@alamias I recently found some success with a sublingual Melatonin spray after everything else failed me epically and I could no longer afford my prescription sleep meds. It still takes me an hour or more to get to sleep but I sleep well after. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0759KQCML/
@auspice It's a shame that your HR is just not dealing with him, because he's exactly the kind of person they're there to deal with.
@paris said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:
@auspice It's a shame that your HR is just not dealing with him, because he's exactly the kind of person they're there to deal with.
Well, considering when the answer to my reporting a project manager exhibiting sexist behavior was 'Are you sure they were being sexist?' (Considering I've never reported such behavior before and I was utterly flabbergasted? Yes. Yes I'm fucking sure.) and said HR manager the other day made a joke of 'Well, much as it pains me to say it, <Auspice> is right.' and then a moment later looked at me to go: 'Just so you know, I only said that because it's you, not because you're a woman.'
...... I think our office's HR guy has problems.
And it puts me into a bind because anything I submit to HR goes into a queue and he can see it (and thus grab it and work it himself). I don't actually know if I have a way to individually direct it over his head.
Saying the quiet parts out loud since 1996.
@auspice HR is not there to help you or be on your side. HR is only there to make sure the company will not get hit with a lawsuit and if they do, win. They are 100% on the company's side and if they feel you are no threat, they won't give you the time of day.
@betternow Thanks! I will check into this.
@kdraygo said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:
HR is not there to help you or be on your side. HR is only there to make sure the company will not get hit with a lawsuit and if they do, win. They are 100% on the company's side and if they feel you are no threat, they won't give you the time of day.
Regarding the sexism, nothing gets HR's attention more than a report presented on a law firm's letterhead.
I'd like to think a company run by a woman wouldn't be really sexist, but I learned at one of my very first jobs (17 years old) that this is not always the case.
Sometimes, you work with other women who are really freaking awesome (I have a few at work). Other times, you get women who are very very paranoid that other women are competition so they surround themselves with men and wall out any/all other women (who aren't their own bffs) and lean hard into the sexism as a means to protect their own position in the framework of the company. Unfortunately, I think the upper echelons of my company are just that.
It's why the report I made was so fucking disheartening because when I sat down with HR and a manager, the manager was a woman and she just sat there looking at unrelated paperwork like the whole thing was nbd and a waste of her time.
I've treated her politely and openly with respect since, but privately I have absolutely none for her.
For some reason, telling a retail employee that you "aren't looking for anything in particular, whatever you have in my size"
And when they come back with ideas, breaking down the long list of dealbreakers you didn't think to mention
doesn't trigger a five-minute Purge in the confines of the establishment.
Someone should get on that.
If you hold a seminar, with a hundred other human beings in attendance, on a day that's over a hundred degrees (37°C+), USE THE FUCKING AIRCONDITIONING.
Irk: My brain's sometimes like a really shitty roommate -- like one that doesn't clean up after itself, doesn't pay things on time, and says the worst things at the worst opportunity -- but in my head.
All the fucking time.
This is how I wind up (yes, even when on medication that mostly works) re-recording my responses to an automated interview until about the tenth or twelfth time when I finally mess up and skip a question (Why are you interested in this position? BECAUSE I NEED AN ENTRY LEVEL JOB IN THIS FIELD and shit --) and then I want to stare blankly at someone that's just 'a little OCD' because they like to color coordinate their books or whatnot.
I am never going to disrespect someone else's mental health tribulations because that's such an asshole thing to do and while I can be an insensitive jerk (once in a while) I just want -- or wish, maybe, although that's not the best word choice -- that I could have a brain that just made me do THAT. Instead of, you know, hand-washing every single time I get stressed out because I can't control the world, only my responses to it, and my brain's telling me that it's PERFECTLY OK to wash my hands in odd numbered increments as a response.
Even though I know better.
@moth
No, man, I get it.
When people giggle and teehee over the 'I know, I'm just so OCD' because of things like that, I want to strangle them sometimes. Because I don't think they've been awake at 4 in the morning, exhausted and sobbing because they want to be in bed but no, the entire kitchen must be cleaned and organized right now or else. Or late to work because you accidentally got dressed in the wrong order because you're wearing a slightly different outfit and you fucked up the stack so you have to start all over again and redo your whole routine... and no, you can't just remove the last item. You have to redo everything.
And I know for that person, maybe organizing books by color is their OCD, but at the same time maybe... just maybe... they could act like it doesn't make them cute. 
Because I, on the other hand, have had people mock me and torment me for my need to have things like volume in increments of 5 until I'm in tears and begging them to please stop and just let it be and wouldn't it be nice if I got to be cute for my 'quirk'?
So yeah, no, I hear you. As for the automated interview: I type up a script to read from as I go through it to help me not forget and skip questions because boy oh boy have I been there. 
Saying the quiet parts out loud since 1996.
@auspice said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:
Or late to work because you accidentally got dressed in the wrong order because you're wearing a slightly different outfit and you fucked up the stack so you have to start all over again and redo your whole routine... and no, you can't just remove the last item. You have to redo everything.
Wait, this is OCD?
'cause, er, I do this. I actually get my clothes for the next day out in the evening and lay them out stacked in the appropriate order so that everything's right there already sorted. Because while I don't force myself to get re-dressed if I do them in the wrong order, the knowledge that I did do them in the wrong order will bother me all day.
I've always figured that was just me being a little weird.
I was pretty debilitated as a kid with the usual OCD behaviors, though I was lucky that many (but not all) of them eased up as I got older and got away from my abusive family. I still deal with the recurring unwanted thoughts and a few things profoundly gross me out and always have, and I do check over and over if I've locked things-- but I have Bot help by, say, watching me lock the door and then trusting her word when she says I did. Stress always aggravates it, so I keep watch on my symptoms.
I would like to take medication for it, but I respond very poorly to most of them, especially anything that causes weight gain. I've always had it, so I have just had to learn how to manage it. Part of what helps is acknowledging that my brain is lying to me, and so not to trust it when it's being dumb about specific things. Taking the time to consciously step back from my distress when something is triggering it has become much more effective, but that has been hard-won. Having a lot of sangfroid has been very helpful, because my reaction when anxious is often go to cold instead of flailing.
Most people have never known I had it, since I'd gotten so good at masking it, and my particular quirks (aside from checking doors and ovens) are mostly internal. It runs in my family, I believe that my mother (undiagnosed but very typical) and brother (I believe diagnosed) and is co-morbid with other things. It, along with really dysfunctional dynamics, has completely damaged my family. Their example has probably helped me manage mine better.
I get annoyed when people treat their color-matching quirks as OCD, but I kind of consider it OC without the D, as a lot of these things run on a spectrum. Categorizing your stuff by color may be a little distressing, but you still don't have a disordered life.
Jumping off of the compulsion versus compulsion disorder subject...
MOOD SWINGS ARE NOT 'BEING BIPOLAR'.
@tinuviel No. I've lived with folks who were bipolar, and it was so much more than that. x.x
@paris As a person that lives with my own brain, I can confirm that yes it is very much more than that.
I tend to use 'manic depressive' even though that's a term no longer in general service. It works better as a descriptor, and doesn't get in the way when actual 'bipolarity' is an accurate term to describe something not related to brain-fuckery.
I also use the word brain-fuckery. Like, a lot.
He/Him
@tinuviel Yeah.
I've had people in the past want to jokingly call my 'good' moods 'Oh feeling a little bipolar today?' and it's like no. No. I am a major depressive. I am not bipolar. I am not manic depressive. Sometimes it will clear and I will have good days and just because you don't see them that often or it drops off and I go back into depression doesn't mean it's bipolar.
It does mean it's a dumb shit thing to joke about.
@Sparks - I think some people might feel it to a degree? Just like a lot of people have fabric sensitivities. Or are bothered when they realize 'oh shit I wore mismatched socks this one has one stripe and this one has two.'
But I legitimately can't go 'Oh man I need a different shirt on' and even if the shirt was the last item in the 'stack' just change shirts. It's not a discomfort throughout the day. It's a complete debilitating panic attack. I've tried. I make it a few steps from my room before I'm totally frozen. I have to completely undress and go back to the beginning: wash face, do hair, put on clothes... This is why I don't wear makeup often and when I do, I go through test runs of the chosen outfit for whatever engagement it is to be absolutely certain it's one I can and want to wear. And why makeup and hair is my very last step (women who can do makeup before they put their outfit on, I salute you... I know you do it for fear of glitter and foundation and all on said outfit, but I can't risk it).
@paris said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:
I kind of consider it OC without the D, as a lot of these things run on a spectrum. Categorizing your stuff by color may be a little distressing, but you still don't have a disordered life.
I think that's important to highlight. These things are a continuum, not a yes/no. I'm not saying that "I like to have my socks organized" is OCD, but something doesn't have to be debilitating to be a legitimate, diagnosable disorder.
@alamias I recently found some success with a sublingual Melatonin spray after everything else failed me epically and I could no longer afford my prescription sleep meds. It still takes me an hour or more to get to sleep but I sleep well after. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0759KQCML/
