u/Astronomy_

I’m an engineer working at a small company led by a couple of old, penny-pinching, stuck in their ways boomer white guys. I sit in a windowless concrete slab for 9 hours every day (editing to add that we gets no lunches and no breaks) and I sit in a god awful spot too, directly in line of sight of my boss and in a high traffic area right next to the printer so anyone who walks by just gets a wide open view of me and I hate it. Plus this office is noisy and it deteriorates my brain. I communicated how distracting and stressful this spot is to my boss multiple times. When a fellow engineer left for another job, he specifically gave ME his spot. This is usually honored, but after telling my boss that he gave me his spot, I guess it was not honored in my case because I still have not gotten moved and they put a fresh hire in the spot that was given to me. Yay.

With that said, I typically take a walk around the building once a day in the afternoon to try to keep myself semi sane. I sometimes say hi to people and sometimes I’ll stop with someone when we strike up a conversation for about 10-15 minutes. I’m never loud when I have conversations and it’s typically life update stuff between the other person and I like typical chatting. I make it a point to only have a conversation like that only two or three times a week maximum because I have heard that upper management hates when people chat. My manager specifically is usually pretty chill especially because I always get my work done, but yesterday he saw me having a chat, came over and asked how my work is going. I said that it’s going good and then he motioned me to take a walk with him and kindly told me that he noticed I’m talking and he said “nobody else has said anything yet, but if I notice then they might too”. I have picked up on that he seems to live in a constant state of fear of one of the men in higher management so he’s probably trying to protect me from him but it’s still annoying because that’s my one out of three (maximum) social interactions for the week. I said “I’m here for 9 hours a day, you gotta take a break sometimes.” and he said “well you might want to take different avenues for a while” 🫩

Just to throw a cherry on top, last year I found out that I was getting paid significantly less than my peers of equal experience, same job responsibilities and title too. One of the guys got hired a couple months before me and the other guy got hired at the exact same time as me so there’s really no excuse. The only difference is that they are men and I’m a woman.

I could go on and on about this place honestly. I know for certain I’m not the only one fed up with management so at least I’m not alone.

I feel like sometimes my fiancé doesn't understand me. I will be really focused on doing a task, confused, trying to figure something out, like when him and I are working on something technical together. Basically whenever my thinking side is really turned on. He will ask "are you upset with me" and I'll say "no, I'm just trying to figure this out" (not snapping because I try extra hard to not snap, but more like sighing to regulate myself before speaking and still being confused as I speak, or I'll be a bit tense) but he still takes it as if I'm upset with him. Then he starts acting different and frustrated with me and I'll ask him a question like "why not install this part first" (I try to ask as plain as possible as if nothing wrong ever happened to avoid inflating feelings on both sides, like just trying to move past the previous moment) and he'll explain it to me in a kind of nasty voice as if I'm a stupid coworker or something and it hurts me. I tried to tell him this but he just said he doesn't see me that way and it's because of how I spoke and it just turns into a negative feedback loop, then he'll say "I'm sorry, but you need to watch how you come across" and I just feel at a loss. and why all the blame on me? I would appreciate if he listened to me when I said I'm not frustrated with him, I'm just problem-solving a task. I put so much mental effort into trying to regulate my tone but I feel like I can never win and when I mess up I'm a villain. I hate mentioning my autism in the discussion because I don't want to seem like I'm excusing away my behavior, I'm not. I just feel like no matter what I do my tone doesn't come across, I can't express my feelings how I want to, and then my feelings somehow get out when I shouldn't let them. and I tried to explain this to him and he just tells me "it's not autism, it's you not knowing how you're coming off" but I try really hard and I feel like it always comes back to bite sometimes.

Another example is sometimes I will say a joke and he will take offense to it when I thought it was clear I was joking... like he will say a joke and I'll say what I thought was a mirrored, "equal" joke back, but when I do it, it's wrong even though I try really hard to make it clear I was joking and just messing with him. I'll be chill and laugh at his joke and be perfectly fine with them too so I thought it was clear it's not me trying to be spiteful and "get back at him" or anything. I got bullied a lot growing up and I know how it feels to be made small, the subject of genuine mean "jokes", etc so I try my best to be mindful of that when joking with people, especially him, but I guess I'm not doing good enough sometimes and it makes me feel powerless to my own emotions and self.

This is all just a total mess of feelings. I'm tired right now so that doesn't help. I know I'm at least partly the problem. He says I need to work on thinking about how I come across and I just feel like I try so hard but never succeed. I feel like my best option is to just not say anything and speak as little as possible and I have to remember that. sorry for rambling and sucking at explaining things.