LyraLuthTinu wrote:
It bothers me too.
It bothers me more when I try to indicate that I am hurt or upset by the joking, and people shift from "joking" teasing to what looks more like angry, defensive, self-superior justification of their hurtful behavior. They act like I'm only upset because I can't take a joke, don't have a sense of humor, am overly sensitive and/or have a "double standard" (apparently because my goofing around sometimes offends people too, and if you ever accidentally offend people you forfeit your right to be offended by the goofing around of others? Idk).
So I'm always in the wrong.
Either I'm wrong because I was trying to be silly and make a joke and my joke was hurtful, or I'm wrong because I allowed other people's silly teasing joking to hurt my own overly sensitive feelings. It's always about me.
Um, no, it's not. I feel bad when I hurt other people's feelings. I feel bad when other people hurt my feelings. I feel bad when I perceive a group of people who seem to me to be hurting a third party's feelings. I even feel bad sometimes when I hear other people laughing and joking around and I don't know what they're joking about. Somehow I always feel like there must be a butt-monkey in the center of all the unknown joking around, so anytime I hear people laughing, I assume that someone is in the middle of it getting their feelings hurt.
Hubby and daughter were joking around on Mothers' Day, making funny noises and having a friendly teasing argument about the Chinese words daughter had written on the card she made me. Hubby was pretending to make fun of the language, and daughter was pretending to be offended by the stereotypes, calling it racist and all that. They were both just having a laugh. But I backed away, because to my stressed-out mind it was barely distinguishable from a real conflict and the emotional and sensory input was on the edge of overwhelming. At the lull in the laughter, I said "are you done?" because if they were done, I could go back near them and smile and hug daughter and thank her for the card.
Hubby got all upset with me, because he thought I was saying that they shouldn't laugh and joke and have fun because it upset me. I see why it seemed that way. But I was not able to explain to him that I was able to cope with them doing it, I just needed to distance myself from it while it was happening, but wanted to participate in whatever came next. Because I hoped what came next would be thanking daughter for the card, telling her how cool the cutout pattern was and how proud I am of her learning Chinese and Asian art and calligraphy in school and how pleased I was with the card and stuff. But I didn't want to try to do that while they were having their friendly silly teasing (for them fun) argument because it caused cognitive dissonance for me. I was okay with them doing it together. I just wanted a turn to talk when it was done, and didn't want to have it start back up right in my ear when I went over to give daughter a hug and thanks for the card.
So noisy joking around can kind of upset me even when I'm not the butt of the joke. It can make me uncomfortable because the sounds make me feel the same emotions that I do when I am the butt of the joke. I don't want to stop people from joking around and having fun--unless there is a real person really getting hurt by it. Because then it's not a joke; it's bullying.
ifinlove, I think what your co-workers are doing isn't just friendly teasing and joking around. I think it is harassment and bullying, and especially if you are autistic and they know it they are doing it on purpose because they don't understand the whole truth about autism. Some people think autism is the same as mental retardation; some people think it's okay to call people "ret*d" for acting different. But it is not okay to lightly kick or shove people at work, call them ret*d and say they were only joking. They are being aggressive and disrespectful, I think, and trying to marginalize you so you will feel like the low-man on the totem pole indefinitely. If your workplace has a Human Resources Representative you should talk to that person about it. Even if they do mean it in a friendly-joking way it is not affecting you like friendly banter, it is causing you distress and maybe it's detrimental to your work performance. If it makes you uncomfortable and impacts your job performance it should be stopped.
You bring an interesting point about how when you tell someone you don't like what their joking about and tell them to stop that they seem to get super upset. I've done that before and it's true, that exactly I've notice with people in the past and it's not fun. They seem to get super offended and super upset, I bet there's a deaper reason why. Maybe an inbedded hidden guilt or knowing what they doing is in some level mean, wrong, and your actually pointing out that fault out and making them feel exposed. I'm sure some people may do it because there's a hidden insecurity about them self.
The difficulty about this guy at work is that, I have this strong gut feeling that if I tell him to stop joking he is going to be very upset with me maybe to the point that it could effect my job. He does have a bad temper, and I've seen him throw fits on days he doesn't get good tips. So, I feel like when I do talk to him, addressing it in the right way is key.
It's interesting how you as well as other people have said that he is acting pretty out of line because what I mentioned in the post is only some of the annoying things he does constantly to m3 when I'm working. Some other things he does is he tries to startle/scare me for fun by walking behind me and yelling a loud noise to scare me. When he startles me, he sometimes does it with a physical push as well. I constantly feel on edge because I feel like he could jump up and scare me at any moment. He also knocks over things I'm doing like the pizza boxes im stacking at work as well. Also, when he said he said I was retarted, I did get a little offended and I told him I had Asperger's. He then said oh that? People with that dissabiliy act like their 38 at moment and 3 at the other. I was mad when he said that.
15 May 2015, 7:28 pm
