Does your sense of injustice get you in trouble?

Think it's our hyper awareness getting in our way. Anything we see as not right, we pay greater attention to and so it feels like a bigger deal to us. I remember this one time I joined this group of people for D&D like games. There was this one player who would often get shut down when he expressed himself. I thought it was mean of them, so I talked to the DM (the game host) about it and he agreed to be watchful of behaviour, but warned me that there was a reason the player was often shot down. Eventually I came to understand it for myself, that this player had a very strong sense of "my way is the right way", and the other players had been through it enough that they knew when to check him on his behaviour. Once I realised this, the struggle became to hold onto my middle ground and not join the chorus of people telling this one person to stop.

I've lost jobs because I spoke out against injustice. I've learned that if I want to pay bills and put food on the table, I need to hold my tongue at certain times. (Not literally - if I held my tongue literally, no doubt I would be in contravention of an obscure policy regarding the holding of tongues.)

I'm always sticking my head above the parapet and getting shot al, I've leared to duck fast and well. The other thing I've found as I get older is that I care less about not offending other people, some of the things people do offend me, why does my sense of offence matter less than theirs? I can't say that I like confrontation, but I'm less avoident of it than I used to be and I feel more grounded in my ability to make my case and stand my ground.

I think we need to ask ourselves what is the "trouble" we fear we're get in? 

Hergé said:

there has to be a point when enough is enough

I can think of no occasions when this has not had some repercussions for me so the key seems to be knowing what to expect and deciding if the anxiety of doing nothing is worse than the after effects of doing something.

A good analogy could be referenced through the old fable about King Canut and his attempt to stop the tide coming in on the sea shore.

That feels like how I have experienced life amongst the neurodiverse workforce - 10 years as a technician and 22 as a manager if all sorts of companies.

A few are really supportive but didn't last that long until they were assimilated by bigger companies, went bust or changed management. The Civil Service are one example that was quite good but the beurocracy is crushing there.

One of my Achilles heels has been that I've always been more interested in looking after the teams I manage rather than being the managements puppet to implement whatever hare brained micro management ideas flit through their deranged minds - being that resistance buffer always got me into trouble even though it meant the team contined to work very effectively and were largely content.

It is little coincidence that the teams often ended up leaving after I was pushed out and quite often some staff would follow me to new companies.

The solution would be for me to be a good little manager and do exactly as I was told and let the senior management idea of the day land on the team, making their life a confusing, inefficient mess and ignore the stuff I've learned through my career because my bosses boss heard about a great idea from his mate on the gold course.

So for me the point where enough is enough is when it starts to hurt the team I'm responsible for.

Learn from my lesson though - if you can be the management lackey and do what you are told then it bodes well for job security, at least up until the point the team leave and you are left being unable to deliver the level of service you are obliged to give, then it is suddenly your fauly and they will hire me in to fix it...

Oh the irony!

Yes. This exactly. Although there has to be a point when enough is enough. There's so much crap going on around the world, sometimes it feels prudent to bury my head in the sand 

As someone who wants to remain somewhat invisible I'm loathed to stick my head out of the trench.

Every day.

- Mellowjian

I really like that about the trenches! Thank you. Think I might go back to avoiding as me trying to fix things never works and makes everything worse ️

TheMaskedPro said:

as I’ve gotten older it’s stronger and I feel I need to do something about it.

I'm probably the opposite - I've learned that sticking your head above the trench wall is a sure way to get it shot at.

NTs don't have our sense of justice and trying to get this across is a recipe for disaster in my experience.

Just live and let live - less friction = less stress and more energy for enjoying life.