When reflexes acquired in your job are invading your daily life.
-When i was an intern in a retail, i had to fight against the urge to store the shelves during my own shopping sessions.
I’m a software developer. I get very agitated when I have to sit next to someone who operates their computer slowly.
I’m a software tester. I break everything I use whether I’m trying or not.
Not catching things. I worked at a leather shop with a lot of very sharp things.
I will just watch stuff fall. Even if it’s a friend tossing me my keys or something. Watch it sail thru the air and land right on the ground. Then I normally say “don’t throw shit at me” as their regular reminder that my instinct isn’t to catch things.
Also the phrase “heads up” doesn’t encourage me to catch something either. It encourages me to check the position of me feet for possible stabs.
I got really used to technical conversations at work going “full duplex” where we’d excitedly talk over each other and interrupt constantly, just to get to each conclusion faster. I had a close coworker join my team, and he was much harder than normal to get a word in, so I got better at jumping in to interrupt until we were at the same pace and the technical communication was synced and flowing well.
Around a month after I’d been working with him, my wife started telling me I was being very rude and interrupting her more than usual. I guess the habit came home with me. I’m still working on it, though it’s been over 5 years since I switched out of his team.
One of my first jobs was in a call center with a scripted greeting using an assertive voice because the customers always tried to dunk on us. My friends and family would laugh so hard when I answered my personal phone with the script/voice.
I used to work in a call center with a very long spiel for answering the phone. I never used it when someone called me, but one time I had a dream that my phone was ringing at work. I woke up (sort of), picked up my cell phone, and recited the script … Only to finally open my eyes and see I was talking to no one but my befuddled dog.
When I get in the car, I hit the blinker lever by instinct because on a forklift it puts you into forward or reverse gear.
Oh man, I’ve done the opposite and slammed the forklift into reverse when going to turn.
I’ve been working in high acuity psychiatry for 10 years. I notice when doors don’t click shut behind me and if I don’t hear a solid click or an electric lock whirring sound I get the urge to check the handle, even at home / in my apartment complex. I can feel people behind me on the street if they’re closer than about 20 feet back. I don’t like sitting without a wall behind me (it was weird going back to school and explaining that my ADHD preferential seating accommodation was the back row, not the front).
Graduated a couple years ago with an English PhD: when I go to read anything, I always pick up a pen or pencil as if I’m going to annotate it. I still have to hold one but don’t click it out, like a security blanket, otherwise I feel immensely guilty.
Did a literature Master’s. Cant not skim unless I’m actively stopping myself from it. Also, the internal literary critic never shuts off, but I think that it’s a good thing to always be in critical thinking mode in this day and age, even if it means I can’t “it’s just a story” anymore.
We called that “reading diagonally”
Former land surveyor. Was definitely counting my paces when I was not surveying.
Background: you’d often try to capture a grid of points, or cross section of a road, for example, at regular intervals. You’d roughly know your normal stride length conversion to metres, so if I were doing a 10m grid, it’d be: shoot a point, walk 11 paces, shoot a point, repeat for hundreds, sometimes thousands of points. It wasn’t long until you would be counting paces when you weren’t actively surveying.
Used to work in underground mining, every time there wasn’t enough light, I’d reach for my cap lamp on my head
We also used left hand drive cars in a right hand drive country and when I went home I’d get in the wrong side of the car
Lol I do this too especially when I’m wearing a helmet while it’s dark out. The creeping dread once you realize you don’t have a cap lamp then the slow relief after you understand the situation is definitely an experience.
Lol oh dear. I assume you twist the lamp to turn it on. Does it look like you are grabbing an invisible dick and giving it a twist? At least it is dark so no one else can see you.
It’s a button…
Lol. Pressing a button on your forehead. Still humours. Sry. I’m easily amused.
Decades of working IT in various capacities including a lot of support roles at various levels have led me to usually suspect that anyone coming to to me saying that they can’t get something to work is doing something wrong, regardless if it’s IT or something else completely unrelated.
This is often combined with me trying to suggest possible solutions whenever someone complains or vents. This one drives my wife crazy sometimes and she’s had to teach me that sometimes she just wants emotional support and solidarity rather than possible ways to fix whatever she is venting about.
“behind”
It’s always ridiculed when you say it in your personal life and then they inevitably drop some shit because you’re behind them.
I have been known to say it to my cat though, which is kinda deserving of a little ridicule.
Beautiful. I’d actually forgotten until I started watching The Bear TV series. It’s been decades.
Doing Uber in a very red state, I have to bite my tongue when people bring up politics. It’s turned into me not talking about it around friends who share my beliefs for the most part. And it kinda sucks, cause I really did enjoy a good debate.
There is no debate anymore, it’s just obtuse mouth hole noises
Yeah, but my income still depends on me not letting them know I’m closer to a communist than whatever they think they are.
I used to do order picking in a large warehouse. We used headphones that told you were to go. You could also give verbal commands liek “repeat”. So after a week or so I started “repeat”-ing my mom when I didn’t hear what she said.
I used to do order picking in a large warehouse. We used headphones that told you were to go.
Professionally, my ethics dictate that I speak up and force a change whenever I see any action that can lead to a catastrophic failure. This didn’t make someone popular.
Used to be an Amazon delivery driver. Cursed with the knowledge of what all those stickers mean on my packages.
Also you’ll start noticing their massive delivery trucks everywhere.
Okay, now I’m really curious. What do they say?
The yellow sticker usually correspond to what tote they belong in and the order they’re in for the delivery route, first thing you typically do is unpack a tote in the truck and sort them by number for ease of access.
My brain wants to trigger this sorting mode whenever I grab my packages, and it just reminds me of that terrible job.
Amazon has a system of desperate contractor companies that are absolutely reliant on amazon since they own the warehouses, trucks, and everything, but are also a moment away from having their contract ended, basically destroying the company. As a result you’re not really respected even if your employer tries hard to, they just can’t care for employees at risk of dissolving.
