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Once coworkers/employer think your dumb, there's no coming back.

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Muttly

MyPTSD Pro
I started at a new job,at a veterinary clinic, not that long ago. The second week we were hit by a major snowstorm and were closed most of the week, so not much training happened. And a lot of stuff piled on. Because of missing work, losing my wallet, etc, my finances were super tight. I'd picked up a bit of frost bite in a toe. I got sick. My cat got really sick. I tore my cornea. Because of the lost wallet I almost didn't get into the hearing for my bankruptcy. My body was beat up and exhausted. I was stressed. I didn't do so great at work. Made a lot of stupid mistakes. Because one of the computers is ancient, one of my mistakes crashed it and it wasn't able to be restarted. That was on a day when everything was going wrong at the clinic and I wasn't getting much training and was muddling through a lot on my own. Oh, add to that the person who has mainly been training me hasn't been feeling well the last few weeks so wasn't super helpful in general.

Anyway, the owner of the vet clinic asked if anything was going on at home. Said everyone had said according to everyone I was doing well the first few weeks and then I wasn't doing well. In my brain, this just screams failure.I figure everyone has me pegged as stupid and a problem now and it doesn't matter how good I do, it won't matter. I will always be the screw up. I saw my T today and talked about this and she said that's not true. But honestly, we don't believe her. I mean, they barely know me and I've already ruined a computer. I'm already screwing up. Why would they give me a chance? I've had the stupid/retard label stuck on me in the past. It sticks. Once people decide that about you, all they see is the mistakes you making.
 
Once people decide that about you, all they see is the mistakes you making.
Except?
the owner of the vet clinic asked if anything was going on at home.
This.

Smart people, like it sounds like this Vet is, recognize sometimes shit happens & it never rains but it pours.

Meaning that if it was irreversible, fixed, & finite? As opposed to someone being able to see in shades of grey, that a great employee -or potentially great employee- can have a terrible month? You wouldn’t have been asked this question.
 
@Fadeaway - I told the vet I had a lot go wrong all at once- I was sick, cat was sick, injured my eye, financial worries. He seemed like he recognized that was a factor.

I just can't make myself believe I haven't ruined my chance at this job. I can't make myself believe anyone will see anything but the fact that all I do is make mistakes.
 
You say you can't make yourself believe, which means you are trying to believe, which says to me that just at least a very small part of you does believe. That is enough for now.

I have faith that once you're feeling better and you are doing well at work your confidence will be restored and you you will see they know what is really going on. Only time can do that, but I am looking forward to those accomplishment posts. ? and just what happened to the hug emoji?
 
I struggle massively with this sort of thing, it's really hard. I can see that my patterns of thinking almost encourage the outcome I fear, though not so much when I'm in the grip of it, it is really powerful innit.

Wondering, if believing you haven't messed up your chance here for good is too much if a stretch for you at the mo, if you can instead allow for the possibility that you haven't messed it up for good, even though you dont really believe it?
Best wishes anyway :)
 
I tried to hold on to what you all said and what my therapist said as I got through this last week. I counted and if you take away the week that we were snowed out, I've only been there for 5 weeks. I know it's a job that takes months to get really good at. There processes are so different in some ways than the last vet clinic I worked at. And they are mostly on paper which means my learning disabilities wreak havoc. And that makes me think maybe I really can't succeed there. It brings back all the memories of the little kid me, who tried so hard and it was never good enough.

Thursday the office manager really got on my case about a couple things. In front of customers and even though I'm beating myself up I know that it wasn't right. She told me to pay attention over something and I was, I was just confused on their process. My confusion was reasonable for a new person. Then I got flustered and definitely wasn't doing well because it got to me. I hate that I let her criticism get to me. I tried to remind myself she was having a really horrible day and that I should just keep plowing forward. The next day couple days felt better but then I made a generally legitimate stupid mistake. One I should have known better. And so now I'm back to being convinced that they think I'm stupid and will never get things right

Yesterday I filled in at the old clinic I worked at and it was nice to feel wanted and competent. I am going to try to hold onto that going forward but I just feel so stuck. Like I've stepped back into that old me, the one who was always screwing up; not as able as others; and no matter how good I did at some things, that just offset all my failings
 
What would you tell another person who's only five months into a demanding job and makes mistakes sometimes?

Would you expect them to be perfect? Or would you cut them a little slack?

I know you'd cut them them some slack. I know that you sometimes don't feel like you deserve any slack, but you do. You're trying to be sensitive to yourself, so good job.

And it's also OK to feel bad when you get yelled at. Especially when you're doing your best. I can relate.
 
All my life had this tag over me. I never ask for promotion. I felt truly I had no skills. I could be replaced by a robot or the receptionist blahhahahahha all my life until in my 40s. then I got fired and boom the worst thing that could happened happen. I was floored by god kept my composure. I was unemployed for 6 months and volunteered and looked for a job every day and went to therapy every week - individual and group.

At the end, I ended up much better job and have been promoted twice!

I am telling you this story in the tiny case you acknowledge, this job is not the only job in the universe for you (if the worst case scenario happens). You are becoming so much better knowing and recognizing YOU are putting the stupid tag on your own back. It is quick recognition and I feel/think you will not repeat as you get used to knowing it is you judging you!

I wish you well.
 
What would you tell another person who's only five months into a demanding job and makes mistakes sometimes?.

It was five weeks, not months. It's now 7 weeks, which includes the almost full week missed because of the snow.

Things were going better? at least I thought so. now we don't know what to think. today was a trainwreck.... so....

not too long after we'd been open, blunt coworker and I were in the front. I found blunt coworker a bit hard to deal with at first but generally don't now. she's blunt but also kind and funny. we do have troubles reading her sometimes. anyway, office manager comes storming out. she starts talking, sort of to both of us, but looking at me about a cat, and how it's a bite/scratch cat and that wasn't noted correctly.. she then specifically singles me out, saying other stuff is in my handwriting. she's pissed and there's no having a conversation so I'm just saying "ok". I don't even know which cat she's talking about. I say sorry about the time she's flipping pages, and based on the quick glimpse I get, I begin to suspect I'm not the culprit. she stomps to the back still clearly pissed.

so.. my stomach is all in knots but I'm trying to regroup. things go ok up front with blunt coworker for a while. I keep wanting to get a few quiet moments to go look at the chart so I can understand what happened but we are crazy busy. I am trying to ask more questions, because the feedback I've been given by office manager is I need to ask more questions. she's talked about me not asking questions about things I didn't even know enough to ask the question about (if that makes sense). blunt coworker is being a bit snarky about my questions. And some of that might have been because I was feeling raw and some of it was probably true. And I get that she thinks I should know some of this stuff and some of it I really do know but I'm rattled and don't want to get scolded for doing something else wrong.

then I did make a stupid mistake. I had a customer come in to get meds for her dog. we had two customers with meds pending, with very similar last names and I grabbed the wrong pet. I didn't realize it yet. (more to come)

went to lunch. older coworker was eating lunch. I really like her and she's worked there longer than anyone but the doctor. she is older, and also talks in a quiet, calm voice. seems very nurturing. I grab the cat file and look at it. the "bite/scratch" was a recent add. It was added *after* I labeled the sheet. so the fact it wasn't added onto the page they were looking at wasn't my fault, because it was done after I'd done the heading for the file pages. I feel better about the fact I didn't completely miss something. So I show older cowrker because I'm getting a bit tired of being blamed for freaking everything (whine whine, gross exaggeration) and especially in the way office manager did. and for something I didn't do. I wanted to confirm that older coworker saw I wasn't the one who screwed up. partly just to confirm to myself I wasn't nuts. I asked her if it would do any good if I pointed that out to office manager that I may not be the person to blame, or not blame fully and she said probably not, but that she would say something. we appreciated that.

then blunt coworker ccomes back and askes about the meds and we figure out what I did. And i feel sick because giving somebody the wrong meds is a big mistake and we are freaking out. blunt coworker is going on and on to office manager about what I did and they tell me to go back to lunch. so I go sit down with older coworker and I'm all upset and I guess she asks? so I explain what happens and she said she could see how that mistake could happen which makes me feel
slightly less horrible. still was a stupid, unacceptable mistake.

then I am done with lunch and back to work and I feel awful and can't get myself together and blunt coworker is sort of riding my case and double checking everything and pointing out every tiny mistake I'm making (small learner mistakes) and she says she's doing it because of the big mistake I made and that she will pound this stuff into my brain (at least she thinks we teachable). And we get why she's doing it but it's just making me screw up more.

And I know me eating myself up inside over this stuff and letting it make me make more mistakes is counterproductive but I can't seem to stop it.

And I am also pretty positive that office manager has made up her mind about me and it's not positive. there's all these small things she does that suggest that and we not someone who prone to saying people don't like us. (but maybe we just being a whiner). we didn't post about it here but the other day she was having a super bad day and we were getting confused and made a small mistake (truthfully) and she started yelling... well, scolding us in front of customers. And we *know* that was out of line, if we think with anything besides our emotional wounded parts. and .... part of me wants to say the way she is treating me is utter bullshit and I don't deserve it and part of me is thinking how I keep proving her right and if I hadn't screwed up early on and didn't keep screwing up she wouldn't have that attitude.

and part of our issue with the job is that it's all on paper (almost all) and because of that our learning disabilities matter again. And that makes us feel small and stupid and hopeless. And part of it...*maybe*, is they keep forgetting they supposed to be teaching us. I mean, if you look at it like we only been there 7 weeks then we still learning. But that doesn't excuse giving the wrong meds so maybe we making an excuse and are just a f*ckup.
 
You're definitely not a f*ck up dear @Muttly :hug:

I recognise myself in this situation, it's like energetically you are very much feeling less than? At least some of the time? And they are for sure scapegoating you at least a bit? :hug:
 
Maybe the mistake that office manager yelled at me for was my mistake. Hard to tell. Maybe I am just incompetent
 
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