All my life I’ve been a pushover, Im very friendly and agreeable.
People who are just one position above me treat me like an idiot/kid or they micromanage me all the time telling me what I should do exc.
I always do what they say to me and I dont want to overreact
Everytime I tried to stand for myself I felt like I was acting out of character or I was too formal and educated to sound assertive.
Ex. I work as a garbage man with another person, he is the driver of the truck and I just do the manual labour.
Well, he should help me but he made me do 80% of the work,I dont want to speal with the boss because it would be over reacting.
Also he treats me like someone whos inferior.
This happened many times in manual labour jobs where nobody took me seriously and they treated me like a kid, the problem is Im naive and I talk with kindness without using assertiveness.
In every job I was they treated me like I was someone behind them, if I tried to reply they used to put me back in my position or they get vwry confrontational or aggressive.
Keep in mind Im talking about simole manual jobs with low class people, but this happened all my life even at school.
How can I stop being so friendly with people that dont respect me?
5 comments
The answer is right there. Don’t be nice and friendly. Chances are you’re that way because you think it’s the safest way to be around people, but it’s not working. You’re projecting “don’t hurt me please, I’m harmless” vibe. Unfortunately asshole interpret that “he’s spineless, I can take advantage of him”.
You deal with them by not accepting their shitty behaviour.
It’s not overreacting to confront someone. As long as you don’t raise your voice and don’t start throwing punches it’s fine to disagree and say you’re not okay with what’s going on.
Of course the tone you say such things will matter and you would need to be firm and assertive when confronting someone, stand your ground.
I made a comment earlier about this, start being vocal about 1, JUST ONE thing you think that is unjust. Something as simple as “Yo, shouldn’t you be helping me?” even if it doesn’t do anything in that moment, will instill in their brain that:
“Damn, I know I should, I didn’t expect him to stand up for himself like that. Will he cause me problems next time? We’ll see…”
Also you have to be rational in your approach. I’ve seen garbageman coming for trash since I was a kid, the driver has always focused on driving while the guy in the back did the heavy lifting. Pick you battle carefully, especially in labor jobs.
I’ve been there man, fresh out of retail and into labor because it pays more. Work hard, put in the effort, THEN speak out. The other 2 comments here are extremely helpful btw,
It’s tough but you need to stand up for yourself
A book that helped me a ton is The Assertiveness Workbook