Just thought I’d share… 😅
So I’ve got emetophobia and I’m a cleaner and a few weeks ago I was cleaning someone’s toilet with the toilet brush and my worst nightmare came true. I accidentally splashed a bit of toilet water onto my lips and in that moment I just knew I was going to get sick because I’ve basically got faeces and dirty water on my mouth 👄🙃 surprise surprise, 36 hours later I came down with a sickness bug, THE WORST one I have ever had in my entire life, because I’m such a strong emetophobe, I physically could not be sick, was dry heaving for about 5 hours and going through the motions of being sick but my brain didn’t let it come out lol, but boy did it come out the other end and baddd. Thought I was gonna have to go to hospital to get IV fluids, my partner had to come home from work because I was barely conscious so yeah that was a great experience. Safe to say, I’ve not used a single toilet brush since, thinking about it it’s the most disgusting thing ever as it’s literally full of shit and I’ve always been scared it would splash in my face. If you got this far, thanks for reading and sorry for being gross 🤣🤣
Everyone at work speaks to me like shit.
At work, the majority of my team and wider colleagues speak down to me. There’s a huge lack of respect towards me. They over explain, they tell me “I’m learning”, and then proceed to offer unsolicited advice about how to do my job. They talk over me and demand I do things, and when I resist they become more forceful in their tone. They sometimes actually take over my work and make decisions they have no place to be making. They even introduced me to external professionals as “our little (insert job title). It’s beyond patronising.
I’m not a trainee, I started as a trainee and people never let me forget that. But I’ve been there 3 years, and I’m more qualified and knowledgeable than many in my team. I’m extremely competent at my job, my manger confirms this and really likes me, and I even won an award and a bonus at an annual employee conference last year for my work as an outstanding employee who goes above and beyond. Only 9 people won awards out of almost 4,000 employees who could have been nominated. I’m just saying this so it’s clear I’m not some incompetent fool.
I can’t understand why people treat me this way. I thought it might be because I can be quite self-deprecating, but today I was wondering if it’s my appearance.
Most people I work with are 40-55 years old. I am late 30s, but look, dress and act a lot younger because I’m immature and don’t have my personal life together. When I tell people my age, 9 times out of 10 they’re very surprised and say they thought I was in my mid twenties. So I was wondering if it’s like a perceived age discrimination thing, even though it’s imaginary because I’m older. What do think it going on here? Has any actual real young person on here faced this by older colleagues where there’s just a huge lack of respect?