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Tufted Titmouse
Tufted Titmouse

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Joined: 6 Mar 2015
Posts: 43

08 Aug 2018, 3:03 pm

I don't know how to keep coping at this job. It's toxic and blame-oriented. My co-workers chitchat worse and worse since we hired a new one who's like stereotype Miss Positive Thinking. I'm terrified all the time: I fear people sneaking up on me (I also have PTSD). I've stopped wearing noise cancelling headphones or listening to any music because I need my ears for hypervigilance.

I gave my all to a really innovative project, and LITERALLY no one noticed. And to top it off, the work is unbearably, paralytically boring. And I have both ADHD and a high IQ. Keeping my mind on it ranges from physically painful to impossible. I meet my deadlines because I can work super fast during hyperfocus, but most of the time I'm panicking and trying to look busy. And they're planning to remodel. With us IN the building. To full open plan.

My commute is long and frequently causes meltdowns. But I need the health insurance, my husband just got a big pay cut, and I have no leads elsewhere. Haven't been here long enough for FMLA or an LTD claim. But I'm scared I will end up ruining my health or losing my composure and getting fired. My heart rate goes to about 110 the minute I walk in every day. And it's a desk job.

I'm falling to shreds. :skull:



bellapines
Hummingbird
Hummingbird

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Joined: 9 Aug 2018
Age: 48
Gender: Female
Posts: 19
Location: UK

10 Aug 2018, 11:08 am

Quote:
I don't know how to keep coping at this job. It's toxic and blame-oriented. ... And to top it off, the work is unbearably, paralytically boring. I meet my deadlines because I can work super fast during hyperfocus, but most of the time I'm panicking and trying to look busy. And they're planning to remodel. With us IN the building. To full open plan. My commute is long and frequently causes meltdowns. But I need the health insurance, my husband just got a big pay cut, and I have no leads elsewhere.


I work in London, for a large corporation. It's toxic and blame oriented. The work is ridiculously boring and POINTLESS. But no one questions it. The open plan office is noisy and distracting. My commute is 2 hours there and 2 hours back and super busy.

My family tell me to quit my job and look for another career but that is so annoying and incredibly naive. For many reasons. Firstly, most jobs are like this, changing from one soul destroying office job to another miserable existence won't ACTUALLY solve the problem. Secondly, I need the money to live and my pension is rubbish, I'm probably going to be there until I die. Thirdly, nothing that I enjoy doing pays a decent living wage.

So. What to do.

Well, it took me about 5 years to get through this, during which I was thoroughly miserable and constantly angry. But actually I am in a better place now, even though my job is exactly the same.

It's hard to whittle down 5 years of struggle into a bullet list, but here are some of the main things that helped:

- Yoga. Weird, but it helped focus my sparking, hectic thoughts.
- Visualizations. Close your eyes, imagine the toxic office and create a landscape from it. The landscape that popped into my head was a lava pit. Then work out a fix. My fix was that I imagined a cool, blue waterfall putting the fires out. Then, every time I snuck off to the ladies to cry, I worked through my visualization, it only took a minute. Then, everytime I felt a meltdown coming I would breathe and work through the visualization. Eventually it became like a reflex and after about 6 months my perception slowly started to change.
- Flexible working arrangement. This was really hard and took 3 years. But I "behaved" for about a year and convinced my boss to tolerate me, every awesome thing I did, I gave him full credit. Then I hit him up for a flexible working arrangement and he accommodated me, I work from home 2 days and am hoping to up this to 3 or more!
- Secret hobby time! I have a 2nd monitor now which faces the wall. I now finish my work in about quarter of the time I'm given and spend about 3 hours each day on my special interest in the office! It took about a year to figure out how to do it whilst looking like I was working.
- Netflix. I have noise cancelling headphones but they are actually hooked up to my phone which plays netflix, tucked away behind my desk phone :D

Life is bearable now.


_________________
Your neurodiverse (Aspie) score: 174 of 200
Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 38 of 200
The Ritvo Autism Asperger Diagnostic Scale-Revised (RAADS-R) 195.0


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Tufted Titmouse
Tufted Titmouse

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Joined: 6 Mar 2015
Posts: 43

10 Aug 2018, 12:16 pm

How do you find time for yoga with a 2 hour commute??? I'd love to do yoga, but my long commute is making it impossible. Flex time is absolutely forbidden. No exceptions, EVER. They tell people this in the interview. It's never happened in the history of the company. I literally was forced to Uber to work rather than working from home when I was injured and my doctor forbade me to drive. So how are you fitting yoga in? I'd love to.

I love the second screen idea. My job legit requires two or three monitors to do, so people would notice if I moved one, but maybe I could hide a tablet in the corner with no sight lines. But...what if the boss walked in on me??? I'm already completely terrified of people sneaking up on me, so afraid I've stopped wearing noise-cancelling headphones to make it easier to tell if someone's about to invade.