Can't be bothered with co-workers

Hi
After roughly 7 years of social phobia absolutely dictating my life, I've really been working on keeping the anxiety down in social situations. After a couple of years on and off of practise, I can proudly say I go to my new workplace feeling minimal levels of anxiety. I actually enjoy conversing with customers now, something I never thought I could do. But for some reason, co workers still scare.
I can't be bothered making an effort with THEM. It's like I feel it's too hard, and I'm too lazy to be me, so I go into social phobia mode and hope they leave me the eff alone. A couple of times when I put my mind to it I get normal results, but by the time I address customers and everything I just don't feel any desire to be friendly to them.
Which is crap, because if I ever do have a minor anxiety attack (which happens probably once a week) it'd be really great if the people around me were friends....
Most of them are pretty decent, and it wouldn't make a difference who they were, I just can't be bothered. :/
Anyone else feel scared of/lazy towards their coworkers?

I feel the same... I recently got a new job and I see that there are a lot of people there. I mean daily, it looks like upwards to 50 people working at once! I am scared, honestly, to work there with all of those new people... I don't want to talk to anyone or get to know them. I'm just not shooting for making new friends at this point in my life, definitely not someone I'll likely see throughout the day.

Working is for work and that's all I see this new opportunity as.

It is really hard, customers are ok because they are brief encounters, but colleagues it's a lot of relationship building which I find so difficult. It takes years for me to become comfortable with someone, so I'm never relaxed and always get the impression that people avoid me because I make them feel uncomfortable. I suppose I start off by avoiding them, don't want to risk running out of conversation, or speaking blocks. I don't mind silence at all but I sense that other people do and that makes me uncomfortable because by nature of the condition I'm always seeking approval. I'll try my best to avoid non work situations with work people, I just don't have the conversation, everyone chatting away, making jokes in a big group, the pressure to contribute. Horrid!

I just got a new job also (2nd week in) and it's proving pretty stressful with me because I find it hard to talk to anyone that I've never met before. So, having to be around them for long hours during the day can be really hard for me because I feel out of place, feeling painfully shy and lonely, etc.

sahxox said:

I can't be bothered making an effort with THEM. It's like I feel it's too hard, and I'm too lazy to be me, so I go into social phobia mode and hope they leave me the eff alone. A couple of times when I put my mind to it I get normal results, but by the time I address customers and everything I just don't feel any desire to be friendly to them.

Anyone else feel scared of/lazy towards their coworkers?

Click to expand...

From my own experience with co-workers, I would say that even though it's a lot more efforts and energy to try to be social with them in the beginning, you'll be winner after a couple of weeks or months, when they know you enough to get your personality and you know them enough to be more comfortable around them. I find being anxious around co-workers a lot more exhausting on the long term than the effort I made in the first months to participate in the conversations and some activities.

I've worked with some of my co-workers for 15 years or more. Some of these people have contributed to my anxiety with their gossip and I choose not to interact or socialise with them. There was a get together a couple of weeks ago, and I stayed in the office rather than spend time with them at lunch time. Outside work hours if I see them I avoid them. One of these people has been mispresenting me for two years now. I ignore her now, and that seems to aggrieve her. I'm making an effort to show what I think of them and the way they treated me when I was very unwell, and called lazy and weird, and other names worse than that. I have a life outside work now that I enjoy, and I focus on that instead, rather than waste a minute on people who I have little respect for.

Pacific_Loner said:

From my own experience with co-workers, I would say that even though it's a lot more efforts and energy to try to be social with them in the beginning, you'll be winner after a couple of weeks or months, when they know you enough to get your personality and you know them enough to be more comfortable around them. I find being anxious around co-workers a lot more exhausting on the long term than the effort I made in the first months to participate in the conversations and some activities.

Click to expand...

That is really wise... sometimes I feel on top of the situation, and hope that the occasional exhibition of happiness can lead to this.

I don't want anyone to think I'm retarded, and that's how I felt last night. The boss literally screamed at me for using the wrong door after close lol (she's sounds like a bloody siren) and everyone started laughing at me, not really with me. :/ Awkward. But I guess I didn't say bye to them, cos I cbf'd, so my fault in a way...
It's difficult but that's just how it is... I finally know I'm not retarded or weird, I just have to either not care or be myself. The latter's proving to be ALOT harder, but who knows, it may become easier over time.

If you don't mind becoming ostracised from your co-workers, then you don't have to associate with them too much. It's not good being completely isolated from them, though, as there will be times where you have to talk to them about something.

I'll normally have two machines running all night and if I can't I'll play games on my phone all night to appear to be too busy to talk to. I have to be available to fix problems and stuff now that I'm in charge of two other workers but I want no part of the usual factory drama. It makes for a really nice evening when the truck driver ain't there and I'll have to load up the truck and take a load of steel over into another state.

the issue with co-workers is that, simply, you can't get away from them, with anyone else like customers, family, friends you can always leave the situation. in a job, you can't do that, which can create a very claustrophobic and has a caged in atmosphere. so if you have clique of annoying, smug people at work, then you have to sort of tolerate it. you have politics, egos surrounding you for whatever your hours are. so I would say it is more than normal to feel the way that you do.

so even if you enjoy the skill of the job, the actual building/office/whatever environment may not match particular personalities requirements to have a productive time at the actual place of work. now this is an issue of how well you can cope or adapt to just any work environment, lots of people just tolerate it anyway and build up an ego.

gossipy and really cheesy clique atmospheres in workplaces can be down right horrible. having a nice, relaxed, help-each-other-out team that you work with that don't get into the politics or gossip is like gold. what I mean by that is, a group that that are sort of nerdy, a little silly, down to earth etc..

if you find a workplace where you feel good walking up to people and the environment has an already existing friendly let's-work-together mentality, with lots of really warm people, then it is going to be great. but there is always going to be passive aggressive and resentful places to work as well, you'll notice it in the first week of being there.

maybe just stay away from gossipy, status driven people, or ignore them. I've always preferred the technician personality of getting involved in the work and just being helpful with knowledge and just the mild mannered approach, still having some fun, but not at the expense of others, I guess it's hard to explain what I mean.

I can understand the not being bothered with co-workers thing though. especially if there is a "fakeness" or a "status" vibe that exists in teams.

If at all possible, try to be a little more social toward them. It has its' benefits. You don't have to kiss up to them or try to become a member of whatever groups they have divided themselves into. Being likeable means you will have more support should you do something wrong (or have an anxiety attack as you said), you will enjoy coming to work more and, lastly, should you ever leave your current job it sure makes it easier down the road if you have made some relationships there so that you can use someone you worked with as a reference. I didn't think that part out and now I struggle to find people to use as references when I search for employment.

sahxox said:

That is really wise... sometimes I feel on top of the situation, and hope that the occasional exhibition of happiness can lead to this.

I don't want anyone to think I'm retarded, and that's how I felt last night. The boss literally screamed at me for using the wrong door after close lol (she's sounds like a bloody siren) and everyone started laughing at me, not really with me. :/ Awkward. But I guess I didn't say bye to them, cos I cbf'd, so my fault in a way...
It's difficult but that's just how it is... I finally know I'm not retarded or weird, I just have to either not care or be myself. The latter's proving to be ALOT harder, but who knows, it may become easier over time.

Click to expand...

wtf she screamed at you over the use of a certain door? that's psycho...

what I've learned over some 15 years of working at four different jobs... people will denigrate/gossip upon coworkers who are the least productive. there's like that collective mentality that: hey, we're being paid to do whatever, so everyone should be working hard/fast/smart... and if someone's slipping or having trouble grasping the work, then collectively, it becomes okay to make fun of them. it's basically workplace bullying :sad: ...

so you gotta have a balance, I think, like be competently productive at the actual work, and be a little sociable... even if it means doing the stupid small talk.

is my angle on this topic anyway

R3K said:

wtf she screamed at you over the use of a certain door? that's psycho...

what I've learned over some 15 years of working at four different jobs... people will denigrate/gossip upon coworkers who are the least productive. there's like that collective mentality that: hey, we're being paid to do whatever, so everyone should be working hard/fast/smart... and if someone's slipping or having trouble grasping the work, then collectively, it becomes okay to make fun of them. it's basically workplace bullying :sad: ...

so you gotta have a balance, I think, like be competently productive at the actual work, and be a little sociable... even if it means doing the stupid small talk.

is my angle on this topic anyway

Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice
I've only been in the workforce for a couple of months, and this boss and a few other people are quite nasty. I went in their, ready to tackle sp, and then face people who roll their eyes when I ask for help and expect me to know everything. My weakness is the actual confidence to have small talk, and needless to say, this has been rattled by these ****s. I'm know a lot of people face crappy bosses, but I have enough trouble not sliding into total depression without being surrounded by arseholes all day.

This really helps me

I never wanted to speak to anyone in an office, and nobody wanted to speak to me. Never worked outside of an office.

I saw people's faces. Never remembered their names. Bosses always introduced me to their staff. Standard?

Looking back, that should never be done. We should introduce and meet each other. Every place I've been, if the boss let us get on... maybe there was never any problem with my career.

As far as I know, after interview, their **teeaam** :applause: :sarcastic: might have been told "Look out! We've found a nerd. A Geek! See if you like Mike on Monday..ooohhh see what you think"

If only time could be wound back to try again.

I do love to point out people's errors. It happens. I'm no office 'Manager'

I've been prone to everyone else's failures... What if the internet never worked?

And then one person said: try this. Others would have said 'we tried but couldn't make it work'