I’ll go one step farther and say I’ve never been stressed at all. I don’t even know what stress feels like. Often I find myself going for positions that are fast-paced and generally perceived as stressful (I like being busy), and during interviews, I have a hard time answering questions about how well I handle stress without sounding completely full of shit. The answer is I don’t. Stress is not something that I experience. This doesn’t mean I’ve not been in what others would consider stressful situations, or that I don’t understand or appreciate high pressure, just that I don’t get stressed about it. Quarter and year end around here, everybody loses their shit, and I’m the only one who’s like, “Hey, what’s everybody so up in arms about?” It’s not that I don’t care either, because I do, I just feel fine instead of stressed.
And it’s not just my work life, either. I don’t experience stress in my personal life either, at all. I’m pretty sure that means I have some form of autism, or something.
Lucky duck. I’ve actually had to get out of my seat and tell kids to shut up. I haven’t had to do this in years (my best guess is this has a lot to do with where I live[d]), and last time I did, a stranger seated near me leaned over and said “Thank you.” That felt nice, because it confirmed in my mind that it wasn’t just me being a cranky old battle axe.
I’ve never had an item get stuck in a vending machine, either.
I’ve also never been in a “real” fight (a couple scuffles in elementary school, but that’s it. Nothing as an adult or even a teenager.)
Realted to the above, I was never the victim of bullying post elementary school, nor did I know or see anyone who was. When I was a kid, there was a couple of other kids who bullied pretty much everyone (hence the couple scuffles,) but once we all got to junior high and high school, I guess they realized it was stupid? I don’t remember anything beyond the occasional name-calling when I was a teen, and that was sporadic, and never to me. Certainly no one getting shoved into lockers, or getting wedgies or swirlies, or even merciless verbal tauniting. I always assumed the type of bullying you saw in TV and movies was made-up for the sake of the plot, and no one really had that done to them. Then I heard about it really happening to people, and not just “back in the day”, but to people my own age (I went to highschool in the late 90’s.) Weird. I mean…the teachers’ didn’t stop the bullies? Or give them suspensions after the fact or something? How could they get away with actual physical violence? Baffling…
I’ve seen workplace bullying mentioned a few times on the board and I’ve never witnessed anything like that. Naturally I’ve worked in places where there are people who don’t like one another, but I’ve never seen actual bullying happen in a workplace.
I hate stress so much. I’m like you, I don’t experience it but that’s a pretty big problem. Stressed out assholes always think less of you when you’re not showing signs of stress. Apparently, it means you don’t care enough.
Graduate School Admissions Officer for 5 years with a private office and the real decision making power was in my pen. Not once did I have a potential student make me an offer.
My life is one endless parade of extremely improbably events and I have never figured out why. If you can name it, it probably really happened to me in some version. I even won the equivalent of a large lottery and once found myself at school in my underwear.
I never had anyone cheat on me though and I never have either.
Something similar to this scene from Monkey Business
Groucho: Are you the floorwalker? I want to register a complaint.
Captain: What’s the matter? -
Groucho: Matter enough.
You know who sneaked into my stateroom at 3 a.m.?
Captain: Who did that? -
Groucho: Nobody, and that’s my complaint.
I’m young. I want gaiety, laughter, ha-cha-cha.
I wanna dance.
[Singing] I wanna dance till the cows come home
Never been hit on by anyone I’d want to hit back, if you know what I mean and I think you do.
Same here. Twice the luggage was delayed on the way home, and they brought it, though they knew where it was so no problems. Only once did it get delayed when I was not heading home, and that was when the flight I was supposed to be on got cancelled, and I hopped on another one with seconds to spare. And the luggage arrived that night - late, but that night. That’e over about 40 years of flying.
I’ve never had any significant issues with my mail delivery OR with the SS survivor benefits I (as a widow) and my kids get. But I hear ALL THE TIME about how awful these “government run, socialist programs” are…Hmmm. (even from my own mother, who is on SS and Medicare and has no complaints about HER benefits…but she buys into the whole theory )
I can still mail a letter for, what is it now? 50 cents or so? and I have NEVER not had something arrive or not gotten something sent to me via the USPS. Never. What a deal, imo. Check the rates of the private sector services.
And our benefits (the money my late husband paid in over his working life, lest any interpret it as “welfare”) arrive on time every month. Never had a problem. Very efficient, imo.
About the only things I can think of. I HAVE witnessed loud, rude people and/or their children in movie theaters, people trying to touch my pregnant belly, and any number of other common complaints.
I’ve never been called for jury duty. I’ve had a driver’s license since 1969 (most of the time in the same state), been registered to vote since 1972, own a house, have a automobile registered, all that stuff.
They must somehow know I’d be a shitty jury member.
So in the middle of some super urgent thing, this one frenetic woman became downright snippy with me when my response to her hyper-stressed lunacy was a laid back “Okay.” She said something along the lines of, “This needs to happen now is what I’m trying to impress upon you.” Is what she’s trying to impress upon me! As if I didn’t understand the immediacy because I wasn’t losing my shit like she was. My response was something like “I’ll do what I can, and if they give us what we want, they give us what we want, and if they don’t, they don’t.” In hindsight, that kind of response may have seemed flippant, and perhaps confirmed the suspicions she had about me not taking things seriously. As a saving grace, I got what we needed before the deadline. Not by some sheer coincidence, mind you, but because I busted my ass. I guess my lack of apparent stress meant she needed to “impress upon” me the urgency.
So fast forward to maybe a few months later. Long story short, this same fuckface was forced to come into direct and involved contact with the work I do, and marveled at how much I do in how little time. She asked me some annoying and asinine question regarding whether or not my work was always this hectic and complex, with such unreasonably tight deadlines. Yes. Yes, it is. I somehow manage to have its seriousness “impressed upon” me without her help, and do far more then she admittedly could without help.
It was nice to see her eat her words, but it’s still annoying that for some, you’re not perceived as serious unless you’re a panicky maniac. But then, it’s even nicer to know that those types of morons aren’t the people who affect anything I need.
)