Share how you ruined your reputation at work :)

[roxbury27]

I need a pick me up. Let's bond by sharing those shameful, crack head experiences at work that either cost us our reputation, job, or both? Who wants to go first? 

[Tom23Jones]

One of the things that always embarrassed me was when we go on work lunches I would literally have to piss like 5 times in the 45 minutes we were at lunch.  I was so tweaked out on adderall and red bull.  Sometimes I would feel the urge to pee again the minute I sit down after getting back from the restroom.  God I'm thankful I can now sit for a couple hours with peace of mind and not the urge to pee every 10 mins.

[Rachel]

My face and throat started swelling and twitching during my singing recital. I made it through, but I spent the whole time freaking out about people noticing.

[Subtracterall]

Gosh where do I start?  I was so socially awkward all the time that I never did make many friends at work. I never wanted to talk to my co-workers when I was on addy which was all the time. I had "more important" things to do like working.  I was this way for so many years.  

I've been looking back over my scadderall days and things are starting to make sense in a way I had not been able to recognize before.

One time in particular I remember a co-worker and I were sort of becoming friends because we both took smoke breaks at the same time at work.  She asked me to go to a movie one evening and I said no and never followed up with her to reschedule or anything. Because I didn't need friends you see I had adderall and that's all I needed. How flipping backward!  So I got a reputation at work as someone who was anti social and a b!tch and that particular co-worker was very nice but she hated me after that for many, many, many years.. Whenever the girls at work would plan something I was never invited and at the time I was glad but I just thought they didn't like me and I didn't care!  Looking back on it is embarrassing.. 

I also wonder now if being on adderall is the reason I could not find a job for two years in a row. Surly I was a complete tweeted out mess at the interviews.

I finally did land another job... and I'm now thinking maybe that was because I was sober at that interview...and probably because I was living in a while new city where no one knew the old adderall me.

interesting how perceptions of ourselves on adderall change after we get sober and are able to look back with a clear mind. 

 

[Rachel]

I just wish I still didn't want it!!

[oswhid]

I only heard this second hand (and not from my husband - "J").  J had been with the company for almost 25 years and was one of three IT directors reporting to the VP who was retiring.  All three were being considered for the job but J was probably the first or maybe second choice. The CEO ultimately overrode the choice and brought in an outsider who had family friend connections to him.  J had been on adderall for just about a year at this point.  He was highly respected and considered a valuable employee or had been for the first 24 years.  I do not know if his behavior change was noticed at work during the last year but I must assume it was at least to some degree.

My husband is naturally outgoing and can be sometimes a little too obnoxiously friendly in social situations but not normally in an aggressive manner.  Probably due to coming from a large loud competitive but close family.  But on speed, I shudder to think how he must have behaved at times.  I usually saw more of the angry crash in the evenings than the tweaked out manic version but I got a glimpse now and then. 

At any rate, a couple of weeks before the new VP started, she came to a conference to meet all the execs and middle management.  At a social event, she looked over and saw J talking to a group of people.  I can only imagine how he was behaving - dominating the conversation, telling boring stories accompanied with embarrassing pantomime, and tapping people obsessively/aggressively  on the shoulder to make sure they were listening.  

She asked the person next to her who he was and when told responded, "I don't like him.  He's too.....'people-ly'. "  (People-ly being the most polite thing she could think of to mean annoyingly obnoxious I suppose).

Long story short, she fired him about six weeks after she started work.  This was from a job and company than he had every right to believe he would be at until he retired.  There was never a moment of job insecurity until that point, yet he was the first person she let go.   He's never really recovered emotionally from that.  It most likely contributed to his continued use and subsequent financial ruin.

One more thing, during those weeks before she fired him, she practically yelled at him to quit clicking his pen over and over in a meeting.  I guess he was tweaking out doing that!   It would almost be funny if it wasn't so tragic.

 

[NotToday]

i was also ridiculously anti social at work. I always just felt too busy to spend more than like 30 seconds away from my desk! People would say they thought I was just a 'private person' which I suppose is better than the truth. In meetings, on the other hand, I was overconfident. A coworker that I've become friends with since getting clean has told me that I would talk so fast that I would seem irritated when people couldn't keep up with my train of thought! Lol it is so true too. Ughhh and I also had a VERY embarrassing job interview at a pretty prestigious consulting firm. Had been up all night 'preparing' for the interview. I'm sure I looked a HOT MESS and smelling like smoke and booze, barely able to form clear responses. Seriously humiliating. It is so hard to look back on the behavior and wonder how it went on so long. 

[Rachel]

I can relate Nicole! I also would get so mad when people couldn't keep up with my train of thought..little did I know, I didn't make any sense! It is so strange looking back on my behavior...how did I ever think it was normal?

[oswhid]

My husband was always getting mad at me for not being able to follow his train of thought.  It was like he was holding a whole conversation in his head and then would blurt out the last few sentences and couldn't understand why I didn't know what he was talking about. It's like he couldn't always distinguish what he was thinking from what he was saying.