

What you need to understand is, it doesn’t matter how hard you work,how much you learn or what you do. If you don’t blend in with your coworkers at least a little bit, you’ll always be the odd one. Depending on who your manager is, that’s enough to get tired.
For a lot of people, for a long time, the surviving mechanism has been social interaction. There are incredibly stupid people out there, doing less work and getting paid more because they know how to fit in the group and form relationships of all sorts. That is a fact. It’s from the hundreds of years we lived as gatherers-hunters where we all had to work together to get food on the table and not die.
You need to realize that you are different. I’ve been like you, struggling to blend in. I still find it hard to show interest in people, because I don’t really care that much, as long as they do their work.
But I’ve learned to at least show some interest. One of the things I am struggling with is that for most people, being together and social seems to give them energy, while it drains my energy.
So I just ask my colleagues how their weekend was and try to relax a little. Which I think you should too.
It’s good that you want to learn and improve, but if you think that leaves no room to talk and be social, you’re too black and white. It feels like you use the job to not focus on colleagues at all, and I have through painful experience learned that most people don’t like that. They want to feel seen, valued.
I’m not saying hang on their every word, I’m saying, the balance right now is ripped too much towards work work work.
There is so much to learn about communicating with people. If you don’t ever speak to them, it’s very hard to predict how they respond to things. How does a colleague react if you ask a favor? How does a colleague react if he/she discovers a mistake you made? If they think you’re a great guy or at least nice but maybe a bit quit, they could talk it over with you. If they think you’re an asshole, they walk straight to the manager.
I think you’re pretty good at your job. Most people like you are. But to succeed you must find a way to be more social, take critism and be aware of the way you communicate and behave towards others and how others will see you because of that.
I have a colleague who also has the habit of telling me what to do in a commanding voice. He doesn’t do it on purpose, in his world that is how it should be, and there is no other way. However, that is generally not acceptable behavior. I would not even accept that from my manager. But the guy often has a point, works hard and has lots of experience and brings solutions that are useful.
However, if he tells it like a dick, nobody cares. Nobody listens. Would you yourself listen to some arrogant prick who thinks he knows best? I won’t. But Steve from accounting, who congratulated me with my birthday yesterday, I like that guy. And when he asks me: "what do you think about doing this or that to solve problems x?’ I’ll give it some thought.
You need to accept that you are different. I am different. But I am an outlier, not the norm. So I found coping mechanisms to navigate the social world at work and with friends. Find yours if you can. It’s not easy, but try it.
Let me know if you have questions, I’d be happy to help.
Just people making passive income guys, nothing to see here.
We once heard of a service that would help us find a rental house. So we went there, had to pay for an appointment. Turns out they do nothing you cannot do yourself, and you pay a lot. They literally just put you in the system, which you can do yourself, and when you get a house through that system, which is free and from the government, they make you pay through the nose for that house.
Of course, since I am native in this country I have no need for a service like that. Turns out they mostly do this to people who don’t speak the language. I guess they offer a service, but their fees are excessive for what they do. They abuse the fact those people don’t know any better.
There’s lots of people making a profit from somebody else’s house finding misery and I hate it.