Peter Popoff
AKA Petty Pimpiń..🤑
Trying to figure out how to deal with anxiety at work.
What kind of anxiety? Do you feel where it's coming from?
Peter Popoff
AKA Petty Pimpiń..🤑
Perhaps being the only black male in this position at this company or just the day to day communication of doing my job but having to explain in concise clarity what I'm doing without confusion from the project manager.
Part of it maybe dealing with a passive aggressive form of discrimination that I can't quite put my finger on or point out.
The meetings give me anxiety over the actual work.
I also have anxiety about failing. I'm always hard on myself even when I do well.
If I'm reading right, it comes from:
Being the only Black male amongst a sea of white folk and/or discrimination
Failing in their or most importantly your eyes.
Do you worry about coming off as incompetent to those around you?
I can relate to your situation breh. I am usually the only Black person in the entire company and I'm always the only Black IT person around.
Which means I'm in service to those around me so I better know what I'm speaking on.
Do you know why you were hired in the first place?
Someone clearly saw something in you to pick you over other candidates.
Peter Popoff
AKA Petty Pimpiń..🤑
^^This. Also the weekly 1 on 1's with the PM makes me 2nd guess my job and if I want to still work here.
I feel like she has a microscope and interrogation light over-analyzing my job and panicking at everything that I say as I try to minimize communication.
Do you know if you are the first person in this role at this location? Or were you replacing someone before you?
I ask because it sounds like the position was vacant because of what I like to call "Corporate Gaslighting".
No one wants to look stupid so folks generally will choose people around them who aren't "in" with them to use for blame.
So first and foremost, you are reacting like any healthy human would in this situation. I too would be anxious having someone looking for anything (hell, even making something up) just to feel justified in giving me bullshyt for no reason other than to cast blame/look "good". So you aren't crazy or defective or anything of the sort. Your workplace is extremely unhealthy. Can't trust nobody and I doubt they trust themselves either.
A corporate gaslighting circle jerk. Sounds like Corporate America.
Now as what to do, you have a few options (just based on what you said that is, I'm sure you will have more from your perspective)
1. Speak to the Black woman higher up (as long as you trust her) and see if you can be placed elsewhere or just pick her brain about your current situation.
2. Start looking around at other options (other jobs entirely in your field) while minimizing as much contact with this PM as you can. Keep everything in writing so you don't end up in a "He said, she said".
The reason why I'm not suggesting anything like "Work with this person using strategies from self help books" or something to that effect is that it would take time with little guarantee of actually working considering it sounds like you get outnumbered even in your 1 on 1 because she keep "ammo" just to light you up.
Then you get lit up outside the meetings as well (again, if I'm understanding you correctly.)
Definitely double down on things you enjoy outside of work, it will take the edge off. Hell, If I'm feeling extra froggy from work, I leave the office and go for a long ass walk.
Peter Popoff
AKA Petty Pimpiń..🤑
Everything verbatim is what I'm dealing with. The previous BA before me is currently training me and they too pointed blame at him.
Now I'm coming in and seeing that he knows his shıt and they just want a victim. Now they're questioning my training while I'm finding resolutions and not blaming.
The other BA was moved to a different client within the company and they put her on trial by fire as well.
The person that trains me, knows that I know my shıt and am a really good worker so he doesn't want me to quit.
The job is relatively easy. It's just the repetitive nature of the beast to make someone look like an imbecile even over the most minuscule mistakes if there are any.
There's also too much stability to look around but perhaps switching to a different client to avoid working with this PM in the near future. I just need to thug it out on these 1 on 1s.
Working out in the mornings does help me cope with stress though but you're right, stepping away and doing some push-ups, squats, etc will keep my mind at ease.
Sounds like you got it handled to the best of your ability breh. You got people who clearly believe in what you can do, so fukk everybody else (cuse the French).
The paycheck still clears, forget your peers
You now know to check who the PMs are before working on a project and you'll make the best decision for yourself when that time comes.
Hit a bag a little harder than usual when you know you gotta deal with her ass that day.
Remind yourself it's them and always will be them. They can't help being stupid and malicious. WOAT combo.
Trying to make you look bad and end up making the entire team/department take the rap, huge pet peeve
Now we all look stupid, you stupid MFer
Peter Popoff
AKA Petty Pimpiń..🤑
I wish we could merge the thread below into this thread.
The reason being is because that thread helped me understand the root cause of my anxiety. Combined with all the insight from this thread and philippians 4:6-7, I woke up feeling refreshed.
I meditated and reflected into my childhood trauma in addition to me first moving to Houston with barely nothing in my pocket. Those times in my life produced high anxiety in times of fear of the unknown. I would often think of the worse outcomes in most situations.
I'm also reading a book called "don't believe everything you think". I think I will work on writing a book kind of stemming off this.
The reason being is because that thread helped me understand the root cause of my anxiety. Combined with all the insight from this thread and philippians 4:6-7, I woke up feeling refreshed.
I meditated and reflected into my childhood trauma in addition to me first moving to Houston with barely nothing in my pocket. Those times in my life produced high anxiety in times of fear of the unknown. I would often think of the worse outcomes in most situations.
I'm also reading a book called "don't believe everything you think". I think I will work on writing a book kind of stemming off this.
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As black men, we need to be honest with ourselves first. Be honest about the traumas we've faced since we were born
Sexual trauma namely. This awareness is what starts our processing. This is what begins our healing
Sexual trauma namely. This awareness is what starts our processing. This is what begins our healing