The boss says I'm on a honest guy who hasn't cheated him, and I even make the customers happy most of the time, but I have trouble communicating. He said if I would just look people in the eye and give them undivided attention, he would have kept me, but as it stands he doesn't have the time to put up with me. He says I clam up when I'm nervous and stop communicating. He said I should do whatever I'm passionate about... I mean i have a degree... all I got to do, he says, is find something I love so much that I would do it for free. Pest control isn't for me.

He speaks wisdom. Except that I signed up for pest control precisely for the reasons he enumerated. People drive me bonkers. Pest control is one of those businesses that lets you talk to people minimally and listen to podcasts or audiobooks while you work.

The reason the office settled on for getting rid of me was essentially 'bad communication skills'. I'm thinking... if I can't even hold a job in pest control due to bad communication skills... I'm screwed.

This is getting st the heart of what has made my life difficult for a very long time. The boss is right: I do clam up when I'm nervous around people. I've spent most of my life living in a socially anxious state. It's half the reason I was miserable as a Mormon. The other half of the reason is that Mormonism is bullshit and teaches its members to have poisonous views about themselves and about the world they live in.

All the reasons that life is hard exist with or without Mormonism, but Mormonism is false and just makes it all harder. On the other hand, I have shafted the community and support network i grew up in.

My boss talked about the fact that I have a degree and I can go places these other guys working pest control cannot. I don't know. I'm going to start looking for another job tomorrow. I just don't know what I'm good at. Even with a degree — even if I got more schooling — my faith in my ability to market myself and then get along with others in a work environment is paltry.

I'm ADHD as fuck. Currently not medicated. I had health insurance. Now I lost it. Never used it. I'm thinking the healthcare system in this country sucks. You gotta work for the aid that helps you be able to work.

I don't know what I'm good for. I don't want to work pest control again. I feel like my next boss, no matter what i do, is just gonna tell me the same thing: I can't focus on the work and I'm frustrating to work with because I clam up when I'm nervous around people.

I need a nerdy environment. I need to be around things I love to learn about and people who I can talk with about it. Or I need to be apart from people altogether. I'm not sure what to look for next.

Everyone says "well you got a DEGREE" like it's a major accomplishment but unless it's a PhD in the science a lot of degrees don't automatically equate to great doors of opportunity opening up for you. A B.A. is almost like a HS diploma these days.

If you can't communicate (verbally in person) any job will be more difficult.

If you're writing oriented try to find something that lets you do that.

Security is good too but again you occasionally do have to communicate with people.

I'm sorry, C-D. Are you eligible for unemployment? I would file for it tomorrow.

Getting fired is not the end of the world. Bear in mind that the reason you were given may or may not be the real reason. What I can say is that given you have shown up every day, and sincerely given the job your best shot, what getting fired usually means is that the job is a poor fit for you. I was fired from one job that was a poor fit for me, and the next job that I got was great. So please don't be discouraged.

I do agree with your boss that you can use this as an opportunity to think about what you do want to do. It doesn't necessarily mean going back to school. It means picking a direction and pursuing it, as opposed to letting the winds of change bat you this way and that.

The worse your people skills are the better your technical skills have to be in order to be employable. If you have some social anxiety you may want to focus on becoming very, very good at something that would make you more attractive to employers. I recently Cal Newport's book, So Good They Can't Ignore You. I recommend it. A degree doesn't necessarily mean anything. A lot depends on what it is in.

So basically all that is apparent from looking at my degree is that I have one. :/ I was studying English at BYUI. I became so isolated towards the end and so discouraged with my situation I just took what degree they would give me before they found out what I was and crucified me for associating with exmormons.

community college credits, duel enrollment credits from high school, and a year and half of exploring different majors before I settled on English. I did settle. I mean... I liked my major, but I'm interested in so many different things. But I'm indecisive, insecure, and full of anxiety. Losing my testimony and gaining the courage to read 'antimormon' books was a huge step for me.

You can google " jobs for introverts, people who don't like people , etc"
A job with animals, maybe assembly line work, though that's a lot of standing, post office, sorting mail, local truck driver or deliver person
You can look up quizs that you can take, on the internet , to see what you're good at and your interest
If you already have a degree, it'll be easier, maybe just take a few extra classes
Do you have any interests or hobbies that can be turned into a job?
It can just be your boss with the problem, another similar company might appreciate you

If you have severe anxiety or ADHD ( if you meant that literally) , you can probably get some kind of disability or SSDI, or similar. You probably won't get it the first time( most people don't), but just keep reapplying
I get all of them mixed up, but there are different degrees of disabilities and social security type programs for people with disabilities ( true social anxiety can be considered a disability, if it really keeps you from getting a job

Introverts make poor extroverts. Period.

Orson Scott Card is a famous Mormon introvert, who made his livelihood writing science fiction.

He says in some interviews that introverts and office jobs DO NOT MIX. The back stabbing and office politics & banter are not conducive to an introvert's fertile inner life or machinations.

Oh that we all had the luxury of being a great science fiction writer. Somewhere there's a niche for you. The challenge is finding your happy place. It's hard when you're young and starting out, and there are obstacles for you to overcome.

Orson Scott Card also said that introverts make the best writers. Believe that, and believe in yourself.

Take things one day at a time.

If you need to work on developing your communication skills, that is doable. You're already a good writer. So you know how to convey what you're thinking and feeling. Communicating that verbally is just a different mode of communication.

Dealing with your social anxiety incrementally may be all that you need to tweak your communication skills to helping you overcome what's holding you back.

Also consider that a pest control company though it was a job, it wasn't really a job that suits you or your personality. You're so much more than that. Honestly, it was a sucky job. That boss may have done you a huge favor. He freed you to find something that is hopefully more suitable for you. You're a smart guy. You need to find somewhere that can utilize your potential.

Since you're back in Arizona and away from Idaho, look around and see who's hiring and what positions at your local universities/colleges.

You might be a perfect fit for a campus position. Doing something anything where you're in a university setting, might just be your comfort zone.

If you are in Arizona, avoid living in or working in the east valley suburbs of Phoenix. Those areas are all extensions of Utah mormon communities, just with warmer weather. With Gilbert, Mesa, Tempe, and Chandler, you might just as well live on the Wasatch front. Move to Phoenix. Find out where the temples are and avoid moving anywhere near a temple. Act ignorant and disinterested when anyone brings up the mormon church. Stay off of their radar. Once you're found or targeted, it gets extremely difficult to stay disconnected from the church after that. I resigned before I started this process. That makes it easier too. If they ever find or target me and don't respect my boundries, I am prepared to turn from being a nice guy, in to the meanest asshole they've ever encountered. For a guy that has difficulty communicating, it's probably just easier to avoid being found or targeted.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/03/2017 03:40PM by azsteve.

Try self-employment. Arizona is very favorable to the self employed. With your experience, you could probably get a pest control license pretty easily.

Self-employment is a totally different dynamic. Anyone who treats you badly is someone that you don't even have to be nice to. Don't get me wrong. Most of the time I am nice to everyone, even those who don't deserve it. But if anyone treats me badly at work, I have to take it and deal with it by being nice to them anyway. It only takes one time of telling someone to fuck off to get you fired from a job. Things weren't much diferent when I was self employed, except that I could tell anyone who acted abusively, to fuck off, and there were no negative consequences that resulted as long as you are reasonably nice to everyone else.

You may have to learn how to sell your own services if you are self employed. But you can work twice as hard if you want to, and make twice as much. You might even be able to hire a sales person. If your work is good, he or she will be lucky to have found you. That solves most of your communications problems, if they were ever real to begin with. But by doing most of your work via contract instead of through employment, you may find that communications come very easy. There is little or no obligation to be other than who you are. On a daily basis, you find new people who are more like you and with who it is easy to build lasting friendships and business relations with.

It is really hard to be fired from any job, even if you hated it. It feels like rejection no matter what. We have all had that happen. I believe they have some great training available to you at the Department of Workforce Services. I have a friend who took advantage of everything available and he ended up with an awesome job. He made it is job to learn everything he could. Like you, he had difficulty communicating. They were able to help him overcome so many issues. Good luck!

Cold-Dodger Wrote:
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> I'm ADHD as fuck. Currently not medicated.

Just FYI:

The CEO of the company I'm working for, who is an old friend (we worked together for 8 years at another company, knew each other in the business before that), is ADHD. And OCD. And not medicated.

I've gotten used to him coming into my office to talk, fidgeting uncomfortably for a while, then quietly getting up, walking over to my desk, and moving something "out of place" so he can get over his OCD anxiety for a few minutes. And with him losing focus during a conversation.

But, see, none of that matters. They're "quirks" of who he is. And who he is, is also a smart businessman who has great ideas, and who surrounds himself with people he trusts and likes, who are also often a bit "quirky" but damn good at what they do. This guy started his own company, sold it for several million $, went on to be biz-dev management and VP at several large companies, started another of his own companies (the one we're at now), and is beloved and respected by anybody that's ever worked for him. I'd walk through fire for the guy.

You are who you are. Don't get discouraged because you're not like "most" people -- that's a strength, not a weakness. Don't think your "faults" are more important than your strengths -- they're not.

It isn't easy to find "your" place in this crazy world. It takes a lot of looking, and often a lot of failing -- finding out that THIS place isn't yours.

One thing is sure, though -- you'll never find your place if you stop looking. And trying. And failing.

Chin up.

Even in an assembly line you have interaction with your supervisor and interact with fellow workers. In any job setting some of your coworkers as well as customers are liable to have their own communication problems (styles, to put the best spin on it) compounding the problem.

Getting professional help with your social anxiety is the best investment you can make right now. Many therapists have sliding scales.. even if you saw one even monthly that's better than nothing - the relationship would be there. (Choose a therapist who is qualified and with whom you can establish a good rapport. Don't settle. Pointless)

I know you are feeling pretty bad right now, but you are smart, articulate and I think decent and kind. You are probably a really good listener and a good observer. You have so much to offer any employer. Social anxiety may be the thing that you just have to chip away at day by day, year after year, in fact. Most of us have something we need to work on over years, even a lifetime. In the case of severe social anxiety my guess is that professional help is needed. In the meantime take the smallest, most doable steps you can to manage it. A self-help group might be helpful; at least the other people will understand what you are going through, which is helpful in itself.

Again, with your smarts and your personal qualities you have a lot to offer an employer (and other people in general).

I don't know if this will be helpful, but I would like to respond. I am sorry that you feel this way. I think a lot of people/us feel inadequate at times. We aren't perfect, after all.

I have always been pretty outgoing, yet I also prefer solitude and not dealing with other people. I can, but most often I don't prefer to.

I guess that I can fake it enough. Or in the right circumstances I do pretty well. BUT....I remember being about your age and being in some circumstances at work that I just couldn't be confident enough. I wondered what was wrong, because after all I was pretty good in most other situations.

I found that over time (several years) I got better dealing with difficult situations and being more assertive.

What I am saying is that I believe that time, experience, and yes some failure can result in improved ability to deal with uncomfortable, personal, professional, and other situations where you need to be more assertive and personable. Please don't despair.

I'm one of the most introverted people you could ever be afraid of meeting. I'm going to share what helped me be less afraid.

At 18, my only friend got me hired on where she worked, which today would be considered a fancy truck stop in the middle of nowhere. The BFE location off of a major interstate made it a very busy place. I took orders at the counter, short-order cooked and served, pumped gas and stocked and sold merchandise.

The job was a must-have, as it was my only means of support in my escape from my family. I had never worked outside of working at home. My brain was way beyond the job, but I was what was then politely called "painfully shy." It was an apt description. My disposition made others uncomfortable; the "pain" was bilateral. My social abilities fell short, but I was a hard worker, accomplished whatever task they gave me, so they kept me on.

A year later, I had learned many tricks to fake what I did not feel: confidence. I watched others, mimicked their responses and body language - it was hard, it didn't feel authentic and it took a lot of fails and trial behaviors to find some sort of footing with strangers. I kept working at it.

My next job was similar, but more intense. I actually had to hawk the product in a store setting. Again, I needed the job, no going home. By faking it, I became a top seller.

Your intellectual brain is way beyond these types of tasks, but your social brain needs this training in the worst way. Your intellectual brain, right now, knows exactly what I'm suggesting that you do.

Go get a service job at a fast-food place (no back-end cooking only), or better, be a waiter in an IHOP or similar place, and pretend that your life depends on learning the social skills that you lack. It's not about the work, it's not about your intellectual capacity, it's not even about the job itself. It's about you learning to make others feel comfortable around you, even when you don't feel comfortable around them. It's about learning to live with - even thrive with - your disability.

It's forcing your intellectual brain to get the education that is needed to take control of your life.

No matter how humiliating you may think that such a job might be for someone with your credentials, your credentials did not include this training. You can get paid while getting this needed education.

Decades later, and I'm still painfully shy, but I can sell myself and my ideas, and, I can put people at ease. They LIKE to tell me their stories.

That is excellent advice. Although being an introvert and being shy is not the same thing, many times they are together.

Sometimes changing ourselves for the better is a conscious choice that we can make if we want it bad enough. With help from counselling and medication you can overcome the anxiety and ADD.

I think that is good advice. I was shy and introverted as a teenager. I deliberately chose a very social, party college in order to improve my social skills. Later I went into sales for a period of time with the same end in mind.

Having said that, I think that when it comes time to select a career field, it is best to choose something in line with one's temperment.

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking
Book by Susan Cain

Please read this book OP. I promise it will explain a lot and help you with this. Good luck!
Don't let the obnoxious, loud mouth extroverts boss you around or make you feel lesser than

read it a while back. Loved it.

¿ whats your degree in OPie ? ~

If you like computers, how about accounting or software development? Sometimes you can work from home and not see people face to face in those jobs.

I took a javascripting class once in community college. I'm somewhat interested in trying to develop my math skills again, but logic-based coding might be better. I really don't have any idea where to go from here.

My cousin's husband manages a pet control company in California. I'm sure he wishes his employees were half as diligent as you are, inability to look directly at people when speaking notwithstanding. There are things more important than direct eye contact, for crying out loud. You're killing pests in and around people's homes, not trying a case on Judge Judy.

I have been fired a few times over 30 yesrs. Each time, it was inconvenient, but a blessing to be free of working for toxic people. I also had major communication issues growing up. I took a public speaking course at Dale Carnegie and that helped tremendously.I also became a communications major at college and worked on turning my weaknesses into strengths. Even after all the training, school, etc. that I experienced over 20 years, when I learned the Mormon Church in 2014 is a cult, I developed social anxiety. I went through Dialectical Behavioral Train for 6 months. That helped but my anger level is still deep over the betrayal, lies, abuse, exploitation and violation from the cult.

Cold-dodger, you wrote: "I've spent most of my life living in a socially anxious state. It's half the reason I was miserable as a Mormon. The other half of the reason is that Mormonism is bullshit and teaches its members to have poisonous views about themselves and about the world they live in.

These are the truest sentences in your post. This can be applied to me. I believe that most people are a little bit anxious in social situations--especially with business clients, or others that they need to impress. I have known a lot of successful sales people, and this is true of them. (A few of these dynamic, successful business people do NOT look you in the eye.)

Sorry--but your former employer, who fired you, is full of BULL! I mean it! Please don't let this person change your view of yourself. The creep is obviously trying to intimidate you, by killing you with kindness while saying horrible back-handed things about you. Don't believe him! He's trying to avoid getting sued by you! Yes, even in a "right to hire" state, employers are afraid of being sued by ex-employees. I assume you live in Utah.

Please--I would feel awful if you let that jerk make you feel bad! (Can you sue him? Find out if you can. It seems he has no valid reason for firing you!) He is NOT your friend, so you can sue him without a guilty conseince.

I will bet money that someone else wants your job! Yes--some relative of your employer's! You wait and see who takes your place. Return and report, OK? It's probably a cousin, or someone's son who just returned from a mission...find out.

If you discover the REAL reason, you will quickly feel better about yourself.

I and a lot of my colleagues will not hire, or work with, or work for Mormons. They can't be trusted. I know this from my own experiences, as well as the experiences of others in the business world.

Whatever job you get in the future--you need to carefully interview and closely examine who you work for. A job interview works both ways, you know. You worked for jerks, IMO.

Hi Cold, If I could make a suggestion, try coding. You would be awesome at it. Writing is 80% of the job, and coders just plain suck at it. That pisses away the value of what otherwise should be perfectly good code. Someone else will reinvent their wheel. The other 20%, language is language. Google made JavaScript king, so you could have a good long run with that.

On the cash side of things, google freelance writing. There are sites that hook you up with writing jobs. Blogging, ad writing, tech writing, there's all kinds of writing and someone has to do the writing. For money.

It goes without saying, but I'll say it. If your boss is LDS or like minded, you should pray and thank God that you were stabbed in the back now.

I dunno, too harsh? Just because it's true...

I hope you get a chance to read this. I used to be just like that. Then at the end of 2006 I got a passport abd came to China. It was incredibly liberating. I discovered that so much of my anxiety came from knowing the people around me expected me to be a certain way. I was so anxious from trying to either fit what they expected, or to simply not be noticed at all.

Here in China it doesn't matter. Nobody expects me to be anything. Most of the time I can't even understand what people are saying anyway. It's completely liberating.

If you still don't have a job, and want to escape from all the stress of life where you are, you could have a job tomorrow.