Journal (2009.05.04 Mon.)
I completely forgot to do the laundry on my long day when I had time. (I'd skipped it when I had the chance last week because I didn't have enough to make a real load.)
My new assignment from my social worker is to read Sections 1-4 of Chapter 9 (when they actually get to the exercises). We looked over some things during the session. I'm a bit ambivalent about the parts about how I'm supposed to act. For example, let's look at eye contact:
1. In high school, the "normals" claimed that if you look at someone, it's definitely because you want to have sex with that person (like how you're automatically masturbating unless you keep both hands above the table). This shouldn't be a problem, but one of the two main ringleaders in the department has stated publicly that he takes pride in being less mature than a high-school student, and both certainly act that way.
2. Lowering my head is the only compromise I've found between treating ladies with respect and not being considered a freak.
3. I've also ended up keeping my head down at work, as the only way I can find to avoid fights is to avoid any interactions entirely. It irks me to have to bow to a man, but I don't see any other option.
Of course, I didn't have the guts to say any of this to her. She says I'm going to have to start by practicing on her on Monday.
At work, I got in trouble for not completely disposing of things when I wasn't explicitly told how much to do. Admittedly, I haven't gotten in that many fights because people caught me cleaning up properly.
For the second shift, the operator gave me the choice of either working the station where I can't keep up or the one with two people. I didn't want to provoke people by thinking about it, so I made a snap decision to the latter. Unfortunately, I failed to consider the fact that they put me there replacing the one of the previous two with whom I actually get along, leaving me to work with the one person I despise most. (He's still only one of my three main enemies, as I don't fear him nearly as much as the other two.) I've deliberately been avoiding teamwork for some time now, but this really rubbed my face in the fact that, after more than six months, he's still completely incompetent at this job. Besides the usual slowness (he's one of the only two in the 20-man department who's slower than I) and sloppiness, he kept making obvious mistakes and then escalating them continuously. Even if I were willing to try to communicate with an enemy in less than an emergency, he has a track record of doing the opposite of what I say even when he asks me (hopefully because he's deaf and delusional, not malicious). It's a good thing they replaced him with someone else for the hard part.