angel2write
Diamond Member
I'm working as a manager at a Domino's pizza here in town.
I'm being surprisingly successful. The people who work there are mostly guys, which oddly enough is helping me. The only times I have problems is when they congregate in one small area and I feel like a very small person surrounded by giant people who could hurt me.
But mostly, I do ok with the work. I can always wiggle out of groups and go to a different station, or fold boxes, or do dishes. I keep busy and when I'm doing good I can hit kind of a pizza-related zen state where there is no past and there is no future, there is just the next thing my hands need to do. I am trying to visualize it as a pizza bubble. It surrounds me, it's warm, it smells good, and nothing really bad happens there. I did get flustered by a customer and have to go cry in the stock room once, and once I dropped a pizza, but everybody was nice to me and fixed it.
I was surprised when they hired me as a manager, because people skills are not my biggest thing.
OK- here are my big problems, and maybe you guys can help me with something here so I can succeed at this job.
1- upset customers. As a manager, I have to be able to deal with upset customers. Dominoes has a policy where you apologize, give the person what they want, then give them something extra. I am ok with apologize, but when they are being very unreasonable and yelling in my face, it's hard for me to give them what they want. I feel deeply threatened, and my fight or flight kicks off and I feel like if I give them what they want, they will percieve it as weakness and attack me.
I know this is illogical, but it's very strong. I really feel like if I give this crazy, yelling, ugly person what they want, that they'll know I'm weak and they'll come after me physically. When I get done dealing with a person like that, I'm shaking like a junkie and almost incoherant. It feels like appeasing a bully, and it doesn't feel safe.
2- GM yelling at me. Sometimes I do something wrong, and the general manager fusses at me. The sharp words tend to send me into a panic. I will do anything they tell me to do. I will do it the way they want every time. If I mess up, all they have to do is tell me what I did wrong and I will fix it and do it right the next time. They know this, which is why they promoted me to assistant manager. BUT... how do I explain to them that they really, really need to not yell at me? Without sounding like I'm copping an attitude? One of the bosses pulled me outside to tell me I was not delegating enough, but the way she did it triggered me. I could barely breathe by the time we got outside the store. When she went in, I thought I was going to barf behind the dumpster.
My question is, is there a way I can self-advocate, speak up and say, "I totally don't mind being corrected, but I really need you to be careful how you do it because I am prone to panic attacks? or I have PTSD?" Or...well. I really don't know what to say.
3- while I am in my "pizza bubble" I sink very deep into it. I kind of go into some kind of dissociative state where I am just a part of a pizza-making-box-folding-customer-pleasing machine. At the end of the shift, especially if it's been a nine hour shift with no breaks and no time off my feet (and don't even bother telling me how illegal that is... I know it, but it seems to be the way all the dominos stores are run. They don't do meal breaks. You grab a smoke or a bathroom when the phones stop ringing for five minutes. There are no chairs. You don't leave the property or sit down. Period.) So like I said, I kind of go into a trance and do my work ok. But then, at the end of the day, I come out of the store feeling very dissociated.
I wander out into the parking lot, and it's like I'm not even really sure how to drive. Sometimes my guys pick me up, and they want to talk to me about family stuff or finances, and I feel like I barely know how to talk. Sometimes I leave work and drop straight into a panic attack. Does anyone have any advice on how to transition from work to life again?
Sorry this is so long.
I'm being surprisingly successful. The people who work there are mostly guys, which oddly enough is helping me. The only times I have problems is when they congregate in one small area and I feel like a very small person surrounded by giant people who could hurt me.
But mostly, I do ok with the work. I can always wiggle out of groups and go to a different station, or fold boxes, or do dishes. I keep busy and when I'm doing good I can hit kind of a pizza-related zen state where there is no past and there is no future, there is just the next thing my hands need to do. I am trying to visualize it as a pizza bubble. It surrounds me, it's warm, it smells good, and nothing really bad happens there. I did get flustered by a customer and have to go cry in the stock room once, and once I dropped a pizza, but everybody was nice to me and fixed it.
I was surprised when they hired me as a manager, because people skills are not my biggest thing.
OK- here are my big problems, and maybe you guys can help me with something here so I can succeed at this job.
1- upset customers. As a manager, I have to be able to deal with upset customers. Dominoes has a policy where you apologize, give the person what they want, then give them something extra. I am ok with apologize, but when they are being very unreasonable and yelling in my face, it's hard for me to give them what they want. I feel deeply threatened, and my fight or flight kicks off and I feel like if I give them what they want, they will percieve it as weakness and attack me.
I know this is illogical, but it's very strong. I really feel like if I give this crazy, yelling, ugly person what they want, that they'll know I'm weak and they'll come after me physically. When I get done dealing with a person like that, I'm shaking like a junkie and almost incoherant. It feels like appeasing a bully, and it doesn't feel safe.
2- GM yelling at me. Sometimes I do something wrong, and the general manager fusses at me. The sharp words tend to send me into a panic. I will do anything they tell me to do. I will do it the way they want every time. If I mess up, all they have to do is tell me what I did wrong and I will fix it and do it right the next time. They know this, which is why they promoted me to assistant manager. BUT... how do I explain to them that they really, really need to not yell at me? Without sounding like I'm copping an attitude? One of the bosses pulled me outside to tell me I was not delegating enough, but the way she did it triggered me. I could barely breathe by the time we got outside the store. When she went in, I thought I was going to barf behind the dumpster.
My question is, is there a way I can self-advocate, speak up and say, "I totally don't mind being corrected, but I really need you to be careful how you do it because I am prone to panic attacks? or I have PTSD?" Or...well. I really don't know what to say.
3- while I am in my "pizza bubble" I sink very deep into it. I kind of go into some kind of dissociative state where I am just a part of a pizza-making-box-folding-customer-pleasing machine. At the end of the shift, especially if it's been a nine hour shift with no breaks and no time off my feet (and don't even bother telling me how illegal that is... I know it, but it seems to be the way all the dominos stores are run. They don't do meal breaks. You grab a smoke or a bathroom when the phones stop ringing for five minutes. There are no chairs. You don't leave the property or sit down. Period.) So like I said, I kind of go into a trance and do my work ok. But then, at the end of the day, I come out of the store feeling very dissociated.
I wander out into the parking lot, and it's like I'm not even really sure how to drive. Sometimes my guys pick me up, and they want to talk to me about family stuff or finances, and I feel like I barely know how to talk. Sometimes I leave work and drop straight into a panic attack. Does anyone have any advice on how to transition from work to life again?
Sorry this is so long.
