned this. You may have to pretend that something is important even if it isn't and that you were wrong when you weren't. People in management like to feel like they're in control and that they're right.

I recommend picking up a copy of Dale Carnegie's "How to Gain Friends and Influence People." You can easily trick people into leaving you alone by phrasing things the right way. Once such trick that I myself use is, "I liked how you did such and such, would you recommend I handle this and that in a similar fashion?" Then they'll just tell you how they want you to do something you probably don't even care about.

To get people to put things in writing for you (something that helps a lot of people), you can send an email and format it so that someone skimming it can easily understand and respond. Use bullets and keep it short, but ask direct questions so they can't help but respond.

I suspect that you won't feel overwhelmed when your higher-ups stop focusing on you. They promoted you because you're the best person for the job.