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Obsessions taking over my work time

MichaelaS

Hi everyone, I just wanted to ask for some help and see if others shared the same experiences.

I have a part time job in a pretty big "career" type industry, and generally cope well as I can be highly focussed, I'm good at making sure I know what I'm supposed to deliver, and I like the people a lot now that I know them all well.  I do struggle with new people, or situations where I don't feel in control like going unprepared into meetings, and I prefer to stick to emails rather than face to face / phone conversations.

Anyway, what I wanted to discuss is special interests / obsessions and their interaction with work.  In the past I've always been able to keep things separate - I have leant not to "get onto one of my topics" because I don't shut up when people expect me to, and I think I can bore people.  So I generally enjoy my interests outside work and try not to talk about them in work much.

Recently I've been composing fiction in my head, all based on universes of characters from books / films, its something I like to think about when I have spare time.  I'm finding it is starting to take over whilst I'm at work too.  I guess its because my mind is bored and I'm not very engaged at work right now (tough times in the company, redundancies likely, mood generally negative and lots of people disengaged and working below full potential, myself included).  I am really struggling to keep my mind on the job.  I find I'm daydreaming a lot, my head is off in my little story universe and I forget to get on with the work i'm supposed to be doing.  I find this quite stressful because I want to do my best at work, they are paying me to use my mind on work tasks and I don't feel I'm being fair - but I'm not doing it deliberately.

Does anyone else struggle with this sort of thing, and do you ahve any tips for getting back to being focussed?  I want to feel useful and like i'm contributing again, rather than just waiting out the time to the next paycheck without getting "caught" for messing about.

It does seem that many NTs at work don't worry about wasting time having a coffee and a chat - is this an equivalent sort of thing?  I only go for coffee with people if I have something to discuss like career coaching or a specific problem with office life.  How much "wasted" time is reasonable? So tricky!

Parents

  • I may not have any tips, but I can relate to this.  A lot of my school reports contained the word 'daydreamer'.  I'm in a job right now where I could go far but I'm not enthusiastic about it.  I'm in IT support and having to deal with people all day is quite difficult, especially on the phone.  I go by the reasoning that if someone has contacted IT for help via email then they must want an email reply back, but our team leads want us to try and phone back as much as possible.  I see the sense in it but it's not something I like doing.

    I find I get bored so I end up only picking jobs I want to do and find interesting rather than higher priority stuff.  I've moved off the phones and onto a more technical role, so I'm a lot less stressed, so I now keep asset databases up to date and only cover people on the phones when they are off sick or on holiday, which is a lot at the moment, so I don't get to do anything I want to.

    I've started a degree course in Chemistry that will take 6 years to do because I have to work full time because I don't think I can cope with this support role forever.  I really want to do a job I am passionate about, not one I'm just capable of.  But I can't work out if that's normal for most people and that I should just stick at this, or follow my dreams.  The ones that take up my mind during the day.  I find I thin kabout it a lot more if I'm bored or not challenged, and I am both just now at my job. At school I used to act up and get in trouble because I was really bored, but give me a challenge where I use my brain and I can concentrate no bother on the work.  It doesn't help that my employers don't really have much of an understanding of the autistic spectrum.  They understand I have it, but not what it's about.  So if I say I'm bored or under-challenged they just give me more work to do, not different work.  It's not the same thing.  

Reply

  • I may not have any tips, but I can relate to this.  A lot of my school reports contained the word 'daydreamer'.  I'm in a job right now where I could go far but I'm not enthusiastic about it.  I'm in IT support and having to deal with people all day is quite difficult, especially on the phone.  I go by the reasoning that if someone has contacted IT for help via email then they must want an email reply back, but our team leads want us to try and phone back as much as possible.  I see the sense in it but it's not something I like doing.

    I find I get bored so I end up only picking jobs I want to do and find interesting rather than higher priority stuff.  I've moved off the phones and onto a more technical role, so I'm a lot less stressed, so I now keep asset databases up to date and only cover people on the phones when they are off sick or on holiday, which is a lot at the moment, so I don't get to do anything I want to.

    I've started a degree course in Chemistry that will take 6 years to do because I have to work full time because I don't think I can cope with this support role forever.  I really want to do a job I am passionate about, not one I'm just capable of.  But I can't work out if that's normal for most people and that I should just stick at this, or follow my dreams.  The ones that take up my mind during the day.  I find I thin kabout it a lot more if I'm bored or not challenged, and I am both just now at my job. At school I used to act up and get in trouble because I was really bored, but give me a challenge where I use my brain and I can concentrate no bother on the work.  It doesn't help that my employers don't really have much of an understanding of the autistic spectrum.  They understand I have it, but not what it's about.  So if I say I'm bored or under-challenged they just give me more work to do, not different work.  It's not the same thing.  

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