Conflict at work, looking for input

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I am a preschool teacher. It is important that when I interact with the parents I look happy and positive, so I fake it for their sake. It is also true that the children tend to respond to your non-verbal body language as much as your actual teaching skills, so if I look miserable all the time they will pick up on it and it will cause problems. In that sense, it is fair to ask me to try to look a little happier, if I really look bad all the time. But there are polite and reasonable ways to do this, and she was just sarcastic and aggressive about it. Also, the other teachers (who I'm with all day) say I don't have a problem with this. This woman only sees me for a few minutes at a time during the day. It's possible that she mostly sees me when I'm looking bad. But if she had any sense she would realize that these short encounters are not useful for judging how I am "all the time," and anyway if that was really her concern she could say it like an adult and not a spoiled 12-year-old. What's more, I'm sure that at least some of the times I talk to her I am quite positive, joking and smiling. I think her saying I look bad "all the time" was her defense for not taking into account the possibility that I had a real reason to look unhappy. It wasn't HER fault for not being compassionate and butting her nose in; it was MY fault for not making my emotions clearer (which are none of her business anyway).

In any case, I'm convinced now that I've done nothing wrong. I will ask my co-teachers to let me know if I start looking miserable. I know they are kind people and they will do it in a positive way if it's necessary. Otherwise I will just stick it out until the end of June and try to avoid this woman. Maybe when she sees me I'll give her an exaggerated smile like the Sheldon smile in that video clip there just to get back at her in my small way.

I wish I was able to stand up for myself. It's a lifelong problem. I was raised to be extremely passive. My own family bullied me constantly while I was growing up. They didn't understand me and none of them are particularly brilliant, just averagely intelligent people who get their information from Fox News and reality TV, and I was always tested at genius level and spent my time reading science books. I was the first in my family to go to university (other than my mother who eventually went for a teaching degree, but her education was strictly just in teaching with no other general studies). Whenever I shared something new that I had learned, they all looked at each other to check if any of them had ever heard of it before, and when inevitably none of them had, they all silently agreed that in order not to feel stupid, they would make ME feel stupid for disagreeing with the mob. They were merciless. Aside from verbal abuse they would hide my books under my mattress so I would sleep on them and mess up my back, put metal objects under my blankets for me to bang my legs/knees on when I got into bed (and one under my pillow to bang my head on), tie all my clothes together and hang them around the room... Even worse, my mother was severely unstable and whenever I tried to stand up for myself (at age 17 she still wouldn't let me spend a night at a friend's house) she would scream and cry and rant about how I was such a horrible child I made her want to kill herself, and maybe she would just go and do it right NOW. My sisters never took her seriously but it was a long time before I discovered that SHE was the one with the problem, not me. (When my sisters and I all moved away she was deeply hurt, of course, and when we tried together to confront her about how she treated us growing up, she started crying, swore she never did ANY of those things, and insisted we were making it up to try to hurt her when all she ever did was try her best to be a good mother and show us she loved us. Speaking of which, she never told us she loved us until we moved away and it was a little too late.)

Add all that up and I just never learned to defend myself. To this day, if I try to stand up to someone, I rehearse what I'm going to say over and over, then as soon as I'm face to face with them I just start crying. I'm 28 years old and I've been on my own for 5 years and I still can't even stand up to a bully.

Just for balance, I'm not miserable all the time. I tend to be miserable at work because it is a terrible working environment. No one there is ever happy. That's why I'm leaving and finding a new school for next year. I've been there 2 years and it was nice at first, but every change that has been made has caused more and more problems, and meanwhile the director of the school seems to be going slowly insane. It's time to get out of there. I'm dealing with my current instability problems by trying to change my job, and while I'm at work now I'm trying to worry less about the insane rules imposed by my boss and more about just having fun with the kids, the way the job is supposed to be. Outside of work I spend most of my spare time either cooking or training in Tai Chi, both of which make me very happy. I have great friends, although I currently don't get to spend much time with them. I'm confident that things will get better once I'm away from this job. Just one more month and it will be over.

I hope you find a better school soon, it can't be nice to work in such a negative environment.

Thanks! If I don't find a new school to work at, I'll just go back to teaching private English lessons. I don't want to do this, but it would be better than where I am now.

You need to cut this person out of your life, other than required professional discussions.

Statements such as "I don't wish to discuss my personal life" and "Sorry don't have time to chat" might come in handy.

She is targetting you because you are not being assertive, she is getting away with inappropriate behaviour.

I had the same issues with a boss, ended up cutting out all interaction that was not work related and keeping things civil otherwise. He got the message loud and clear.

Bursting into tears does not signify depression or emotional instability!

Many people on the spectrum suffer with emotional dysregulation. Female Aspies will often display their emotion by bursting into tears (myself included) and there is nothing you can do to stop it. I absolutely detest crying in front of others because it feels like a weakness and I hate myself for it, but I cannot stop it no matter how hard I try.

This is not something that you can seek therapy for, as it's part of the condition and how the brain is wired!

OP, you've had an awful childhood and I'm sorry your family treated you like that. This person you work with unfortunately is just the type of person to set off your triggers and make you feel like that mistreated child again.

She may not be as popular as you think. NTs are weak and will follow the pack and be subservient to the one that acts like the alpha. I used to work in this office where there was this much older woman who was bitter, twisted and the biggest b***h going. She would have all the other females gathered around her whilst she bitched endlessly with sour looks about just about everyone. She was so nasty it was unbelievable, but she wielded it with such confidence that no-one dared to be outside of her circle or say anything to contradict her. I am so sure that at least some of them disliked what she said, but they were too scared to step outside of it and not join in for fear that they would become a victim of it themselves. She had an air of disapproving authority, even though she was a nobody, she was the same level as them in her job.

So it's quite possible that colleagues instinctively are a little subservient to her because of her character despite her status as a student. They will suck up to her and be grateful to be befriended by her because they have seen she is a capable person and doesn't suffer fools gladly. They don't want to be at the receiving end of her criticisms and it's an easier life for them to play ball. And this includes the person you like, better to be an ear for the gossip than a victim of it mentality.

This is what NTs are like. One bad apple can spoil the barrel as they say. As you are leaving, just avoid her as much as you can. Perhaps adopt a mild tone of sarcasm when you encounter her, be on the defensive. For instance, when she was funny with you about not moving out of her way in the kitchen, you could have replied in a condescending tone "Aw, is it difficult for you to wait then, I guess when you are a real adult with a proper job you will have learned some patience". Just be a little on the defensive but not in an angry way.

Good luck finding a better job.

Last edited by whirlingmind on 25 May 2013, 3:37 pm, edited 2 times in total.

If this employee isn't in a position of authority over you, pay it no heed or report her for harassment if anyone who can do something is willing to listen.

Report her if she keeps harassing. I actually had to go through this drama with another male workmate who was envious about me working with lathes. He would always come up to me in a very harsh tone saying I stole his job and I should watch my back, he's watching me and other weird things. I let it slide and it got to the point he was messing with my machines during break and messing up my log books. When I reported him, he got a pretty stern lecture about how he wasn't checking parts ran after making offset adjustments and not keeping logs which is why I took his place and that if I complained even once, he would be let go. I guess from what I hear this person has a thing for doing this to people. Good luck on getting this monkey off your back.

Yes, this is true. Thanks for the backup.

For people saying to "report" her, the trouble with working in a small place like mine is that everyone knows each other too well. My boss acts less like a boss than a friend and everyone is always in everyone else's business. For those who speak a language other than English, it might be enough to say this: when the Czech speakers are using their native language, they use the informal way of addressing each other. The problem with all this is that when it comes time to do something formal, like complain about another coworker, it's treated too personally and everyone in the office knows about it immediately. Aside from all the gossip, the talking about it behind your back, everyone treats you like the office snitch. If you have a problem with someone in this environment, it's expected that you will handle it personally rather than running to complain to your boss like a child telling its mother.

I'll just wait it out another month, I think.