Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi all,
I have a very customer-facing job, and pre-lockdown was able to mask whilst at work fairly successfully, though it was exhausting at times. I have the advantage of spending a lot of the day by myself as well, and so was able to use this time to "recharge" before going back into the customer-facing environment. Over lockdown my role has been predominantly at home doing meetings over Skype/Zoom/Teams etc., but now that I'm working face-to-face more and more I feel like I've regressed massively. Masking seems to take orders of magnitude more effort than it did before lockdown. I realise that this could probably be put down to lack of practise, but it is concerning me.
Has anyone else had this experience? Please tell me it's not just me...
Novusalopian said:Masking seems to take orders of magnitude more effort than it did before lockdown. I realise that this could probably be put down to lack of practise, but it is concerning me. Has anyone else had this experience? Please tell me it's not just me...
Masking seems to take orders of magnitude more effort than it did before lockdown. I realise that this could probably be put down to lack of practise, but it is concerning me.
No it is not just you ~ as masking is a social reciprocation requiring therefore personal interactions with other people to remain 'fluent' or 'well practised' in them, as they are not 'natural' processes but rather 'normalised' ones ~ so getting back into the habit of masking after having spent more time than usual out of it is to be expected.
Being on the diagnostic spectrum does of course involve having rather a proclivity for habitually engrained behaviour patterns, also, so there is that as well.
Thanks, Deepthought. I'm glad it's not just me. It's frustrating that I've regressed so much. Any tips on getting back into the swing of it without making too many faux pas?
Novusalopian said:Thanks, Deepthought
Glad to have been of some assistance.
Novusalopian said:I'm glad it's not just me.
It has been a topic of discussion on other sites too.
Novusalopian said: It's frustrating that I've regressed so much.
Maybe reign-in the goal oriented focus on this one and be "pragmatic" about taking advantage of the situation, remembering that everyone has been thrown somewhat into a strange new "whirled" ~ and many people are quite socially starved and have regressed to an extent themselves, also.
Novusalopian said:Any tips on getting back into the swing of it without making too many faux pas?
Use social camouflaging a little more in the sense of blending-in and pragmatically go 'heel to toe' and 'heel to toe' with the personal masking ~ so that you edge forward progressively rather than leaping forward and suddenly going faux-pas tastic.
I mean most people have adjusted to authoritarianism to large extent with all the emergency measures covid wise, so as such you might well be able to use your pragmatism to a greater extent (in a progressively conservative sense) and ease into the social swing of things as they develop anew, perhaps