Media recommendations welcome but not required.
This could spiral in so many directions, but it’s an interesting conversation.
Giving up expectations. Who am I to expect other people to conform to what I think/want? I’m being just like all the judgmental people I dislike so much when I have expectations. Also you can’t be disappointed if you didn’t have an expectation
it’s so true. other people don’t need to conform to your standard or wishes or priorities. Expect people to act the way they act, even if that means they act shitty.
Accept the fact that most people will use you to compare themselves against to boost their own ego. They may look down on you for something out of your control, and it isn’t your responsibility to give a shit or fix that. Just do the job.
I can’t say I have many firends at work, I don’t. But my indifference makes me a boring target for bullies too. Throw shade at me, IDGAF, I know how (not) to value the opinions of others.
Working remote has mostly solved this problem. The thing is, most people at work do not understand that working remote is what makes them palatable to me and me palatable to them. So they keep wondering why I do not want to go to the yearly company retreat. I think they are fine people to work with and probably even good people in general but I wish to be colleagues and only colleagues. I don’t want to share about my life outside of work and have little interest in theirs.
I applied to a job that advertised itself as a neurodivergent-affirming workplace. I didn’t even think about including this in job searches til I stumbled upon it but from now on I won’t settle for less.
Mind sharing what you do? I’ve never seen this mentioned in job advertisements, though I did entertain the idea of bringing it up myself if I ever find myself self-employed and looking for staff
Clinical social work. You might be tempted to think it was a given in this territory, but I’ve worked plenty of places in this field that were not at all affirming.
wish we had more jobs like this and that follows it truthfully
A big one for me was practising at smiling and making my voice sound pleasant. Another one was nodding my head. I don’t know what it means, and neither do other people, but nodding at people often makes them more polite for some reason. As does bowing slightly, and blinking.
Depending on context, nodding can mean “yes”, “hello”, “I agree with you”, “I acknowledge you”, and “thank you”. The common thread is agreeableness, which disposes others to feel seen and understood, hence a polite demeanour in response.
If you go to a country where you don’t speak the language a smile and the local word for ‘hello’ is a good way to defuse tension over them encountering a foreigner … same goes with people who think differently to you :-)
I read about a scientific study where they had buckets of different weights but you couldn’t tell the weight by looking at it.
They had people picking up the buckets and watching other people pick up buckets, then asked them to guess how much each bucket weighed.
People tended to overestimate the weight of their own buckets and underestimate the weight of other people’s buckets.
I tried not to do that.
Long and gruelling trial and error. Ill crack it one day
Big one was stop correcting all non-logical parroting and not complaining when people put carton, pet or paper into the normal waste instead of correct recycling bin next to it…
This would drive me insane
I’ve made my peace with it.
It’s when they do the reverse and put garbage in the recycling that makes me grit my teeth.