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Scared I'm About To Be Sacked

Raggamuffin

Well-Known Member
V.I.P Member
I’ve made a major cock up at work and I’m worried by job could be at risk. I’ve seen a couple of people sacked her for seemingly minor issues. One was last week – someone failed their probation. They worked on what was meant to be a 2-3 person team. She was on her own and over time the stress led her to make frequent mistakes etc. Her boss sacked her.

I work in compliance for trailers. 4 are overdue an inspection by months. Another 8 were supposed to have a certain inspection done with their service and haven’t These 8 were carried out by a workshop we’ve been having no end of problems with for months. They haven’t sent the documents for these 8 and didn’t charge for them on their labour costs. So clearly they haven’t been done either. Not only did I miss the 4 overdue ones, but I paid the workshop for the other 8 when a full inspection wasn’t carried out.

Most of this year I’d been working from our customer’s service log. They sent it a month in advance and it details which trailer is due what inspection type. I assumed it was correct and didn’t cross check it with ours.

And now it’s all laid bare: 12 trailers and one all mighty mess that I’ve left in my wake. It’s been escalated now to various managers in my company and our customers. As soon as my supervisor told me I spent the last hour doing everything he needed, and going above and beyond to outline as much info as possible - it highlighted a lot of mistakes on my part.

Fingers crossed, because I don’t think this will end well. Now I know, I'm prone to catastrophic thinking and worrying. I also know I've worked damn hard here, and got things more up to date than they ever were with the previous person who looked after these customer contracts. My annual review, my manager praised my attitude and how hard I worked, but he had made mention to my frequent mistakes.

Check, check and check again. But I don't - I never have, and when I do try a new routine and method of checking, I can still miss glaringly obvious mistakes. Plus, these new routines eventually disintegrate and I'm back on old form. Every job I've had, even going back to school: I make frequent mistakes and I always rush.

Seems now I could be paying for it. Problem is, this has been a difficult customer for me from the start. Hard to please, always pointing out any mistake I make. One or two of them seem to have lost their patience with me.

Organisation has never been a strong suit. It can be for things I have an interest in - but not things like work. Then there's the stop start nature of every job I've worked. Focusing on one thing then have to stop everything to start something new. So many things left half done and it's up to me to know where to start back up. It's a huge open plan room - 30+ people making no end of distracting and frustrating noise and conversations.

On a good day my head is all over the place. Focus comes and goes, and even things I enjoy can often be done half-baked. Add to that the daily aches and pains, the distractions at work and just in general. Every job I've had countless meetings with managers who tell me to stop making mistakes. Some were polite, some outright bullied me. Now I work from a place of fear - even though my supervisor here is nice, and laid back. My work ethic remains a hard worker, but one who is terrified of making mistakes and constantly stressed.

I know that stress and the spectrum can affect mental clarity, productivity, focus, attention span and organisational skills. I also know I've never picked a job that brings out the best at me. Instead I've been in jobs which regularly pick out my flaws and leave me constantly doubting myself and working erratically.

Our team has been 1 man down for 7 months. We're overworked, and I was told last week I get a new customer contract next week, and a large one at that. It'll effectively double my work load. So the past 3 weeks I've been working like a blue arsed fly trying to get as caught up as I can.

And now this...


Ed
 
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I'm sorry you are in this situation. I know it too well; working hard with fear in my back.
Considering how noisy your workplace is, you accomplish a lot by just enduring that. It is unfortunate that employers don't see or care about that.
Judging from your posts on this forum, I have always considered you a very intelligent and capable person. I really hope you can keep your job, even though it is not ideal for you.
 
A sad dilemma, but a common scenario for so many of us on the spectrum.

That most of us either hold or held jobs that were never ideal to who and what we are.

And that given so many circumstances, it remains easier said than done to find that ideal job. But don't stop looking, because it just might be out there.
 
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I'm sorry you are in this situation. I know it too well; working hard with fear in my back.
Considering how noisy your workplace is, you accomplish a lot by just enduring that. It is unfortunate that employers don't see or care about that.
Judging from your posts on this forum, I have always considered you a very intelligent and capable person. I really hope you can keep your job, even though it is not ideal for you.

Thank you for saying that. It is difficult to work effectively when you feel like at any moment you will make a mistake. It's not that I'm doing it deliberately and when I make a mistake - it hits me hard. I feel distraught and embaressed and I quickly resolve whatever situation it is. I think spontaneous challenges and tasks actually suit me more - because it gets my creativity flowing and I actually find it exciting. But after that short, sharp burst of intense focus I feel burnt out. It's these burn outs, and the tedium of the day to day work which is causing the issue. I don't want to run the same reports 3 times a week, or copy and paste the same information into 4 different forms over 100 times a week.

If I'm not mentally stimulated - I'm no working anywhere near my potential; and then mistakes happen.



A sad dilemma, but a common scenario for so many of us on the spectrum.

That most of us either hold or held jobs that were never ideal to who and what we are.

And that given so many circumstances, it remains easier said than done to find that ideal job. :oops:

I have wondered if I should try jobs which I'd enjoy doing. Even if I don't have the formal qualifications. One I pondered was marketing. I enjoy creating things, I learn computer programmes quickly and I love creative writing and puns or quick wit.

In the past I have re-written my CV/resume for specific jobs to highlight exactly why I'd stand out for that position. Thing is, I've always played it safe - going for jobs I have previous experience in, but no passion for.

Now things have calmed down, I see I'm probably thinking the worst case scenario. I probably won't be sacked, but I know that whatever changes they enforce, they probably won't help reduce mistakes or help me - they will put an even brighter spotlight on everything I do. Probably involving other people double checking what I do before I'm allowed to send it to customers: which will just reinforce my negative thoughts about being incompetant and a failure. When in reality I know I'm more than capable at this job, and as big-headed as it sounds: this job, and every other job I've worked feels beneath me.

I'm just too much of a coward to grab life by the horns and get to where I want to be.

Ed
 
I'm just too much of a coward to grab life by the horns and get to where I want to be.

Ed

I wouldn't put yourself down over this scenario. Leaving job security is quite a leap for most people. Even more so in a global economy on the decline.

I'm a perfect example. I held a job for nearly 20 years, where when I finally decided to leave it was because it left me in a cold sweat each day I went to work. A job that over time evolved from a good gig to a very bad one. I left, and was fortune enough to retrain in another field and even get paid more. Sadly though that job only lasted for a few years.

Life is tough, and incredibly dynamic. Sometimes we can get over its hurdles, and sometimes we can't. But it's worth it to try from time to time, when the conditions are right to do so.
 
Sometimes I wonder how many of life's hurdles we're putting infront of ourselves.

Of course outside factors can come into view and confront us - but we choose how to react. Often I find I overeact to things in life. In recent years I have learned to divert from emotional reactions to a calmer, and more rational outlook. I find my instinctual response to so much in life is that raw, fight, flight or immobilise response. I can go from calm to hugely unsettled within moments.

I think living with stress for so long can mean the mind and body is over-sensitized; so that the slightest trigger can send you down the rabbit hole.

Strange thing about the good jobs and good times - we often don't truly appreciate what we had until it's over, and look back on it with nostalgia. At least, that's how I've found it.

Ed
 
When I look back on my life of employment, I sometimes think I was a "lightning rod" for taking jobs that were the opposite of what I optimally should have taken. Though the truth was that opportunities to do as such were always few and far in between.

Maybe people like us just have a twisted sense of karma. Where we end up struggling at jobs that seem to make us feel over our head once too often.

I loved being a website designer for a few years. Got paid very well for it, and unlike the world of finance and insurance, it didn't involve any high stakes considerations that could so easily result in termination. But the dot-com crisis happened, and the bottom fell out of Silicon Valley jobs, forcing me to go back into finance. This time as a personal investor. Loved being self employed, but hated risking my own money for nearly a decade. Yeah, where I wanted to go down that rabbit hole a number of times.
 
I’ve made a major cock up at work and I’m worried by job could be at risk. I’ve seen a couple of people sacked her for seemingly minor issues. One was last week – someone failed their probation. They worked on what was meant to be a 2-3 person team. She was on her own and over time the stress led her to make frequent mistakes etc. Her boss sacked her.

I work in compliance for trailers. 4 are overdue an inspection by months. Another 8 were supposed to have a certain inspection done with their service and haven’t These 8 were carried out by a workshop we’ve been having no end of problems with for months. They haven’t sent the documents for these 8 and didn’t charge for them on their labour costs. So clearly they haven’t been done either. Not only did I miss the 4 overdue ones, but I paid the workshop for the other 8 when a full inspection wasn’t carried out.

Most of this year I’d been working from our customer’s service log. They sent it a month in advance and it details which trailer is due what inspection type. I assumed it was correct and didn’t cross check it with ours.

And now it’s all laid bare: 12 trailers and one all mighty mess that I’ve left in my wake. It’s been escalated now to various managers in my company and our customers. As soon as my supervisor told me I spent the last hour doing everything he needed, and going above and beyond to outline as much info as possible - it highlighted a lot of mistakes on my part.

Fingers crossed, because I don’t think this will end well. Now I know, I'm prone to catastrophic thinking and worrying. I also know I've worked damn hard here, and got things more up to date than they ever were with the previous person who looked after these customer contracts. My annual review, my manager praised my attitude and how hard I worked, but he had made mention to my frequent mistakes.

Check, check and check again. But I don't - I never have, and when I do try a new routine and method of checking, I can still miss glaringly obvious mistakes. Plus, these new routines eventually disintegrate and I'm back on old form. Every job I've had, even going back to school: I make frequent mistakes and I always rush.

Seems now I could be paying for it. Problem is, this has been a difficult customer for me from the start. Hard to please, always pointing out any mistake I make. One or two of them seem to have lost their patience with me.

Organisation has never been a strong suit. It can be for things I have an interest in - but not things like work. Then there's the stop start nature of every job I've worked. Focusing on one thing then have to stop everything to start something new. So many things left half done and it's up to me to know where to start back up. It's a huge open plan room - 30+ people making no end of distracting and frustrating noise and conversations.

On a good day my head is all over the place. Focus comes and goes, and even things I enjoy can often be done half-baked. Add to that the daily aches and pains, the distractions at work and just in general. Every job I've had countless meetings with managers who tell me to stop making mistakes. Some were polite, some outright bullied me. Now I work from a place of fear - even though my supervisor here is nice, and laid back. My work ethic remains a hard worker, but one who is terrified of making mistakes and constantly stressed.

I know that stress and the spectrum can affect mental clarity, productivity, focus, attention span and organisational skills. I also know I've never picked a job that brings out the best at me. Instead I've been in jobs which regularly pick out my flaws and leave me constantly doubting myself and working erratically.

Our team has been 1 man down for 7 months. We're overworked, and I was told last week I get a new customer contract next week, and a large one at that. It'll effectively double my work load. So the past 3 weeks I've been working like a blue arsed fly trying to get as caught up as I can.

And now this...


Ed

The description of your problems sounds like ADHD-inattentive type. ADHD Inattentive Type in Adults: Symptoms, Diagnosis & Treatment
 
That sinking feeling Yup- l can go thru that. It seems l can drag into those thoughts of how is my job security.
 
I’ve made a major cock up at work and I’m worried by job could be at risk. I’ve seen a couple of people sacked her for seemingly minor issues. One was last week – someone failed their probation. They worked on what was meant to be a 2-3 person team. She was on her own and over time the stress led her to make frequent mistakes etc. Her boss sacked her.

I work in compliance for trailers. 4 are overdue an inspection by months. Another 8 were supposed to have a certain inspection done with their service and haven’t These 8 were carried out by a workshop we’ve been having no end of problems with for months. They haven’t sent the documents for these 8 and didn’t charge for them on their labour costs. So clearly they haven’t been done either. Not only did I miss the 4 overdue ones, but I paid the workshop for the other 8 when a full inspection wasn’t carried out.

Most of this year I’d been working from our customer’s service log. They sent it a month in advance and it details which trailer is due what inspection type. I assumed it was correct and didn’t cross check it with ours.

And now it’s all laid bare: 12 trailers and one all mighty mess that I’ve left in my wake. It’s been escalated now to various managers in my company and our customers. As soon as my supervisor told me I spent the last hour doing everything he needed, and going above and beyond to outline as much info as possible - it highlighted a lot of mistakes on my part.

Fingers crossed, because I don’t think this will end well. Now I know, I'm prone to catastrophic thinking and worrying. I also know I've worked damn hard here, and got things more up to date than they ever were with the previous person who looked after these customer contracts. My annual review, my manager praised my attitude and how hard I worked, but he had made mention to my frequent mistakes.

Check, check and check again. But I don't - I never have, and when I do try a new routine and method of checking, I can still miss glaringly obvious mistakes. Plus, these new routines eventually disintegrate and I'm back on old form. Every job I've had, even going back to school: I make frequent mistakes and I always rush.

Seems now I could be paying for it. Problem is, this has been a difficult customer for me from the start. Hard to please, always pointing out any mistake I make. One or two of them seem to have lost their patience with me.

Organisation has never been a strong suit. It can be for things I have an interest in - but not things like work. Then there's the stop start nature of every job I've worked. Focusing on one thing then have to stop everything to start something new. So many things left half done and it's up to me to know where to start back up. It's a huge open plan room - 30+ people making no end of distracting and frustrating noise and conversations.

On a good day my head is all over the place. Focus comes and goes, and even things I enjoy can often be done half-baked. Add to that the daily aches and pains, the distractions at work and just in general. Every job I've had countless meetings with managers who tell me to stop making mistakes. Some were polite, some outright bullied me. Now I work from a place of fear - even though my supervisor here is nice, and laid back. My work ethic remains a hard worker, but one who is terrified of making mistakes and constantly stressed.

I know that stress and the spectrum can affect mental clarity, productivity, focus, attention span and organisational skills. I also know I've never picked a job that brings out the best at me. Instead I've been in jobs which regularly pick out my flaws and leave me constantly doubting myself and working erratically.

Our team has been 1 man down for 7 months. We're overworked, and I was told last week I get a new customer contract next week, and a large one at that. It'll effectively double my work load. So the past 3 weeks I've been working like a blue arsed fly trying to get as caught up as I can.

And now this...


Ed
You probably already know this but because of COVID-19 inspection intervals can be increased to seventeen weeks and prohibition orders will not be issued for non critical faults/defects, so you might be ok.
F1E35A4D-9865-499E-9286-4CE7DDDE2CE4.png
 
Got a GP call on 9th July for an ADHD assessment.

They said there'd be a delay for my autism assessment, but that the letter for a referral will be sent as soon as the place reopens.

Ed
 
We had a meeting today. He was understanding, but said if it happens again then there'll be disciplinary action. So there we have it - the end of the rope is ahead. Patience only lasts so long with the management I've worked for.

Now, I get that they've been very accommodating so far. But now it's crunch time. That fear of failure and "what if's" - well now it has new fuel for the fire: "If you mess up, you will be in trouble."

I suppose it could go one of two ways - make me work harder by scaring me straight. Or, compile additional stress to make my already erratic methods even more volatile. Organisation, prioritising, focus, not being distracted etc are bad at the best of times. The stress levels keep rising, as does my workload - I can't see it helping me.

To be honest I'm not tackling anything big this afternoon at work, not after what happened with that fledgling. I've felt burnt out for weeks now, and after yesterday's near panic attack, and now the fledgling falling off the roof, and this meeting - I'm about done this week.

When I get home, the house will be full of people for a bbq. People I don't know - and the topics are always the same: work, food and current events. I sit or stand in silence, or busily do chores to get away from the group. After today I think I'll probably go home, say a quick hello and then collect my fire staff and camera. Drive somewhere quiet and get away from it all.

I'll try and talk to my partner about it tonight. I don't want to bring the mood down at the bbq. Plus my partner says she wants me to open up more. She see's me doing it on forums and IM's. But it's not so easy face to face. I've explained that to her before. Also, at times - her replies to me opening up can be rather short.

After discussing struggles at work being made worse by potential ADHD and autism (both now awaiting assessment dates) she replied "Yep, life. What are you going to do about it?"

Maybe I just read it wrong, but when I'm feeling emotional and opening up, I need a little bit more than what seems to come across as an obtuse response.

Ed
 
You made some mistakes, got scolded but no formal action this time. It happens to almost everyone (there is a saying that goes along the lines of "that the man who made no mistakes never made anything").

We learn more from our failures than our successes. Move on, figure out how not to make the same mistakes (perhaps some sort of automatic prompting software, could be as simple as a spreadsheet with conditional formatting that highlights when inspections are due).

Then look at other parts of your job, see what improvements can be made, both to make your life and your bosses life easier.
 
You are obviously British! American English with its accent and pattern of speech came from the Puritans spending so much time in Holland. The children picked up on the Dutch accent and pattern of speech. That's why our sentences are structured so differently. And then a lot of the Irish Immigrants coming over influenced our Accent as well. There's people from Ireland that I swear are American, because they sound just like us.
 
Well, it didn't take long for me to make another mistake - with the same problematic customer again. Within 2 hours of starting work too. That fear of failure was short lived before it felt justified again.

Manager had a meeting with me. Offered some advice to avoid distraction when doing important tasks. I told him I used to do these difficult tasks before work began. When the office was dead and there was no distractions.

During the daytime if Im doing a report of a large batch invoice and there's emails going off, phone calls, people talking and distracting. It's hard - because I lose where I'm at in my task. I constantly have to go back, and before I know where I am, I've made a mistake.

With the temp checks at work before people start their day - I'm not allowed to go in early like I used to. So my manager said to ignore and phone calls and turn off my emails during these tasks.

Hopefully that will help.

After I sorted out the mess I made I went and did some contact staffing outside work, where there's a nice patch of grass with enough space. Get back into the office and another manager meeting - told I'm not allowed to do that any more as it's unprofessional for visiting customers and distracting to staff. This was my first time doing it and I intended it to be a new routine - as I've staffed on lunch breaks at every job I've been in. Exercise and some time to clear my head.

After my second meeting and telling off, I was feeling increasingly tense, so I switched the AC on as I was hot and sweating from the staffing. Within a couple of minutes my manager comes up to me and says he's switching the AC off as he's too cold. That literally made my eye start to twitch. Said nothing though - got on with my work

The week is off to a good start. Oh, and after Friday's trauma with the injured bird, I wasn't looking forward to going back into work and seeing the gulls again. Guess who hits a bird in his car on the way to work? It didn't push me as close to the edge as expected, but seeing another baby seagull on the floor at work nearly drove me to a panic attack.

I keep telling myself it'll get better.

Ed
 
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Understand the distraction of emails.

One thing I did a long time ago was to turn off the incoming email notification on the email system, so all I get is the yellow envelope to tell me there is new mail. Works for me - the pop up for email was mega distracting.

Also I listen to music on headphones in the office to cover some of the background noise.
 
They allow me headphones which has been a huge help. It never occurred to me to not answer phones or emails etc. Seems silly and rather common sense to have avoided any distractions when I'd been making mistakes whilst doing this process.

He said I just have to announce I'm doing an invoice or report etc to the team and then he said its OK not to answer any calls or emails etc.

Ed
 
Icing on the cake, someone at work has just tested positive for COVID.

Strange really - what gets me stressed and what doesn't. That announcement didn't get me anxious. The only part of said announcement that upset me was the wording of one part of the email. That COVID must be at the forefront of our minds when at work and at home.

Nothing positive to say about that Health & Safety manager at work. The politest thing I could say is that I find him a boring jobsworth.

Now all the office gossips and doom mongers are in their element. Gossiping and whispering and announcing their theories and fears and worries.

Headphones on.

Ed
 

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