My job is driving me insane

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Yeah...well it basically sums up really well why I have been so unhappy in this job. I feel like I have no one to turn to when I have a problem with anything, no real support, no one to back me up, nothing. This company does not want to hear the truth or face reality about anything. So nothing ever really gets addressed or resolved. And that's why we continue to have the same problems with our programming year after year, and continue to have pissed off customers, and it's also why sales are lower than projected and why they are now having to restructure upper management and consolidate some jobs and push some of those people into retirement. I think it all goes back to this policy of never bringing up a problem unless you have a solution for it.

Even if this issue with my supervisor gets resolved, this is just the tip of the iceberg. The culture of this company is horribly screwed up. I guess the only reason I've lasted this long, is because I used to be able to distance myself from it a lot more. Now that we have internet capability out in the field, the emails are a constant reminder of how f****d up things are. It's just suffocating and mentally oppressive and exhausting. I feel like I want to get as far away from it as I possibly can.

I do need the job, and I'm not in a position to just quit without having something else lined up. There are other opportunities out there though and I have a feeling something else will work out for me if/when the time comes.

The HR lady said, with the amount of frustration I have, "you're either going to resign, or act out in a way that gets you terminated." I said I wouldn't necessarily agree with that. So then she said, "well then you will end up resigning." I thought it sounded like a barely veiled threat. Well, the way I feel about it is, if they don't appreciate me enough to want to keep me - and if they don't appreciate me for being ME - then they might as well just let me go and find someone else who can be what they want.

I've learned it doesn't make much difference anyway if I do my job well or not, work hard or slack off, do everything by the book or break the rules. The one and ONLY thing they really want is someone to play the game and say the things they want to hear. It really goes against my grain because I am not that kind of person. I think they need people like me, but they don't know it. I think a company with a different culture might appreciate me more.

I think when I get overwhelmed and shut down, and find it difficult to communicate, it's because their communication style is SO different from mine. I can't phrase things as carefully and indirectly and convolutedly as they do. I tend to just say what is on my mind and call things how I see them. Sometimes when I speak up about something in a meeting there is a "thud" of silence and they all just look at me and then at each other like deer caught in the headlights. Then they say something back to me that sounds like flim-flam. Emails too are full of flip-flop statements and double talk that make no sense. My mind starts spinning trying to decode all the stuff they are saying, and then figure out how to respond, and by the time I figure it out the moment is gone. It's just mentally exhausting. I can't do it anymore.

All the advice you are giving me is great, but I think this is part of the problem, if I have to keep thinking so much about what to say and how to say it, and seeing everything like a strategy, it is just exhausting me more and more to the point where I can't function. I have to be myself, and if they don't accept it then oh well.

Yes I was a little worried that you might feel uncomfortable about the sheer volume of ideas we've got here. I should probably have confined my advice to the bit about having a couple of sentences ready to explain the problem and your solution (if you want to propose a solution to them) in a nutshell. I don't think there's any need for a complicated plan, and as you say, you have to be yourself.

About the problems you mentioned, I had a lot of those same frustrations with the crazy management at my workplace. They were similarly disinterested in supporting employees. I agree the HR response was worse than useless - for them to raise the ideas of quitting and getting fired, that sounds like it was designed to demoralise you. At the very least it was slippery of them to change the subject like that, but then managements are often past masters at being slippery.

There's this strange, indirect, disguised air to the way a lot of managers talk that somehow bucks any attempt to get to the heart of the problem. My words to them were usually like water off a duck's back, it was very top-down, no genuine listening. I'd often come away feeling somehow that I had fewer rights than I turned out to have. And I could never work out what they were up to until days after the fact, if I could do it at all, it was like a different language. Eventually I took to just saying yes and then going off and doing things my own way. They rarely seemed to notice.

Anyway, I hope you don't wear yourself out over them.

Yep I know what you mean...that's pretty much what I've been doing for years. I guess what is changed is now they are starting to notice and question certain things, like the admin time for instance.

The way I do things is what works for me, and some of those things have taken years of experimentation to really figure out what works and get a routine or system established. And I do my job well and do what they ask of me, so I'm not sure what more they want. I guess they are just pushing to squeeze more and more out of us, but enough is enough.

I used to experience that. They were never content to leave well alone. I'd gradually hone things so that I finally fitted the job well, and then they'd have some or other initiative, and drive a bus through my carefully-constructed system. Sadly, the management's job is to constantly strive to get more for less out of the workforce, and it's seen as too much effort to have any sensitivity to the individual's particular situation, one size fits all, because that's the cheapest way in the short term, from their blinkered perspective.

Looking at the diagnoses in your signature, I'm surprised you don't have ASD in the list. A lot of the work problems you've mentioned seem to be a lot like my own, which I've always put down to my autism. For example, you seem to do your job very much in your own way, and interruption and change really messes with your head. I'd have thought a non-ASDer would be able to take those things in their stride more, though I'm no expert on the non-ASD mind. And maybe, as I once thought before I knew I had autism, bosses are just generally bad news for all of us.

Well, I found out recently from my dad that a psychiatrist I saw when I was 12 thought I was autistic. I didn't know that. My dad didn't believe him. The shrink wanted to have me committed so I'm glad my dad didn't go along with it. I don't know if I got a formal diagnosis from that or not. I thought about mentioning this to vocational rehab to see if it would be worthwhile to pursue a diagnosis.

I don't think having an ADHD diagnosis has helped much at all in terms of getting job accommodations, the only thing it helps is my understanding of myself and my own capabilities. I've never had an employer really be understanding about it. I imagine it might only worse if I disclosed an autism diagnosis.

Anyway I think people with ADHD are the same in the things you are talking about, tending to do things their own way and not dealing well with interruptions or changing things mid-stream. And possibly could be far more obstinate about it than a person with ASD. People with ADHD tend to be mavericks, and very single-minded and driven to a purpose.

Come to think of it, I've sometimes wondered whether I have a bit of attention-defect going on in me. Certainly I have trouble controlling my attention. I never really pursued it, as I'm kind of phobic about adding an extra dimension of complexity to the study of who I am. And just as you've found, I expect it wouldn't have led to much in the way of adjustments. But I'm certainly extremely single-minded, and can't begin a task without getting welded to it. I still find it astonishing when I see people respond calmly and fluidly to being interrupted.

Having somebody committed for autism seems like one extreme to the other. Maybe I shouldn't be too annoyed at society for ignoring my disability.

Me too!! Or being able to do things like counting money and having a conversation at the same time. It just boggles my mind.




Yep, definitely...well, at the time DFACS was investigating my family for physical abuse and they wanted to have me evaluated by a psychiatrist. So that was how it came about. I don't remember how many times I had to go see the psychiatrist, but I barely spoke to him at all. I thought he was an idiot. He would sit there and pretend to be asleep and then watch me out the corner of his eye to see my reaction. My dad said the shrink thought I was autistic because I didn't talk to him. I don't remember him saying that, but I don't think he told me any of his theories about what was going on with me. What I do remember is either my parents or grandparents told me that the shrink thought I might be a catatonic schizophrenic, and that he wanted to have me committed, but they were against it. My dad says he told the shrink there was nothing wrong with me, other than I had been in a bad environment at school - which was certainly true, but home was a bad environment too. Also it turns out this was why my dad sent me to private school, because the social workers couldn't come visit me and interview me there.

My dad told me all of this, like he thought it was ridiculous that anyone might have diagnosed me with autism, not knowing that I've basically diagnosed myself with it. lol I explained that to him and he said well he might have been wrong about that psychiatrist's opinion. But I'm really glad that he didn't take the guy seriously, because otherwise I might have ended up getting committed. At the time there was an actual mental hospital in the area, pretty notorious for being a horrible place, so it's not like it would have been a short stay in the psych ward of a regular hospital. It would have been a nightmare.

In an ideal world, it might have been better for me if I could have been diagnosed properly with autism at a young age, but in the circumstances and environment I was brought up in it was probably best that I wasn't. However, now that leaves me feeling extremely burned out from a lifetime of trying to cope on my own.

As for my job though, I think anyone could easily get burned out, just doing this type of work and having to deal with the company politics. We used to have pretty rapid turnover, because people saw what it was and just bailed out immediately. When the economy took a downturn, people started hanging on longer. And of course they've tried to squeeze more and more out of us in less time. Other people are cracking under the pressure too, it's definitely not just me.

Your experience of shrinks and family attitudes sound to me like a relatively mild form of the problems the so-called anti-psychiatrist R.D.Laing used to write about. That is, everybody involved seems to have been making rather a mess of things. I'm sure the mental health profession is still largely floundering in the dark, though they have great ways of making it look as if they know what they're doing.

I've been luckier, having never been near a shrink. But if I'd had an autism diagnosis a few decades ago I might have put a number of counsellors right about some of their misconceptions. They mistook my alexithymia for repression, and one thought I needed to be reduced to a condition of utter despair, or "rock bottom" as he called it, from which he thought I would them re-build myself. Mercifully he failed to achieve that.

I've experienced the "burned out" thing you wrote about. I was having to practically drag myself to work in the end, and once I quit, I found myself sleeping for over 12 hours a day. I'm still hoping my brain is just repairing itself.

Yes I'm sure the economic downturn has made working conditions a lot worse. Things had been gradually deteriorating for decades in the UK, but the bankers' credit crunch really put the icing on the cake.

That sounds horrendous. I'm glad he failed.



I feel that way a lot of the time. Needing lots of sleep. Sometimes I get agoraphobic for a few days, which is how I'm feeling right now.

Sometimes I have good days where I'm able to just put things out of my mind, go out there and actually enjoy my job. This is what makes me sad about the whole thing, is I actually do LIKE my job. But inevitably we have a conference call or a meeting, or I get a ton of emails about some BS, and being exposed to the company rhetoric just shuts me down again. Or else it's the anxiety and dread of hearing complaints from customers, that I have absolutely no answers for and no way to resolve.

I haven't heard a peep out of them about that meeting with my supervisor and his supervisor. Really didn't figure I would, but then again they could suddenly pop back up with it weeks from now, just when you think it's all forgotten. There's no telling with these people, which only adds to my anxiety.

He was on such an obvious top-down guru trip that I'd never have trusted him enough to open up like that. And I guess he wanted me to dredge up repressed painful material which I didn't have, so it wasn't going to happen. Googling "rock bottom" gives only hits about a now-discredited method for dealing with alcoholics and drug addicts - this was relationship counselling! Unfortunately he was the only counsellor available in the evenings, and I had a day job.



It was similar here. I enjoyed a lot of the actual job, which was good and practical, but I hate bureacracy and was continually getting such add-on crap from the admin people. Even retiring was like that. I handed in my resignation and was prepared to comply with the proper procedure as detailed on their website, but they didn't stick to it. I was getting emails from secretaries trying to tell me to take copies of stuff to weird places I didn't even know existed. Forever expecting non-admin staff to do their job for them. Meanwhile the person who should have done the paperwork with me didn't do a damned thing.

Yes, lateness and dropping the ball are crimes only the common footsoldiers can be guilty of, it seems. Our admin were months late in rolling out a new job evaluation procedure, and then they gave us 2 measly weeks to complete the complcated forms they'd produced. Pity you've got the threat of that meeting hanging over you. I hate things like that. It's hard to stay on a war footing for a long time, and the enemy has the advantage of surprise.

I have found that the best job for me involves hands-on work. I also always work for small companies. Because these positions involve results orientated work, my abilities stand to the fore and my weaknesses are negated. And in a small company, there is less room for politics.

We had the meeting. Long story short, I almost quit but they said to take some time and think about it first. Over 8 years worth of frustration with the job finally spilled over into hysterical sobbing.

It started off kind of promising. They acknowledged the problem with the work withs being distracting and asked me how I want them to give me feedback. I know I should probably be really glad that they are willing to make adjustments, but I don't know, it just kind of depressed me. I feel like it shouldn't be that difficult for them to understand when to make a comment or when to back off and let me work.

I wrote out a couple of pages of notes about how our programming is failing and why customers aren't happy with it. I gave them copies of what I wrote. I really didn't expect any of it to be news to them, but I think some of it was. Then my manager's manager started talking and talking about how to address those issues, and I don't know, it just sounded like all it would amount to is MORE EXPECTATIONS being put on me. And my god I feel like I'm already trying to do so much in a short amount of time.

He also acknowledged that the company's focus has changed since the time I started, and he said you have to change with the company to stay relevant. The more he talked, the worse I felt. He used a lot of metaphors and I was trying to pin down exactly what does this mean in terms of actual job expectations. I couldn't tell if he was trying to say that I'm not relevant anymore, if I'm not right for the job, what??

I finally said, well, maybe I'm not what the company wants. In all the years I've been doing this, I've never felt like I am. He said but you've shown that you can do the job well. And I agreed with that, I think I am more than capable of doing the job, but I just don't fit in to the company's culture. I think they want a different kind of person.

In reality (I didn't say this to them) I think they only have maybe 2 or 3 people on the team at the most who actually fit the culture, and they just really favor those people and try to insinuate that everyone else should be more like them. And the others just try to play the game, or else like me they give up because they can't do it anymore.

Anyway, I also said, if I thought I was the only one who felt this way then I would just find another job, but I'm not. He wanted to know what other people on the team have said, not any particulars just what is the overall consensus. I said, the main thing is that people don't feel they are being listened to. I felt that was the best thing I could say and really I think it's up to them to find out how other people are feeling and give them the opportunity to be heard, rather than getting it second hand from me.

Well it went on and on, and it was just depressing me more and more until I finally broke down and told them that they have no idea how to create a good work environment, and I might as well just hand in my things because I can see it's not going to get any better. And he actually stopped me from quitting and said to take some time to think about it. He also said, maybe this isn't the right job or the right company for you, and I have to make that decision.

I don't even know how I feel about that right now. It's just a relief to finally speak the truth about a lot of things, there was more I might have said and they did ask me if I had anymore to say but I felt way too overwhelmed to continue.

I feel like they are coming from such a totally different perspective, and it's gone on like this so long, they have never really understood anything from my point of view and I don't know if they actually can.

I went back to vocational rehab after all this, and this time, maybe because I was sobbing, lol, I actually got to talk to a counselor. He said the same thing as before, that I need to try medication for my ADHD. I said, I'm not sure if ADHD is the only problem. And I told him that the psychiatrist I saw when I was 12 suspected that I was autistic and I suspect it myself.

To my total surprise he actually agreed with me and said that he could see some similarities between me and his clients who have Aspergers. And to find out if I have the right diagnosis he is going to set up an evaluation for me.

I asked about the place they use, if they are able to evaluate adults properly, he seemed to think so. I have my doubts of course, and don't want to walk away with a wrong diagnosis, especially not when it's going down on VR's records.

Quite a harrowing experience for you with the management then, and it seems they're never going to talk like human beings. Sounds like they value your services though, otherwise they wouldn't have told you to think about it when you mentioned quitting.

I guess it's a good time to decide whether you need the job or not - if you do, that evaluation might be helpful in two ways. First, they're likely to cut you a bit of slack simply on the grounds that your disabilities seem to be at the root of the recent confrontation. Second, if the evaluation is any good, you'll be able to explain the management expectations you have difficulty with, and if they get documented in the diagnostic report, it'll be hard for them to keep hitting you with those expectations.

On a deeper level, from all you've said about the situation, I think if anybody has anything wrong with them, it's the management, yet you're the one getting evaluated. I think a lot of people in the world of work end up having to play this crazy game where the true situation is never talked about. It was certainly like that in my case. I'm sure I'm autistic, but I allowed them to think and talk as if that was the only problem, when the truth was that their behaviour and the pressure they routinely put on staff was unacceptable even for a person with no cognitive impairments at all. I let them save face, which was probably wise, but it was also very frustrating.

Yep, exactly. Well I guess where I feel most impaired, is in the ability to play the game and go along with the politics.

I told the VR counselor about how they conduct these work withs and he laughed and said well no wonder you are stressed out and anxious...ANYONE would be if they had to work with someone looking over their shoulder like that.

I did tell them at the meeting that I feel like I'm being micromanaged, and he disputed that since most of the time we do work independently...and I said yeah BUT we go from one extreme to the other, on a normal work day I'm on my own, but on a work with it's the complete opposite and it's not like a normal work day at all. And they are coming out to see how I'm working, but it's not representative of what I normally do because it's so different from a normal work day.

I ended up saying, I don't think it really matters if they wait to give me feedback at the end of the day, or what, because it's the WAY they are communicating. I wish I had also said...I really don't need to be lectured excessively about why we do basic job tasks that I've done since the beginning of the job, as if I'm a moron. I keep thinking of lots of things I wish I had said.

I have really mixed feelings about getting evaluated...also sounds like VR is going to push for me to take medication no matter what, and I don't want to. I just feel like the whole system is designed to create dumbed down, numbed out worker drones who don't really think or question anything.

Oh, and I didn't tell you, when they finally notified me last week it was to say that the three of us would be having a work with, not a meeting. I completely freaked out since all along I had been mentally preparing myself for a meeting. It triggered such a massive panic attack, I didn't sleep at all that night, I was hyperventilating off and on for hours. I missed work the next day and I just told them plainly why, because the thought of another work with stressed me out so much I couldn't calm down all night. It was only after that (or maybe it was because I sent another email to HR?) that they agreed to set up an actual meeting where we could all sit down and talk.

So I dunno...yeah...they do say they value me, and they did listen to what I had to say today, but they didn't really value me enough to set up a real meeting before it came to all this. And I know the only reason they got a conference room for the meeting today, is because I complained to HR about having to meet in restaurants. I think it's a very reasonable accommodation. But whether an employee is disabled or not, I think it's just plain tacky to have performance discussions in a restaurant, or standing in a store, or parking lot or wherever they decide to discuss things. It shows how cheap they are and that they don't really value us as employees.

I don't think they will cut me any slack at all because of a disability. I have no idea what would happen if I came back with an autism diagnosis. I get the sense that these managers have no training whatsoever on how to work with people who have disabilities.

They may not have any training in how to work with people with disabilities, but if you want to stay they should be able to coach you some and if they want to be helpful, their lack of training lets you tell them just what you need without them trying to shove irrelevant accommodations at you, so there is that.

I agree with you about medication, though. It doesn't make confusing social demands not upsetting.