Edit: I’m going to sleep, I’m not ignoring you if it takes like 12 hours for a response.
I can elaborate if you have questions that help clear things up, suffice it to say I’m doing normal ass things and they’ll walk by and pat me on back saying “good job” in the voice one uses when a puppy begs to be let out instead of pissing on the floor.
How the fuck do I go to HR and not sound paranoid/persecution complex” about this? They took it a step further today and the meat department asshole I’ve posted about wanting to duel (damn the consequences) about before slapped my shoulder (I’m not even comfortable with a gentle pat) and said “what a perfectly adequate job you’re doing”. Of course the house trained ….pick a word that I am said “thanks for the compliment”.
I’m going to lose my job after flipping out if I allow them to continue this, yet alone escalating.
Advice?
P.S the people I work with in my department are basically just normies. No better or worse than average American. The deli guy fucking called me little one and I’m still pissed about that because I have a height complex even though Reddit losers have turned into that meaning child and I can’t tell which direction he meant it in.
Shit comrade that sucks.
You should always be able to set boundaries at work though. Even about small stuff.
I have a name that's easily shortened. Let's say "Steven/Steve" just as an example.
With my closest friends, I'm Steve.
Professionally, I'm usually Steven, though "Last name" is also fine.
When I was doing shit service sector work about 15 years ago, I had a coworker I really was cool with (he was kind of a comrade/working class guy) who I let call me Steve. We had a good friendship out of work, drank beers, etc.
One day at work, my other coworker, who I really didn't like, started calling me Steve. I told them in no uncertain terms, please just call me Steven. They did so after that.
Ironically, my work friend eventually asked and I was like "you're cool, we're friends."
So even in something that has nothing to do with the (far more serious) kind of stuff you're talking about, I set boundaries and (if they weren't respected) would have escalated to HR.
I would say, just be firm and straightforward. Be unemotional about it (as hard as it is - again, with my very minor thing I got incredibly icky feelings from inside being called wrong by this person, so I waited a day and then did it first thing before they could piss me off again). After all, while I don't want to be charitable to your coworkers ( I don't know if they deserve it), sometimes all ppl need is one correction.
I dunno if this helps, but your post reminded me how hard it can be in the trenches comrade.
It did help, you provided a positive example of doing the “normal” thing and just speaking up. For whatever reason, that just didn’t occur as viable to me, but I’ll be sure to let that bounce around with all the other ideas until something clicks.
Thank you