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.

does it pay the same? really curious now.

maybe I’m falling for the sunk costs fallacy?

right back at you

I wouldn’t be in too much of a hurry with that if you live in the US.

would you elaborate?

is this advice applicable to non managers?

About your second paragraph: Don’t you find it tiring having 2 personalities?

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.

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.

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…

The managers were not saying you need to be best buds with anyone, just that you need to play along with social dynamics sometimes instead of never.

then we have very different ideas of what is tolerable: to me faking interest is already too much.

I don’t mean that all coworkers/extroverted everywhere are like this, because up until I was fired I was unofficially showing the ropes to a younger coworker who, for whatever reason, chose to trust me. I actually enjoyed talking to her because she was also, work oriented and not gossip oriented. She understood that she was there to work and learn.

I’m going to write what goes through my mind when they waste their breath: first I listen to guess if they talk about something I could relate to but most times it doesn’t so if there’s nothing to do (downtime) I disengage and learn, because I want to be better. When they speak about their stuff, they ignore alarms, patients asking for help and other office jobs and why on earth should I cater to patients when they are like that?

They’re better than me and there’s so much stuff I could learn from them, because up until my firing I was being trained, but they prefer to talk about… unrelated stuff. It’s always me the one who has to inquire about procedures or ECG so they explain something. Most of them are passive.

But this is something management won’t see…

I appreciate your post

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.

I’m discovering this the hard way.

this is an insightful comment:

When you ignore them instead of engaging on every topic, they think you are giving them the silent treatment, which is also associated with children

but they bore me. And engaging EVERY topic?

Give you the mature ones you can learn from, you say. Have you engaged those people?

hell yeah. Up until I was fired I was learning from them.

But I am saying expecting people to care about you, understand you and treat you well, while you make no effort to do the same, is completely naive and hypocritical.

I disagree: to extroverts this comes naturally, effortless whereas I have to consciously engage and listen to a boring story. To me this is like a second job of top of my duties. Not worth it. I don’t want them to treat me well, I want them to treat me professionally.

What also bothers me is the expectation of having to be best buddies with everyone there. I like choosing my friends. I cannot fake.

I appreciate your comments because you seem genuine but this answer is going to be downvoted into oblivion.

As a matter of fact I don’t believe a learning focused person like me, relatively new to the ER, can fake being extroverted. These behaviors slow me down.

I am really this disconnected. thanks

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

The habits I developed

holy %#@$, you re a good actor. I’m a terrible one and have no patience for that. Kudos to you for being so good faking it I guess? I’m too transparent

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.

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?

good post.

I didn’t find you abrasive. Abrasive would be to start insulting, writing all caps, insinuating with no facts, ranting… like trump

did you overlook communication? Did you act as a lone wolf in a team? Did you overlook to show off your own contributions?

so it’s not enough doing my job but I actually have to show off like a… show off what I actually do? this is childish (don’t want to start an argument with you, just pointing out this is childish…)

acting as a lone wolf: no more than my coworkers: some coworkers like working all alone, other are more collaborative. The ones that work alone, I leave them alone.

The examples you give are quite extreme, did you communicate about them correctly or could you communication look like pointing fingers? Did you follow up on them in the way that is usually used in the team? Did you make an enemy of a key player?

that I don’t know. I just want a quiet life.

why should they listen to you?

because they’re supposed to be adults and that behavior is something 14 year olds do and I’m too old for that. I really expected adults to separate personal life from work life and not engage in gossip like that. You don’t need to point out how misguided I was and how unrealistic my expectations are.

Sad, but I’ll have to find a job with no politics. I don’t go to work because my life is so empty I need drama or chaos. I want a quiet life.

You state you made an effort to practice this kind of theatrics and somehow mastered it. Don’t you go home back with a headache after playing so much? don’t you have the feeling of wasting your life while you could be learning and becoming a better worker? I mean I simply don’t understand how you have the mental fortitude to listen to that kind of baloney.

Allies at the workplace? hell yeah, give me the mature ones, the adult ones, the ones I can learn from. These are the ones I want to work with.

I don’t find it has to be this black and white either change or accept be forever ostracized. I have to accept what I am and find a job that fits my introverted / autistic personality without too much of a financial penalty.