Are you fiercely determined to accomplish your goals?

This was just coming to my mind recently and throughout the last four months.  I got married back in July and my brother was the Master of Ceremonies at the wedding.  He said some things about me at the reception during his speech that had me thinking of the past.  For example, I told him back in 2014 that I had stopped smoking (this time for good as I still haven't touched a cigarette since).  During his comments, he joked about how he asked me "So who is the girl?"  After the joke, he commented about my fierce determination and focus that I had.  It appeared that once my mind was set on something, I would likely accomplish my goals.  I stopped smoking because I set out to do so one way or another.  It took 2 long years to do it, but it finally happened.  Of course, like my brother mentioned, it happened after I met my wife.

But I also had to look back 10 years ago even.  I remember being overweight and close to 260 lbs and not really fit and no exercising at all.  I recall being close to 300 lbs at one point after I left high school.  But something lit a spark for me around 2008.  A new job at a pizza place, and in my last semester of the first program, I started to work out at the gym.  I also did some running and watched as I progressed further and further with my running as the months and years came along.  I remember being able to run 5 miles (after I stopped smoking for the first time) by 2012.  Of course, the setback came after I started smoking again.  No way in hell was I able to accomplish 5 miles again after that.
Weightlifting and training was awesome as well.  I remember eventually being able to squat about 270 lbs and deadlift at least 300 lbs by 2011-2012 as well.

The reason for all of this was the determination of course.  Within the first year of this training, I changed my eating habits drastically as well and managed to cut my weight down to as low as 175 lbs.  This is something my brother did bring up during the wedding as well as when he mentioned the fierce determination.  However, it was clear that I needed to put on muscle.  That was where the weight training came in.  I regularly weighed between 180-185 after with some solid muscle mass.  I remember enjoying the body I had back in 2009-2012.  My body didn't always look the same, nor did I have any six pack abs, but my motivation to succeed came from there.

Shortly around May of 2012, and now having lived away from home for two years, something happened.  It is almost like I realized that being an adult kind of sucked.  You can look at my blog entries from that time period as I spent a lot of time writing in 2012-2013.  When I met my wife, I stopped writing.  I do remember being a little obsessed with finding a girlfriend at the time and I had a couple meltdowns because the types I was meeting just weren't working out too well.  I recall beating myself up over these things too.  But what I do remember bothering me the most at the time was the fact that I had few friends to hang out with and I knew I needed to meet some people.  So I believe around this time, I switched my focus from exercising and working out to working on my social skills and going to meetup events through meetup.com.  I ended up making friends there, some of which have come and gone and others who are still around as friends.  I also met a few ladies, one of which became my wife

After a couple years away from the gym, and periodically going out for runs outside here and there, I decided to get back into weight training.  I do remember things getting tough as I was always getting sick or hurt as well.  Eventally, the illnesses were determined to be allergies and sinuses, which meant I had to find a way to work around this.  However, I remember some back, leg and foot injuries occurred which did discourage me a little bit from trying certain exercises.  Eventually, I started seeing a physio to help correct some bad posture and form when doing exercises.  I got back into proper running and and starting to see things lift off again.  Albeit, right now, I weigh between 220-230 lbs.  Being older and eating some of the same foods don't work out to well when it comes to weight loss, so of course I am little bit overweight.  But I am noticing a lot of improvements with the running and the weightlifting, so I simply don't care as much about the weight.  I just have to avoid certain foods if I want to take my weight more seriously.

It was recently I started thinking about what my brother said a lot more, especially now that I am up to running 3 miles again after about 3 months of working at it.  I asked myself, "what the hell happened in the last few years, and why was my motivation missing?"  I was beginning to wonder why I struggled with trying to meet goals and missing so much work.  Why couldn't I focus on getting better and making my days more enjoyable?   Where was my energy?  Well, it's like the age old saying goes: you got to use energy to create energy.  My motivation was gone because I had little energy, and I wasn't using what little energy I had to create more of it.  I also asked why I wasn't doing more writing and why I wasn't motivated to do more of that.  But hopefully, I can sort that out soon and should write blogs regardless of what is on my mind.  Hopefully the more I write, the better my writing becomes.

Does my employer like me or not (Part 2).

Again, I will reiterate from my last post four months ago that I don't speak on behalf of my employer.  I will not be naming my employer as well.  

Over the course of the summer, I have found my attendance improved from the last year.  My absenteeism rate was cut by half.  No meetings had been scheduled with me to discuss my issues.  I also got married in the summer and also put in lots of overtime at work before my wedding, and some more hours after my wedding.  However, some things I have noticed, or never thought about before have come to my attention.  First of all, this could be simple paranoia as well.  After all, i am a diagnosed Aspie and I have had bouts of anxiety in the past that lead to some pretty severe meltdowns.  I don't feel anxious about anything at all currently.  I just feel that from my experience that I have seen my employer try and come at me and my fellow employees too many times.  It seems as if the employer wants to see what he can get away with, and which employees are the easy targets.

 
1. Social media policy-  This one is a new one and cannot be proven.  It might be my imagination running around a little.  I happened to notice that someone at work has harmlessly posted a sheet for fellow coworkers to post their PS4 or Xbox login ids for clan games on the new Call of Duty game coming out in a couple weeks.  It looks like it could be a lot of fun.  But I will choose not to participate because I can kind of see where this can go.  For me personally, I choose not to appear online when I happen to be at home sick, or off that day due to an injury and have to miss work.  I also choose to not play a video game during work hours as well.

I have learned from the PS4 features that just because you appear offline doesn't mean that your friends can't see you online if they are playing the same game as them.  The game servers don't have an "appear offline" option.  So with that being said, playing a game online is done at your own risk.  But where does the social media policy come from?  Well, if my fellow employees decide to identify where they work and they behave badly on a video game server, what is to stop them from being reported to my employer?  I mean, could we rule out being fired for saying something stupid/racist/homophobic on a video game chat?  I have no doubt in my mind that this could happen.  Not saying anyone I work with will do it, but I certainly don't want to be involved if this somehow ever happens.

2. Outside of work activities-
a. I know I loosely covered this on my last entry.  But something actually did happen to me at the gym that forced me to miss three days of work.  I dropped 45 lbs of weight on my foot and had to miss work because of it.  I couldn't walk properly for a few days and this happened around a holiday weekend to boot.  I didn't return to work until the second day after the holiday and I was on 6 hour days for that week rather than 8 hours.  I also chose not to go to the gym after the 6 hours since my doctor had given documentation saying I couldn't work beyond 6 hours.  That implied that I could only be on my feet for 6 hours.  So why go to the gym?  I figure it would have been a one in one million chance of being caught, but I have a saying as well: Don't be that one in a million that gets caught doing something they shouldn't be doing.

Anyway, it turns out my employer hasn't approached me on this issue yet.  But there was something I had said to one employee right before leaving work the day I got injured.  About 45 minutes later, I get hurt.  Another employee happened to be at the gym watching me report the injury.  This meant that I would have to be honest with my employer.  However, I came back to work to hear that my coworkers were accusing me (behind my back) that I was faking the injury and wanted an extra long weekend.  Could my employer take stock into what my employees say about me?  Yes, he could, but it could be considered harassment too and I would have to prove it to be harassment.  What would my employer say about this incident?

b. To follow this trend, our employers have also encouraged us to share our personal activities at work.  Knowing that I have been picked on by some fellow employees and managers for outside activities due to some injuries in the past and also considering that attendance issues have been discussed before, I elected not to participate.  I prefer to keep my personal outside of work activities private rather than divulge too much information at work.  Sure, exercise actually helps balance my mood and strengthens my weak areas, but I don't expect my employer to care about that if he believes that it is impacting my ability to show up to work.

In conclusion, I have determined over the course of the summer that I have to be careful what kind of information I divulge with my employer at work.  The reason why is because of some past injuries and missed time due to said injuries.  The more he knows, the more he can use against me.  Of course, the less your fellow employees know, the less they can go to your employer with as well.  Ultimately, I have also learned that my fellow employees might even be worse than my employer because employees can never keep their mouth shut.  So, it is clear to me that I must keep some secrets to myself.

Does my boss dislke me and want me gone?

I should note that I do not speak on behalf of my employer.  I will not name my employer either as I am bound to a Business code of conduct and cannot speak directly to what is going on in my company. The below is an opinion of mine based on personal experience and isn't what the company states to be true.

This is an age old question.  Perhaps I am writing this right now because I can truthfully say that I have asked this question to myself many times in the last three years.  There is a lot of sufficient evidence to suggest this.  I work in a unionized environment and the job I do is physically laborious.  So I am more prone to workplace injuries to my back, legs and other areas of my body that are required for lifting.  The worse I am finding is that my back pain is more in line to how strong my hip flexors and hip muscles are (perhaps a different topic for next week).  However, as I mentioned I work in a unionized environment and I have maxed out on my pay as well.  I am not getting anymore merit raises anytime soon.

The reasons why some might ask why their employer dislikes them could be for the following reasons.  I know I have seen some examples of these in the workplace.

1. Getting hurt either at work or outside work.- My employer likes to act like an insurance agent in these scenarios from what I see.  They like to ask so many questions as to where the injury was, how it happened and even like to ask what you like to do with your personal time.  From what I have experience in a physical labour job, answering the question about what kind of exercises you do on your personal time will get you into trouble.  No reasonable employer will ask you to not work out or exercise at the gym because they are "worried it would impact your ability to go to work."  The only exception to that might be if you are doing extreme types of training (MMA or Olympic training for example). 

But when your employer has the nerve to ask you while you are on a modified duties program at work, ""How much weight can you bench press Mike?" Take heed.  Your employer is very likely going to use this information to limit liability and possibly influence any insurance payment you might get down the road.  My answer to this question was "I don't worry about the numbers.  I worry about optimizing my muscles."  Which is truth.  I wouldn't recommend worrying about the numbers at the gym.  Worry about activating your muscles properly and making sure they get worked out and get stronger.  Worry about doing the exercises safely.  However, if you are recommended by a doctor or other medical practitioner to limit your weightlifting at work, I would recommend applying this to your workout exercises as well (ie. don't lift more than 50 lbs at the gym if you are told not to lift more than that at work).  I don't know for sure how easy it is for such information to come back to haunt you, but with technology and social media being what it is today, I wouldn't take the chance.

2.  Missed time/absenteeism- In connection with number one, you will have to be careful about missed days.  My employer hates this with a passion it seems.  So much so, that even injuries that are beyond your control appear to be pet peeves of his.  I have seen instances in many jobs I worked in which urgent care matters (ie. PA day at school for your kid, but babysitter calls in sick leaving you stranded to make a last minute decision for your child's safety) have been held against an employee.  Ultimately, the employee has chosen to leave the company in situations which they know arguing will be too costly, or they know the employer just won't listen to reason.  I will not speculate on why the employer chooses to do this, but I do know that many employers want to pay less and less to employees these days if they can get away with it. 

I like to believe most employers will be reasonable about absenteeism.  I like to believe that they will acknowledge doctor notes and special emergency circumstances.  However, if a pattern develops, they will likely start disliking you for the pattern of absences you have shown them.  They will especially dislike you if you work in a union environment and there is little they can do about your patterns.  I find in these situations, you can expect to receive letters of counsel or discipline that will go on your file.  The reason behind this is when you eventually choose to file a grievance against your employer, they can argue your patterns of absenteeism, that you don't take discipline well or that you simply have an attitude problem.  The letters are going to be on your file, and you can expect them to use these against you under these circumstances.

3. What is and isn't on your employee file- Sometimes an employer has to correct his wrongdoings, and sometimes you have to hand documentation in that will help protect you in your employment.  Most reasonable employers will not mess with the information that is on your file.  But I do find that in some places I have worked, and depending on who you are, the employer may act like you have never given them certain information before even though you know you have.  In these circumstances, you need to protect yourself and always have copies of documents you provide them for your own records.  This is where you make sure someone from HR themselves (whether they are on your side or not doesn't matter), receives a copy and stamps a date and time received on your copy of any documents provided.  I can assure you they will make sure there is multiple copies of any documents they give you.

In the situation in which you have a grievance hearing and you win and letters are to be taken off your file or re-written, it will be your duty to follow up with HR and look at your file.  You will want to do this to make sure that the management team and HR actually comply with the grievance award as the management team may want to see what they can get away with and push again.  I have had a letter before in which I was accused of making a false statement in a meeting when minutes recorded from that meeting showed that I never actually made such a statement they accused me of making.  They refused to change the letter and I had to push forward with a grievance.  They ultimately changed the wording of the letter.  A meeting on a similar issue proved to me that they kept the updated letter on their file.  

4. Exclusion from certain activities. This tends to happen when an employee challenges the employer on a health and safety issue, or a policy issue at work.  Whether the employee does it privately (possible grievance procedure plays out here), or publicly at a staff meeting (happens when private matters go nowhere or keep stalling), the employer will let it be known to you that he didn't appreciate you challenging him.  What I have seen, the employer will be pretty subtle in letting you know.

I challenged the employer on a health and safety issue after I got hurt and ended up missing time because of this injury.  Because this injury happened outside of work, I had meetings about the issue.  I also found a little while later that the employer was also challenged by someone else on the same health and safety issue.  Eventually an ergonomic assessment was done on the issue me and the other employee had.  But what we found is that the employer excluded us from participating in this assessment.  It gave us the opinion that our manager didn't want us to "hurt" the report they expected back from the assessor.  These things can and will happen if management will want to run a business a certain way regardless of safety issues.

5. Denying leave for no reason or because they can- You can google the question "Can my employer deny me time off for my own wedding?" and you might be surprised with that result. The answer to that question in my province is "yes, they can."  Whether you like it or not, the employers have that much say in either approving or denying leave.  Now I have never seen an employer deny leave for that reason in my work experience.  I think doing so would be a sign of bad faith.  However, I am also finding out based on the patterns of absenteeism rule that they can ask for documentation regardless of how insensitive that sounds.  Failure to provide a document would likely result in disciplinary action at it's most extreme punishment.  However, the most likely thing to happen would be that you don't get paid vacation (if your company gives you credits) for that day in question.  My fellow employees would definitely file a grievance based on that decision by management if it ever happens.

I also find that vacation leave is hard for my employer to cancel on an employee once it is approved as well.  They can, however, (to the best of my knowledge) cancel planned emergency leaves at the last minute as I have seen them do it at least twice in the last couple years.  Planned emergency leaves usually require the employee to leave for medical visits with a doctor or dentist.  This of course though will put a strain on the employees wallet as he or she will likely have to pay the cancellation fee.  In my workplace, some employees might choose to grieve such a decision if management refuses to reimburse the cancellation fee.

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These are just one of many things that employer does when he doesn't like a certain employee based on experience.  Not all of them will be accurate based on your experience.  But I know what I have seen with others in my work experience and what my employers have done to others.  None of which I have stated was the worst thing I have ever seen.  If anyone here reading this has a story that they want to share, feel free to so in the comments.  I would advise to refrain from telling a story that could get them in trouble with their business's code of conduct or conflict of interest policies.

What's Wrong with me and dating? Or is it them?

Headnote: Keep in mind, I have not posted or written on this blog in three years.  What I write may not be as lucid or clear like some of the writing I have previously done.

I remember in my early to mid twenties how strange and difficult dating could be.  My hormones raged and I remember really wanting sex.  A person with Aspergers wanting to get laid?  Apparently a very scary thought from what we have observed in the past in circumstances like the Elliot Roger incident 3 years back.  Except, was that man really an Aspie?  Or just suspected?  I don't recall any official report saying he was. 

I am about to get married in the next couple months, so maybe I am a little out of touch with singles looking to mingle.  I may not be 100% certain of what struggles they are going through now in their attempts to find a date and not be lonely every night of the week.  But I remember being there and I remember the struggle was real.  I remember feeling like crap and wondering what I did wrong on many occasions.  I also remember the overthinking of every little aspect of my dating life.  You keep asking all of these little questions like "Was that the right time to text her?  Did I write too much?  Did I write too little?  Should I call her back immediately?"   Yeah, all that stuff.  Overthinking when I should call or text someone to ask them out.  All this because of previous experience of people getting mad at me for whatever reason.  Perhaps we forget that people get mad, but not necessarily at us.  But since we were there at the time they needed to vent, we assume they were mad at us.

Ok, maybe the person really wasn't mad at you to begin with.  I get that.  People are allowed to be frustrated and angry and vent.  Something we tend to forget is people are allowed to express these feelings and need someone to talk to.  We let people vent provided they control their temper as well, or otherwise we wouldn't listen.  Sometimes though, these people we were dating didn't want to hear you vent.  But if you lack the self-esteem like most Aspies did in their dating life, you always think it is you and not them.  This is a very depressing road to go down.  You overthink your every action and lose the self confidence.  You overthink every word and suddenly become afraid to talk to women.

Any self respecting individual will know when the other person is full of it and when they aren't.  I know from an Aspie male's experience (remember I frequented Wrongplanet.net and me and other men were very much alike), that we tend to take the blame for everything that goes wrong in a potential relationship.  It makes us doormats to be short and others see this.  No self respecting woman will date us.  Opportunists on the other hand will see a chance to take something from us and take it and do whatever they want with us.  Those people eventually disappear as well. 

Part of the problem with overthinking is that we tend to forget who we are and become something we aren't.  You start asking for advice from others, like on wrongplanet or pof for example.  However, the problem with opinions on the internet is that too many opinions are thrown at you.  You also start thinking that being who you are isn't working and you become something you aren't.  This is a also a dangerous trap that leads some Aspies into PUA articles and websites.  

But the thought has to occur at some point that maybe it isn't all on us.  It takes time and some reflection to gain the self confidence to realize that it isn't always us.  In some scenarios, it really should have only taken a no response from someone, or rude behaviour from someone else to realize that it may not have been me.  Sure, I can reflect and look at a situation and say to myself "I could have done better here."  However, I should still be able to walk away with no regrets.  No regret because I knew I did my best and I was myself the whole time.  If I lost my temper, or said something rude myself, I remember that I need to improve there.  But I shouldn't hate myself for it.