What if I get bullied at work?

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I get bullied all the time at almost every job I have ever had. Often by women for reasons unknown. When men harass me its possibly sometimes because they want to show off in front of women or they are just rednecks with a power trip.

All I want to do is earn a paycheck. It is the ONLY thing on my mind when I am filling out an application. Not friends or trying to move up the "ladder"

All I want is my money and for quitting time to roll around so I can get back to MY life which is at home.

People just cant let that happen. I feel like highschool never ended.

Bullying is not the norm in the workplace. Most of the time people are just getting on with their jobs. Also workplace bullying is often very subtle and usually comes from an insecure colleague or boss. If you find a job where your colleagues and boss appear confident and at ease they will not end up bullying you simply because you are quiet.

Also if you are young then why not go to college and find something you are good at, focus on it and get a good qualification. This can give lots of confidence. I did that and ended up with a degree which gave me a lot of confidence.

For autistics being bullied at work is the norm.

I don't like studying, and I'm not particularly good at anything. I did go to college after I left school to study basic skills (because I got underaverage grades in maths, english and science at school), and it was helpful, and I then did start to do media because it sounded so interesting to me but when I tried it, I realised there was more to it than I expected and I found it too hard and the coursework was too much for me, so I quit and just wanted to get into work as soon as possible really.

I'm not very clever, and I haven't got great social skills, so the things I'd rather do is things that don't require many social or intellectual skills like packing boxes or stacking shelves or cleaning. Yes it involves skills and challenges like everything does, but it's good enough for me.

I know you don't go to work to make friends, but having a good crowd who are friendly to you does make it more of a pleasure to go to work, since not many people like going to work. When you work somewhere where nobody talks to you or you feel you don't fit in, it can make it feel quite depressing, since you only live once. Obviously some Aspies might prefer it that way but not all Aspies do.

And it doesn't help when the boss has favourites either. At my volunteer job, I had a boss who wasn't very proffessional in her work. She was very slapdash, and sat around chatting and laughing with her ''favourite'' volunteers, and got her non-favourite volunteers to do all the work and moaned at them if they didn't (I was one of her non-favourites, of course). I knew that wasn't very appropriate behaviour from a boss who gets paid good money to run a charity shop and getting the volunteers she liked the least to do all the running around. And nobody seemed to do anything, her favourite's couldn't see the bad side of her and her non-favourites couldn't see the good side of her, and her non-favourites left in the end, one by one. Finally I walked out too, and I haven't been back for a year because I just got so fed up. And it angers me when people say ''oh maybe she was having a bad day'' because that was not the case, she acted like this almost every day and the atmosphere was so much different on the two days she wasn't there. I HATE when people say ''maybe they were having a bad day'' because that makes me feel that I was overreacting and the person who made me feel upset is being sided and they get away with hurting my feelings once again.

It depends on the type of job, but your mom is right, it can happen, though it's less likely than in school with kids who haven't learned to behave. Some workplaces are competitive, and that's where the bitchiness can come in. My husband, who's also Aspie, was bullied on a construction job once, and I had a run-in now and then with someone in office jobs, but it was rare, and it was usually with someone others had trouble with as well, so I don't think it was because of my being Aspie. It was them just being troublemakers.

In most jobs I've had it was expected for someone to be a little quiet and shy at first, it was only later that people noticed I didn't come out of my shell eventually as others did. By then I knew enough about the job that they had invested some training in me, and as long as it wasn't a job where I needed to deal with the public too much, it wasn't a problem. I'm pretty good at relationships that are work-oriented, but terrible at lunchtime groupings or gossip, and office parties. But I was so focused on my work and in fact worked circles around my more social coworkers that it kind of balanced out. I didn't enjoy lunch outings, especially if it was with people who liked to drink at lunch, or were too clique-ish, or tended to return to the office late. I usually read a book at my desk during lunch, and people got used to that. I even had some NT coworker/friends who defended that choice.

Each situation is different of course, but just try to go into it with an open mind and see how it goes. Of course you'll be nervous at first, but everyone is. Even those who are NT and act as though they're very confident - really aren't in the first days on a job unless they're also not very bright. It's a time when your new employer gets to see how you do. If you do your work, you'll do fine. No boss I've ever known considered the workplace to be where one had to make friends and socialize, in fact too much socializing was frowned on - if it kept people from doing their work. It's not like in school where you're graded on socialization as well as academics. As long as you're not getting in arguments or making trouble, and if you do your work well, your boss will be happy. Most of your coworkers will want the boss to be happy with them as well, and that will be their focus, with friendship being more happenstance than a requirement.

That's not necessarily true, and is not helpful either. I've worked at several different places and in every workplace there has always been someone who's slightly unusual or someone who nobody likes, but when people speak to them they act like they love them, and I know people do that because they don't want to cause upset in the workplace. I remember when I worked in a small shop and there were three teenage girls who worked part time (tied in with their college course) and we had a man there who was very unusual and we laughed about him when he wasn't there, but even these teenage girls (who were socially immature and were rather critical of people outside the norm) knew better to speak civilly to him when he's about and act like they like him because they didn't want to be horrible to his face.

I think I would prefer somebody be civil to me but talk about me behind my back if they have a problem with me but without me ever knowing, than to ridicule me to my face. That way I can't get upset over something I don't know about. And that could happen to anyone, people at work might laugh or complain about me when I'm not there but I'm not to know and as long as they're nice to me when I'm there and make me feel comfortable when I'm there then who cares what they say about me behind my back?

I don't think people are constantly out to punish people with Autism all the time.

I am quite good with getting along with others. I don't cause trouble and I never have done, I've always been passive and friendly and likeable, and if people didn't like me then it was more their choice. Like I said about my volunteer job I used to do, the boss wasn't nasty to me. It wasn't bullying. She was just being a bit unfair to me a lot of days, and was very cliquey. She was also very sarcastic a lot of times, and you wasn't always sure if she was being serious or just joking - even other NTs pointed that out, so that goes to show that she was just sometimes a bit funny with others, especially with her non-favourites.

I volunteer somewhere else now, somewhere that's less bitchy and people are more helpful and less cliquey. I'm a bit shy there, not so talkative as I was at the other volunteer job, but I feel more accepted than I did at the other one. Today I went in (I go in at week-ends for something to do) and I spent almost my whole duration there socialising and messing around, and kept feeling bad for not doing my work what I normally just go in and get on with without any fuss. But I did do some work after, I just found myself getting caught up in a socialising session and the people there were making me laugh so much that I couldn't come away.

I don't think I'm an easy target for bullies. I don't stim or flap my hands or alienate myself from other people or act inappropriately. I just go in to do what I got to do and try to get on with everybody. If I do get bullied, I have a feeling it'd be on a rare occasion and by people who are very nasty people who haven't grown up properly.

Bosses love to put autistics down.

And you love to constantly put neurotypicals down...

Neurotypical bosses think that they are being put down when an autistic does not conform.

Do you have any proof of this, or is this more crap out of your you know where?

They won't bully you at work like in school because they could get fired.

What I learned was that if you have a fairly reasonable boss and there's something going on that irks you but you're pretty sure they're unaware of it, let them know. Especially another employee treating you badly. I let a situation go on for a long time with another employee that caused me so much stress and frustration, and when I finally broke down and told the boss about it, it was managed instantly. No more problem, and I wondered why I waited so long to say something. It depends of course on what it is, but if it's something you suspect the boss wouldn't like either, and can do something about, say something. Calmly, just informing them in case they aren't aware.

When I was a boss myself, I liked to be told about things like that too. As long as it wasn't some complaint everyday. I had an employee who would confront me every morning as I got to my desk, saying, "We have a BIG problem!" It seemed to be something new every day, and it was as if he deliberately wanted to start my day off crappy. It usually turned out to not even be a real problem, he was just sort of a control freak and had his own ideas about how everything should work. It was stressful for me to get that every morning, so it didn't exactly put him on my good side. So don't be a pest either. :-/

You'll probably do fine. The main reason I think that is because you're concerned, obviously you care how well you do. That's important.

But what if it is the boss that is picking on you?

Then you might have to look for another job. But first I'd sit down with the boss, calmly ask what it is you can do to improve his impression of your performance, because you get the feeling he has a problem with it. Make it about your work, not you. (Because frankly he shouldn't make things personally about you. His job is to facilitate your work, not judge your personality. But you can't tell him that, it will just make him angry if he really is being a jerk.)

I suggest this because maybe they're not aware they're treating you badly, but something you're doing that you're not even aware of is bothering them. Getting them to articulate it gives you a chance to improve or if it's something about you personally, to defend yourself or just let them know that's part of who you are and you weren't aware it would be a problem in this job, etc.

Some bosses are jerks. People get promoted all the time to supervisory positions they really can't handle. The task of a supervisor is to facilitate the job getting done, not to be a little dictator or tyrant. (This is especially unfortunate when the tyrant is the business owner.) If you have a boss that's a jerk, there's not much you can do but look for another job, unless he's doing something actionable that you can go to his superiors or file a grievance about - but that still will not really improve your situation. (I know, I've tried.) If you can manage to live with it, fine. But sometimes you just have to look for another situation.

I wouldn't up and quit unless it really is intolerable. But I'd start seriously looking for another job and when I find one give notice.

My boss considers me a borderline ret*d because I am a slow learner. While this is true my learning is less superficial. That means in actuality my boss is the one who is a borderline ret*d ret*d. All of my bosses will never realize this and will continue to persecute and fire autistics without mercy thinking they are doing the company a favor by saving the company money.