Long post
I’m a nurse working ER. I’m also introverted and like keeping to myself. I also may be on the spectrum (haven’t been diagnosed, but I find social cues and when people are being sincere, joking or lying very difficult to understand. I understand what people say literally. Why would they otherwise speak?)
I also separate my job from my personal life, as my job is not my identity. I don’t care about my coworkers’ life but ask the ones who know more than me about anything job related, to learn, to be a better nurse, to have more opportunities.
Today I had a conversation with 2 managers where I was fired. Not from the hospital due to my union but from the ER. In a nutshell, as they put it: they (whoever they might be) see that I’m motivated and want to learn but they find my way of speaking demanding.
I have absolutely no idea what they mean. They didn’t provide any example. They however provided an example where somebody claims I told a student to put a line. I never did such a thing, but I have the feeling they don’t believe me. The never put anything on writing, or gave me anything to sign. I won’t be signing anything from them.
Then one of the managers started a monologue about he’s been working 30 years there, that communication is important. True, communication here is extremely relevant, but about procedures, patients and who does what, not about why Americans are idiots or how many children you have, not to the point of ignoring alarms, not to the point where I am the only one entering patient’s data in the computer while my coworkers speak about what to cook for dinner. Oftentimes I was the only one noticing how we’re under supplied or that some ECG cables don’t work while the chatty ones did they thing and ignored I was working while they lazy around.
I didn’t get to say all of this because they interrupted. It’s like they believe the talkative ones over me. Why would I want to work for people like that?
After this both sides talked but didn’t listen to what the other side had to say. I felt they weren’t listening to me. Why should I listen to them?
Before I left I told them I’m looking for a unit where I can learn. That’s ALL I need from the workplace to be better. To them this is not good enough.
To me it looks like this: you don’t mingle with us (us being coworkers and management), therefore you are worse than us and deserve to be ignored, but I’m not at a workplace to socialize, but to learn and to earn money. Am I the only person on earth to think like this? Why can’t people keep their opinions to themselves? I leave them alone and only talk about work. If I have nothing to say, I say nothing and learn. I don’t understand why people are so needy for conversation and thin skinned. I didn’t say this out loud because in my past people have bullied me for being me.
I was also accused of not being polite.
I’ll miss working that ER because in the 8 weeks I was there I learned stuff you don’t learn on other units. To me this unit was a good one because I learned new things and people left me alone during downtime to figure out how procedures and machines work, people didn’t complain when I looked the internet for instruction manuals or asked coworkers if we give sodium bicarbonate by metabolic acidosis or alkalosis. I was an motivated coworker, even when people who were supposed to train me sat and did nothing while I was taking samples. I always asked what I didn’t know.
I’ll also miss working with most doctors, because they were always ready to teach me stuff, so I really don’t understand why managers say my way of speaking is demanding.
My managers don’t see or don’t want to see that people treat you better and forgive your mistakes if you give them attention, if you’re likable. I’m not likable. They also don’t see that they say a lot of stupid crap if a coworker prefers to keep to himself. I also find this sad. I feel they think I’m doing this on purpose.
If you’re an extrovert and have read so far: I don’t think you understand how taxing is to care about things that are simply, irrelevant. It’s like my managers expect me to make theatrics and give attention to everyone I work with. I already did this on a previous job and it was ridiculous: fake smiling to a secretary and asking her stupid stuff for 5 minutes straight, smiling like a clown because otherwise she would feel offended. Why is that my job? Sometimes I work with 8 coworkers. Am I supposed to be a sucker with all of them? I find that childish.
I feel they presented an ultimatum: either give us and coworkers attention or be fired. I didn’t bulge because they didn’t listen.
And I still don’t know if this is a good outcome, because I’m not going to change what I am to conform to some extroverted standards of what a good coworkers is supposed to be, because I can’t and I don’t understand them (extroverts).
I don’t know if this puts me on the spectrum and I find it unfair being treated so differently because I like to keep to myself and learn during downtime.
I’ve always have such issues working for other employers. It’s clear this is who I am and trying to change me it’s like expecting a gay to like women.
But if this means I’m alone in the universe, that I’m always the loner people always talk shit about and marginalize, how am I supposed to live my life and work life then?
ETA: I inquired the union about protections for people on the spectrum and I’m waiting for an answer but even if I get a diagnosis I don’t want to expose myself to more bullying by disclosing it to my employer: the hospital I work at is full of gossips.
So what do I do?
I’ve got a pretty strong feeling you’re on the spectrum just based on how you present your story.
The main vibe in getting is you aren’t reading the culture of the team correctly and almost no matter what you do, when it comes to any healthcare field you’re going to have to work with a team. If the team doesn’t want to work with you or you’re souring the working culture there, you’re hurting the team’s morale as a whole and that matters more than how awesome your personal performance might be.
It seems you’re pretty intractable on how you want to work and interact with your coworkers. I mean, you’re new to workplace and you’re already looking down on the people who have been working there likely much longer than you have. You would have been better served by starting out with a more humble mindset by finding ways to help and learn from your coworkers to endear them to you rather than assume they’re just lazy.
Now, you aren’t obligated to chat with people endlessly but you do have to be able to be polite and nice. If you tire of a conversation, find a good excuse to end a conversation early (bathroom, forgot to do something important, etc). If your coworkers get the impression you are unpleasant, they are much less likely to help you or stand up for you if another coworker makes a complaint about working with you.
Also, how often do you say please and thank you? If it’s less than after almost every interaction with your coworkers, you need to adjust yourself. People that work in the ER get a lot of shit flung at them from patients and the last thing they want is to catch incivility from their coworkers.
Your effectiveness at your job in a team environment isn’t just your skills and competency. A good half of it is how well you interact with your coworkers and how willing they are to work with you.
I’ve got a strong hunch that what happened in your situation is several of your more senior coworkers probably got to talking with each other and realized they all really hate working with you. In fact, they’d rather quit than have to put up with you and they conveyed that thought to management. When management hears they might lose several veterans over a newbie that isn’t quite fitting in, the decision to transfer you out isn’t a particularly hard one to make.
Honestly, you kind of sound like a nightmare to work with right now. If you don’t adjust your way of thinking, you’re likely going to run into the same exact problems no matter what area of the hospital you end up in next.
Trying to get back into the ER now it’s pretty much a lost cause for you. You’ve likely been branded as toxic to work with by almost everyone there. Just move on to a new environment and do better next time.
Extroverts rule the world, we just live in it. If we don’t learn how to act at least a little bit like them they’ll always think we’re strange and unlikeable. The good news is that the more you practice the more natural and less taxing it gets.
40/60 rule here.
HOW you communicate an issue is more important than what you say. You can be 100% right and if you are abrasive and difficult to deal with, then you won’t get your point across. It’s not about extroversion versus introversion. It’s about how you communicate.
We are dumb primates after all.
40/60 rule here.
I’m sorry but I’m gonna have to ask what you mean: 40% taking 60% giving?, 40% concentrating on my job 60% talking about inane stuff to placate them?
You’ve never heard of 40/60?
40% is the words that are said. 60% is body language and tone.
I am really this disconnected. thanks
The people OP are talking about see direct communication and clarity as abrasive. It is absolutely extroversion vs introversion.
I have worked with plenty of people who all react differently to the same interactions and have the opposite takeaways on whether someone was polite or abrasive. Like one guy I worked with always gave clear answers to things that were asked clearly, but when someone was indirect and wanted the person to infer something any follow up questions (asked directly and without any real emotion) was seen as them refusing to ‘just get it’. That is what these managers sound like. Extroverts who don’t understand that introverts aren’t asshokes for not playing the small talk routine and pretending to be happy about everything.
true, I like getting to the point so nobody wastes energy, but people believe what they want to believe and are really fast making assumptions.
One person’s “getting to the point” is another person’s “stripping away context”, unfortunately. Sometimes we just have to suffer through a long anecdote because the speaker can’t separate the relevant and irrelevant parts themself. They’re not trying to waste our time, they just organize information differently.
Seems like maybe that’s one of those jobs where you have to be buds with people to get along and make it look like youre part of the team. I’d imagine police or fireman or military work is a lot like that (guessing).
I’ve never worked those jobs but I can say for dang sure the second you start to buddy up with managers and such and get invited to bars with them, you make more money and do less work. Its bullshit and I left that job because the introverts doing real work were under rewarded while people who talked loud a didn’t do shit got promotions.
Its bullshit and I left that job because the introverts doing real work were under rewarded while people who talked loud a didn’t do shit got promotions.
true and a short story:
in one of the units I worked at I found a nurse similar to me: socially awkward and introverted. The best worker of that unit. She would clock in, get report, get to work. Always. She was the only one at that unit working like that consequently, daily, to the point of skipping pauses and doing overtime for free.
To this day I believe this person, so similar to me, maybe even more introverted than me did that because she was also bullied at other units for being herself and the only way she found of defending herself and not being bullied was working according to standard, those completely unrealistic standards managements prints but everyone disregards because life happens at a hospital.
It’s a perfect defense mechanism for an introvert: if I work nobody can talk to me therefore I won’t be bullied.
Except that this work rhythm is completely unsustainable and I won’t do it.
To add insult to injury, this coworker, even though she is the most hardworking person at that unit and extremely organized will never be promoted because she, like me, doesn’t know to play the social game extroverts excel at.
story’s over
Honestly you’re fairly rude and defensive towards the comments here. People are genuinely taking time from their lives to help you, but you have an answer to everything. Very occasionally this statement is true:
If every person you see is an asshole, maybe it’s you who is the asshole.
This is a moment in your life when you can learn and grow. You still have a job. Take the opportunity and do better in the new role. A therapist would likely be very helpful here.
Bro. The people in this thread are being way too nice about this. I know several autistic people who do not have these problems because they understand that they live in a world where it is expected that you are able to speak politely and professionally with other people.
I’m genuinely shocked that you made it through nursing school with this attitude. This isn’t introversion, you are choosing to be rude to your coworkers, and you have experienced consequences for those actions. You said somewhere that talking to the receptionist for 5 minutes was an unbearable chore. It’s like you failed to understand the most basic social graces of any type of work (be nice to the front desk lady). You also said you’ve had these same problems at other jobs, and when other commenters have suggested that you try to improve your social skills, you write them off and say something to the effect of, “that’s not my job. I’m not a manager.” It is absolutely part your job to be an asset to the team, and being a dick is almost worse than being incompetent.
It sounds like your coworkers tried to include you in their conversation, and you just stared at them for a few seconds and looked away without saying anything. That is the height of rudeness. It’s dismissive, it says “you don’t matter to me”. It says “you are beneath me”. Your characterization of workplace conversation as “theatrics” is very telling. When Suzy from down the hall tries to show you a picture of her dog or tell you about her kids, that is her trying to relate to you and include you in the workplace dynamic. You don’t have to be interested. You just have to be nice about it and say “aww how cute”. It’s literally so simple, and your insistence that it is even possible to find a work situation where you wouldn’t need to engage in this kind of talk is borderline delusional.
You should try to get some therapy and maybe read some self help books about how to connect with other people. You made multiple carerr-limiting statements in your OP and subsequent comments, and this is your side of the story that you are able to tell however you want. You chose to present yourself this way in a Lemmy post, so it’s not hard to assume that you’re like this in real life.
You said somewhere that talking to the receptionist for 5 minutes was an unbearable chore.
it is when you simply can say hi and move on. Do you engage in useless conversations for 5 minutes when every coworker you find till yo go to your desk? I find it surprising you haven’t been fired yet.
I would be willing to bet money that you mouthed off to a physician or a senior nurse like that, and that’s what actually got you fired. You are so incredibly lucky to have a union that was willing to stand up for you the way they did.
Seeing opportunities to learn about other people and foster relationships as useless is just dickish. It’s not cool, it’s not cute, and no one likes that kind of behavior. I’m very heavily introverted, have social anxiety, depression, and ADHD; and it takes me a long time to warm up to other people. I have never once been fired or even reprimanded for anything at work, much less the way I speak to people, because I approach conversations with a warm tone and a willingness to engage with and learn about the other person. You need some help man. Please take this opportunity to engage in some self-improvement because you are setting yourself up to be miserable for the rest of your life.
I simply withdraw into my lab and work there.
I walk fast with an angry look on my face, sometimes I’ll cuss under my breath at the same time. That helps get me around the building (my workplace) with fewer interruptions.
They’re doing you a favor finding you a different position in the hospital. The ER is no place for an autistic introvert. I’ve had something similar happen to me and I was much happier with where I ended up.
you write “they” and “finding”. They ain’t looking for anything, manager told me she is over me, she’s not ‘helping’ anymore and I’m supposed to be looking for a new unit.
The problem here isn’t just your introversion. You see smiling at the receptionist for five minutes a day as an unacceptable working condition; but you need to understand that part of keeping a job you like includes managing your coworkers. Maybe for you that really is unacceptable, but other introverts, myself included, have accepted it as the cost of doing business.
I have myself occasionally had coworkers or other call me rude or condescending, and I’ve never really found a way out from under that when it’s happened. What works better is setting a good first impression, working extra hard the first few weeks to give off an impression of humility, helpfulness, cheerfulness, and kindness. Then later if you do have a bad day, or need to communicate something urgently, or need to correct someone’s mistake, they’ll see that as the exception rather than just “oh that’s how she is”.
You see smiling at the receptionist for five minutes a day as an unacceptable working condition; but you need to understand that part of keeping a job you like includes managing your coworkers.
it’s not only smiling, it’s giving attention to somebody I dislike that tires me.
I have no problem with work friendship that grow naturally, but they have to grow… naturally. Placing me in a environment with an instruction like ‘be friends with these people’ doesn’t work for me.
You write managing your coworkers, even if I’m a coworker myself and not a manager. Ain’t that a manager’s job?
about your second paragraph: you’re such a good actor. I’m too transparent.
I have myself occasionally had coworkers or other call me rude or condescending, and I’ve never really found a way out from under that when it’s happened.
and people who hear them complain are not mature enough to ask for the other side before jumping to conclusions, you mean…
I have no problem with work friendship that grow naturally, but they have to grow… naturally. Placing me in a environment with an instruction like ‘be friends with these people’ doesn’t work for me
It doesn’t have to be a full blown friendship, you just have to be able to relate with people in the way that co workers do. There is a massive difference between politely humoring someone for 5 minutes and being an actual friend who would hang out outside of work, help them move, go over for dinner at their house etc, and I highly doubt anyone is asking you to do those things.
Medicine is a team activity. Being capable of relating to and being polite with coworkers and patients is part of this.
Try therapy or find a different line of work.
Reading through the responses, it is blatantly clear that you are autistic, so I’ll ask a question that might not have occurred to you. When someone else is speaking, do you wait for them to finish speaking before you do? Are you aware of the tone of your own voice? Both of these things matter far more for how people will react to the things you say than I think you are aware.
Reading through the responses, it is blatantly clear that you are autistic
would you elaborate?
When someone else is speaking, do you wait for them to finish speaking before you do?
yes. otherwise I’m being rude. Person A speaks, then Person B speaks. I don’t interrupt the person talking to me and don’t allow anyone to interrupt me. If they interrupt me or yell I disengage and walk away. Why yelling?
Are you aware of the tone of your own voice?
I don’t get what you mean. I talk in a clear, loud, neutral voice looking the person I talk to in the eyes, except when I’m busy. I can express questions and exclamations if you mean that. If I’m in dire need of something I yell to the room.
neutral voice
Autism dead ringer. There’s no such thing as a neutral tone, because neurotypical people will experience an involuntary emotional reaction to any piece of speech.
Most likely you’re just speaking in an unusual way and it’s priming your coworkers to dislike you. Unfortunate situation but you gotta lock in if you want people to like you.
What you describe as a neutral tone, most would interpret as a strange but deliberate inflection that they don’t understand the intent of (confusing, scary, hostile).
As to why I think you are autistic; misunderstanding common aphorism, rigid focus on “how things should be”, hard statements attempting to assign intent to actions without mentioning tone. Especially that last bit equating inflection to indicate a question as understanding tone.
I’ll try to clarify. In conversations between non-autistic people, there is an additional layer to the conversation beyond the information in the words themselves and beyond the implications of basic punctuation. Body posture, eye contact, facial expression, volume, and cadence at which you speak all convey both emotions and intent. These things can be observed and interpreted instinctively.
People with autism cannot do this to one degree or another. They absolutely still broadcast these things when they speak, but are largely unaware of it.
Think of it in terms of sound. How could you know if you are whispering or yelling if you are deaf?
Are you doing the emotional equivalent of whispering when you speak? Answering questions with a one word sentence with flat affect. People will change the subject or switch to talking to someone else because they interpret that as you expressing disinterest.
Are you doing the emotional equivalent of yelling your inner feelings with everything word. People will become visibly uncomfortable when you speak and try to get away from you as soon as they can.
When you claim you speak in a “clear, loud, neutral voice” while staring them in the eyes; I believe that you are both clear and loud. I’m not so convinced that you are as neutral as you think.
From another nurse? Go work night shift rads. Everywhere I’ve worked that nurse works alone or with maybe a transport tech or two. What was your specialty before this? You could always come do Psych with the rest of us freaks but that might not solve the communication issue.
Tbh the bigger issue sounds like you’ve just got a massive stick up your ass. You condescension towards everyday human beings and their interests is palpable in your written communication; I can’t imagine how blatantly it must come across in person. If you can’t learn to see the beauty in everyday human beings that’s fine but ffs why did you pick a human services field then???
how optimistic of you:
this only works when the person you share the unit with is not somebody who yells everything that happens through his mind.
Psych? Last time I worked there a gay guy 7 feet tall started blatantly hitting on me. no thanks.
And I chose this job out of desperation. Won’t delve into this now.
Could’ve picked a different trade with similar amount of schooling like welding.
does it pay the same? really curious now.
maybe I’m falling for the sunk costs fallacy?
It used to be anyway, looks like it’s less now. That said, a bunch of stuff on this list is radiology stuff which you could pretty easily pivot to with a nursing degree anyway.
The best advice I learned from my manager was 2 parts.
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Try and understand their point of view, you may need to adjust your actions if their point of view is seeing you as not helpful/annoying (looking back i was being very obnoxious, sending too many emails)
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Have a work self and a non work self. I was very shy and that was not looked highly on at my job so I tried my best little by little to open up more
These really helped me in my career.
is this advice applicable to non managers?
About your second paragraph: Don’t you find it tiring having 2 personalities?
Not the person you’re replying to but:
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Yes, managing your relationship with your coworkers will be helpful at all stages of your career. You’re not managing them, you’re managing your relationship with them. It helps you listen, ask simple questions about who they are and listen. You don’t have to care, you only have to share a little. You’re not building a friendship unless you want to. You’re cultivating a positive relationship so that they know they can depend on you when they need it.
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Yes, exhausting. It’s called masking and everybody whether they are neuro divergent or not does it. Some people find it trivial, some find it nearly impossible. My wife can tell the difference between my work voice and my regular voice because at work I’m masking. I’ve been working on bringing the two closer together because I’ve found it is beneficial to my career to be more myself.
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Exposure therapy. I worked as a server for years specifically to build the social skills I lacked. People want to chit-chat about mundane nonsense, that’s the norm. We’re the unusual ones for not being interested. It’s trite, pointless, and boring. But most people like it, and don’t like people who can’t at least fake it.
Being able to make small talk is socially as important as basic hygiene. No one wants to associate with someone who looks and smells like they crawled out of a storm drain, and no one wants to associate with someone who ignores or belittles their attempts at small talk.
Purely socially, I say let the boring people filter themselves out of your life. Professionally, you need to have rapport with your coworkers, you are part of a team. If you’re going to work in a field with an implicit social element, you are going to have to learn to navigate that social element. Otherwise you’re going to continue to have these conflicts.
That means finding at least a subset of typical conversational topics to engage with in a friendly way. That means masking with some degree of warmth and compassion. That means reframing the issue from everyone else being banal, to you being unable to integrate with banal people. That’s most people.
It’ll be weird, and you’ll feel fake or inefficient, but unless you want to shift careers to one with minimal interaction with other people, it’s a skill you are going to need to cultivate if you want any kind of success or progression. That’s just the way it is. Adapt or perish.
Hey so this is a YouTube video that is like 4 hours long but I am seeing a direct similarity here. I’m no doctor so, watch for yourself and see if it resonates.
Dr K is a monk turned psychiatrist who created a platform for helping get gamers mental health treatment. This is an interview with a streamer named Jason Thor Hall. He’s in the middle of a downward spiral during this interview and still to this day.
The tl;dw is that your communication style is (probably), to plenty, an oasis. So many people cannot stand the inane nonsense speak at work. However, you’re rigid in maintaining that oasis. And for those for whom it’s not an oasis, this rigidity is seen as standoffish. Sometimes to the point where people will assume it’s because you think they’re stupid, and will drive them to seek the gap in the ‘armor’ of your communication style.
I think this will resonate with many people who feel the way you feel. Myself included.
https://www.youtube.com/live/7jDPsBh2AyQ
You can skip the first 10-15 mins
I second this. I mostly prefer to keep to myself, but I have started seeing socializing with coworkers as a work duty. It is now no more taxing than doing paperwork. People seem to like me and seek my help, which was not the case previously. It’s also easier to get people to help me.
Are you implying that Thor is autistic like OP? Because he very much hasn’t stated so himself not ever talked about the topic as far as I’m aware.
I say this because Thor is very much a narcissist and equating this two things seems pretty disingenuous. The reason Thor is in a spiral is completely different to what OP is going through.
At least it doesn’t sound like OP used his massive influence to harm a small movement out of childish spite and was then punished by their arrogance, while completely unable or unwilling to understand maybe they are not perfect people and gamers.
For OP: Maybe you’re autistic, maybe just introverted. But like some other poster said, the unfortunate reality is that, in most jobs, it doesn’t matter what you know, but who you know, and most supervisors will pick someone they like over someone that’s a good worker.
We are also only hearing your side of the story which might be painting a different picture to what people on the other side see.
It’s also completely possible it’s actually unrelated to you and it’s them just looking for an excuse to move/fire people while skirting around Union protections.
My only recommendation for OP is, next time make sure you get whatever they say in writing. If it’s not on writing, it didn’t happen, for better or worse.
If you’re looking to build relationships at work, I’d say you need to put in an effort and figure out some way to enjoy those social spaces, it doesn’t have to be the same way everyone else does. But no one is going to enjoy talking to you if you don’t enjoy talking to them.
You don’t have to, of course, but your coworkers don’t have to either. It takes two to dance.
Watch the video before going off on accusations.
That’s a wild takeaway from my post.
