My job is pushing me over the edge

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I work out in public as a sales rep in convenience stores. A lot of things really frustrate me about my job, but I've narrowed it down to this being the most basic thing that drives me crazy: I get interrupted all the time while I'm working.

I don't mind so much if they are asking me a specific question I can answer, like where the restroom is, or for directions. It breaks my train of thought, but I can give them an answer and get on with things.

What drives me crazy is when people:
Want to chit chat or joke around
Ask me a lot of personal questions
Flirt with me or want to date me
Want to know why I don't want to date them
Use sexual innuendo or make rude comments about my appearance
Want to find out if my company is hiring or how I got my job or if I can get them a job
Want me to give them free stuff
Ask me for money or want to wash my car for money
Ask me to buy them a lottery ticket
Lay a guilt trip on me for having a job, car, or money
Get offended because I don't respond exactly the way they want to the above

And worst of all, this does not happen very often but occasionally someone will physically put their hands on me to try to get me to do what they want.

I just don't know how much more of this I can take. I feel constantly harassed, pestered and vulnerable. I feel like I have to walk a fine line not to offend these people because they might do something to hurt me or damage my car.

I have to be just friendly enough not to offend them, but not so friendly that they stick around trying to talk to me, or worse that I unintentionally give them the wrong signals.

I like my job. I really like what I do in my job, and I just want to be left alone so I can do my job in some amount of peace, but I can see that it is impossible. They are never going to leave me alone.

If I had lots of time to get my job done, it might not be so bad, because I would have time to be more aware of the people around me and be more polite to them. I JUST DO NOT HAVE ENOUGH TIME.

I've already had 2 car accidents this year because I feel constantly agitated and pressured and distracted.

No one in the company cares. All the communication is one way, they state what their expectations are and you are just supposed to perform like a little trained monkey. And it is not like they can change anything in my work environment anyway, so to complain would only draw negative attention to myself.

I don't know what to do, who to turn to, where to go for help. There is nothing, no one, no support whatsoever.

What drives us crazy is when people behave like such humans. I'd be happy to teach you some programming if interaction with machines is more down your alley...

Yeah, exactly. I used to do some programming as a kid but I am at least 30 years behind on it now. I should have gone to tech school when I dropped out of college. I thought about it but was so burned out on school I just didn't want to go to school anymore. Now I'm just burned out on everything. Feel like I don't have sense enough to write up a new resume much less go through the hell of a job interview.

I was in a similar situation dianthus so I can fully sympathise. I made a chart of how many times I was distracted in my 5 hour working day and it was 50-60 on average, it was driving me batty. The boss moved me away from the distractions after I complained several times and he could see I wasn't getting through my work. The downside is I now have to work on the top floor with only him for company, which is worse because he interrupts me instead now

Sorry I don't have any advice to offer other than keep checking what jobs become available, you never know you may just find something that's perfect for you

This kind of example is exactly why I want to work for myself from home.

I have enrolled on a course in Pottery, Still life drawing and a Btec in Art and Design.

The first two are short courses and the other is one academic year studying part time. I have no idea how good I will be at it, I am a newbie (except to things like cross stitching which I have done for years now) but it sounds enjoyable and I thought it was worth giving it a shot. It's the kind of thing I may be able to freelance in if I am capable enough.

I have very few intentions of having to work for an employer unless I have to. Eventually I will find something I can support myself with by freelancing from home. I have an ability to learn things, I perservere, tend to have an excellent concentration span for things I enjoy along with remarkable stamnia when it comes to working with them. I may as well take advantage of that. No one else is going to, they have assigned me to the scrap heap. I can't even get voluntary work where I can give my skills away for free...I think they want someone more social and I can't cope with their ways of thinking, especially in regards to all this self esteem malarky anyway.

Ie I am teaching myself Piano and Flute (I have the instruments but cannot afford ongoing lessons at the moment) as I am hoping to become good enough at some distant point in the future to earn money by teaching others. Also I have always wanted to play these instruments (along with the violin) so have finally decided to bite the bullet and go for it.

Now, if I hit a wrong note or key during my practice I fail to see how sitting there and having a self esteem crisis is going to be of use to me. Firstly I really couldn't give a s**t what my hitting a wrong key during practice says about my worth as a human being, secondly I play because I love it and respect the instrument (the flute is one of the most beautiful instruments you will ever hear and see, it is also one of the oldest...the oldest known (bone) flute originating from the palaeolithic some 43 thousand years ago), thirdly this is about being the best player I can be not about reaching some predefined ideal of perfect and last but not least I really just want to find out why I hit the wrong key, figure out how to correct it, practice some more and try not to make the same mistake in the future.

However society would prefer it, it seems, if I rammed my head up the arse of my own ego for hours, sulked, had 3 days of therapy to help me cope with the fact I hit a Bb instead of B#, read a self help book and then attended a self help group where I can express how worthless I feel because of my mistake before standing, holding hands and all singing kumbaya (in the correct key) together.

I just can't be arse to be honest so I'll just figure out my mistake and carry on playing instead...

Living in this society makes me want to shoot myself sometimes...(I am not being literal and I don't own a gun anyway!).

I'll keep trying different things till I find something that allows me to work from home without having to spend too much time with the humans....

It's out in the open now. I let my boss know how stressed I am. Wasn't exactly intending to do that but it just came out. I absolutely cannot suppress it anymore.

The only solution he came up with was to give me MORE things to do.

But at least I am done trying to keep up the image of an unconditionally capable employee. Enough is enough. It's not like I am the only person in the job who feels this way. I think I'm probably just the only one to crack up like this, like the canary in the coal mine.

I totally get what you are saying, and yeah I've noticed this trend...I mean there must literally be a political agenda, coming out of some think tank somewhere to make people focus more on "self esteem" and similar issues rather than actually accomplishing anything. I noticed this crap really beginning to take hold when I was in middle school and high school, 20-25 years ago, they wanted us to spend more time talking about how we "feel" about things rather than actually learning something worthwhile. I think there is a huge agenda going on to dumb down society and unfortunately it is working.

Do you know how to read music? I learned to read music, by playing clarinet in the school band, but I really wanted to learn piano instead so I taught myself to play piano. I never got much out of taking private lessons, but being taught how to read music did help a lot. I just needed the basics as a foundation so I could teach myself from there.

I was wondering myself recently if there is a mass dumbing down going in society...it seems to be getting really strange out there!

I am learning to read music whilst simultaneously learning to play piano, and more recently, flute. For piano I have a CDP120 digital piano to play on and the flute I have is a Yamaha Student flute which I acquired second hand from a music store.

I am self teaching for now due to limited funds but will seek out the help of a professional tutor around the time I feel ready to start sitting grade exams.

I tried clarinet at the music store but could not make it make any sound, I found it uncomfortable to play given my over bite. The flute, on the other hand, I made sing straight away so took that home instead.

You should get one of those Prehistoric flutes and play it before the class.

If I can acquire one (or more likely a replica), I'll give playing it a go.

That would undiscombobulate you

Good choice, the clarinet is not an easy instrument to get a nice sound out of, and it is very uncomfortable to play. I lost my embouchure years ago, and every time I've tried to pick it up and play since then, I couldn't believe how uncomfortable it was, I don't know how I was able to stand playing it all those years. I wish I had played the flute instead.

When a person can get it to play it can have a lovely sound to it (the clarinet).

It is totally crazy what they are doing in schools anymore. And they are damaging so many children in the process. It all started with the Pass/Fail classes where you didn't really get graded. Now in sports for the younger children, they have stopped keeping score!? They think it damaging to have some labels as "Losers". What they need is to teach good sportsmanship for one. For another they need to let kids fail, I mean we can't all be great at everything and do perfect all the time. These kids are growing up not knowing how to fail and learn from it so they can better themselves. Failure is NOT a bad thing, it is a part of learning especially about self. Now they are so confused they might pursue something as an adult that they really shouldn't. Let's face it, no one can be good at everything. Kind of like old Clint saying "A man's got to know his limitations". I could go on for hours about just this alone.



You hit the nail on the head! That is exactly what is going on. Last couple of jobs were retail auto parts dealing with public. I am the kind that will try to help anyone if I can (long as they are respectful and polite). But I have a big problem with stupidity, I don't deal well with it. Especially when asked for advice and knowing the proper answer then getting rejected on said advice. Why did they bother asking in first place? Then weeks later come back angry because new brake pads or whatever are trashed out blaming me and product. This after I tried to help and warn them. Some of my responses got me into a bit of trouble over this. The customer is always right I am told! I could go on for hours about this as well. Bottom line is it seems that people are getting dumbed down, more impolite, and lack any common sense. If the zombie apocalypse hit tomorrow, most would die just because of stupidity.



I played the clarinet as well till kicked out of band. The instructor was a moron and took all fun out of being in band. Total prick if you get my drift. Every time he started being an a$$, I'd chomp down on that reed and squeal the hell out of the thing. After being sent to principle several times, I was encouraged to switch to choir and the teacher was far better and more fun. I hated the clarinet so badly anyhow. Wanted to play sax....

Corporations are abstract entities that don't have a brain. The people at the top of corporate pyramid schemes (that's what they are, rather than businesses that deliver something of tangible value to the members society) have an almost complete lack of understanding of any purpose the organisation may originally have had.

What happens on the shop floor is largely irrelevant.

Innovation is what happens if a corporation swallows up a much smaller business with a real product that relate to the desired perception of the organisation. Whether these acquired products then develop in a direction that is useful for society at large is irrelevant. As a result, intrinsically motivated innovators are driven out of the organisation, and those who remain are gullible participants in the pyramid scheme.

I've been seeing this again and again across many different industries. Most economists prefer to ignore the evidence and prefer to make convenient assumptions that lead to conclusions that support the ideology of "efficient markets". There are a few exceptions that even make it into the mainstream media. This article was a good read http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... i-schemes/

The underlying patterns of typical human behaviour have deeper roots, and have been observable repeatedly over thousands of years. For a more comprehensive perspective over the entire record of human existence, I recommend the work of Joseph Tainter. http://intersci.ss.uci.edu/wiki/index.p ... _Societies. The following talk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddmQhIiVM48 is a good introduction.