Quirky

At the end of week one of my new job, I find myself dissecting the last two weeks of my life. My exit from the job that has seen me through the drama of the last two years was itself dramatic. Apparently being honest in an exit interview isn’t a thing they expected, to the point someone reportedly asked for me to be fired as a result, with three hours left as an employee. That didn’t happen, but it’s not a great feeling.

Over the course of the following hours, I used the phrase “due to my particular personality quirks” several times to try to explain my somewhat abrasive manner when dealing with providing assistance and feedback. I was well aware of the phenomenon of people referring to my feedback as being roasted, coming from my low tolerance for things being obviously (according to my whims) wrong and lack of skill in restructuring things into less direct critique. I have no delusion that this doesn’t have downsides, but also I make no pretensions towards wanting to manage people. It just means I continue to worry that I don’t really make friends, I just have people who’ll put up with me.

It sounds pitiful put in text. It also comes back to one of the overarching themes of this ‘ere blog, wherein I have talked about making myself irreplaceable out of need to feel wanted. As part of that, I am always trying to be the best that I can be, making everything an unspoken competition mostly with myself. My failings, of which there are an uncountable number, are each testament to the ways I continue to fail to live up to my own standards. From being insufferable at work, to being now twenty-seven and still having had nothing even close to an actual adult relationship, it’s just ongoing grind on my self-image. It would be much easier if I could just not care. To travel through life with no regard for the opinions of those around me. To be able to act as if there were no consequences to anything, and to not imagine consequences which are clearly ridiculous.

I can’t work without people upfront with me about information, because I have always been hopeless at being subtle or reading subtlety. When I find out through others that a break-up has happened in a couple I didn’t even know was a thing (to use a recent example), it makes me worry that I’ve been so wrapped up in my world of fear and self-loathing to be able to notice. This then leads to the worry that I’m making something clearly not about me about me, and thus that everyone is going to hate me, because they have every right because only a monster would do this.¹

With this in mind, we now find why I try to make the point of treating others how I wish they’d treat me, if only in my professional life, where if there is something that is there that can be commented on, it will be. This takes the mystery and interpretation largely out of it. My energy levels are limited of late, and that means any help I can get to identify real issues means a better ability to improve.

There’s no real message to this. Perhaps that I’m struggling with my self-worth, and that means I’m struggling to make sure I’m being the best I can be for those around me. That’s not to say I’m not trying. I’m very trying…