Anxiety In The Workplace
As many of you may know, combating your anxiety in the
workplace is no easy task.
You might find it ironic that I suffer from social anxiety and I work in retail. Hell, even I find it ironic but it’s where I most fit in.
Years ago, when I first started my job search I wanted to avoid contact with people as much as possible. I thought that a work from home job, a desk job at a small office or a receptionist would be the perfect place for me. Little did I know that working in retail was just what I needed to help combat my social anxiety.
It truly has been the one thing that has helped me the most. Besides years of therapy, of course. While therapy gave me the tools to overcome the anxiety, it was ME who had to put them to use.
One of the biggest challenges that I’ve faced was trying to open a line of communication with people. Generally, I would love to avoid talking to people in the first place but since it’s literally my job, I had to get over that pretty quickly.
Every day a different type of person would and will continue to walk through the doors and it’s up to me to face them head on. Sometimes I get lucky and the customer is a complete chatter box and all I have to do is stand there and listen and occasionally chime in with an “Uh-huh”, or a “Yeah!” Sometimes, I’m rather unlucky and I get a customer who is super hard to connect with and all I want to do is run away from them to avoid any more awkward small talk. Something I learned was that if it feels awkward to me then it’s probably also awkward for them. So now I just try to keep things short and simple and to not over complicate it.
I will say this though, every day, every time I clock in, it gets a little bit easier. I establish a routine, I implement a basic how-to-talk-to-customers guideline that I’ve tweaked and improved over the years so that way I can somewhat prepare myself for whatever kind of customer walks through those doors.
Now, there are times when life likes to throw me a curveball. Well, I’ve swung and missed, and that sucker hit me right in the face. That curveball = horrific customer who pushes all your wrong buttons and then makes you ugly cry in front of your entire staff and the entire store. What a nightmare, am I right?! Talk about social anxiety overload. It’s times like that when everything I’ve learned suddenly just poofs from my brain like it was never there to begin with. It's like I forget how to communicate at all and every system in my body shuts down. The anxiety then triples and ultimately results in me crying like a baby.
In those types of situations, if I'm lucky, I can compose myself quickly enough without getting too frazzled and I will call on a manager to step in and take over for me. I’ll excuse myself, calmly walk to the stock room and either ugly cry in the bathroom or sit down and try to focus on my breathing.
Even with all the tools I’ve learned to cope, combat, whatever, there are just some days…that aren’t going to go my way. I’ve lived. I’ve learned. I’ve moved on. Tried to, at least. But that’s all you can do.
I’m not going to say that working retail was a guarantee fix because there’s no such thing as a guaranteed fix. It’s taught me a lot over the years and I’ve learned some very valuable lessons. (Not all of them pertaining to anxiety).
It’s helped me come out of my shell. It’s helped me learn how to speak up for myself. It’s brought me friendships. It’s taught me that I can be a “normal” person. It’s helped me develop communication skills. Plus, so many other things that I won’t bore you with.
I hope that you lovely people out there get to experience such things. Hopefully not the ugly crying thing but you know what I mean.
With Love & Support,
Molly
You might find it ironic that I suffer from social anxiety and I work in retail. Hell, even I find it ironic but it’s where I most fit in.
Years ago, when I first started my job search I wanted to avoid contact with people as much as possible. I thought that a work from home job, a desk job at a small office or a receptionist would be the perfect place for me. Little did I know that working in retail was just what I needed to help combat my social anxiety.
It truly has been the one thing that has helped me the most. Besides years of therapy, of course. While therapy gave me the tools to overcome the anxiety, it was ME who had to put them to use.
One of the biggest challenges that I’ve faced was trying to open a line of communication with people. Generally, I would love to avoid talking to people in the first place but since it’s literally my job, I had to get over that pretty quickly.
Every day a different type of person would and will continue to walk through the doors and it’s up to me to face them head on. Sometimes I get lucky and the customer is a complete chatter box and all I have to do is stand there and listen and occasionally chime in with an “Uh-huh”, or a “Yeah!” Sometimes, I’m rather unlucky and I get a customer who is super hard to connect with and all I want to do is run away from them to avoid any more awkward small talk. Something I learned was that if it feels awkward to me then it’s probably also awkward for them. So now I just try to keep things short and simple and to not over complicate it.
I will say this though, every day, every time I clock in, it gets a little bit easier. I establish a routine, I implement a basic how-to-talk-to-customers guideline that I’ve tweaked and improved over the years so that way I can somewhat prepare myself for whatever kind of customer walks through those doors.
Now, there are times when life likes to throw me a curveball. Well, I’ve swung and missed, and that sucker hit me right in the face. That curveball = horrific customer who pushes all your wrong buttons and then makes you ugly cry in front of your entire staff and the entire store. What a nightmare, am I right?! Talk about social anxiety overload. It’s times like that when everything I’ve learned suddenly just poofs from my brain like it was never there to begin with. It's like I forget how to communicate at all and every system in my body shuts down. The anxiety then triples and ultimately results in me crying like a baby.
In those types of situations, if I'm lucky, I can compose myself quickly enough without getting too frazzled and I will call on a manager to step in and take over for me. I’ll excuse myself, calmly walk to the stock room and either ugly cry in the bathroom or sit down and try to focus on my breathing.
Even with all the tools I’ve learned to cope, combat, whatever, there are just some days…that aren’t going to go my way. I’ve lived. I’ve learned. I’ve moved on. Tried to, at least. But that’s all you can do.
I’m not going to say that working retail was a guarantee fix because there’s no such thing as a guaranteed fix. It’s taught me a lot over the years and I’ve learned some very valuable lessons. (Not all of them pertaining to anxiety).
It’s helped me come out of my shell. It’s helped me learn how to speak up for myself. It’s brought me friendships. It’s taught me that I can be a “normal” person. It’s helped me develop communication skills. Plus, so many other things that I won’t bore you with.
I hope that you lovely people out there get to experience such things. Hopefully not the ugly crying thing but you know what I mean.
With Love & Support,
Molly
Comments
Post a Comment