When reflexes acquired in your job are invading your daily life.
-When i was an intern in a retail, i had to fight against the urge to store the shelves during my own shopping sessions.
Former land surveyor. Was definitely counting my paces when I was not surveying.
Background: you’d often try to capture a grid of points, or cross section of a road, for example, at regular intervals. You’d roughly know your normal stride length conversion to metres, so if I were doing a 10m grid, it’d be: shoot a point, walk 11 paces, shoot a point, repeat for hundreds, sometimes thousands of points. It wasn’t long until you would be counting paces when you weren’t actively surveying.
I have stress dreams sometimes and about old jobs. Like in my dream I’ll wake up and suddenly remember I’ll need to be at a job I haven’t been at in years. But, the time has still passed. Like I’ll be wondering why they scheduled me when I haven’t been there in years, and then get even more stressed cuz I can’t remember how to do anything.
Another one, I work from home. Off hours if I’m watching a movie or playing a game I’ll sometimes look over to check my work laptop :/
I got really used to technical conversations at work going “full duplex” where we’d excitedly talk over each other and interrupt constantly, just to get to each conclusion faster. I had a close coworker join my team, and he was much harder than normal to get a word in, so I got better at jumping in to interrupt until we were at the same pace and the technical communication was synced and flowing well.
Around a month after I’d been working with him, my wife started telling me I was being very rude and interrupting her more than usual. I guess the habit came home with me. I’m still working on it, though it’s been over 5 years since I switched out of his team.
Biggest one would be trying to login to my pc with my work password.
I’ve been the electronic security game for about 25 years and I swear I instinctively notice and look directly at every video camera in every building I enter, and I swear if anybody noticed they’d think I’m casing the joint.
Do you look at them to know if they’re well place or for another reason?
They generally just catch my eye, then I may think about their placement. I’ve just been working in the field so long it’s like an unconscious professional interest I guess.
I’m a pilot. At a drive through, I read back the price as a matter of reflex.
I’m picturing “Affirmative. Dollar 1299 now proceeding to window, over.”
“Twelve ninety-nine, first window.” is what usually happens. I’m not the kind of dork that repeats it as “One Two Decimal Niner Niner.” The ham bands are full of geezers that’ll happily play that game with me if I want.
So, per the Pilot/Controller Glossary, “OVER” means “My transmission ended; I expect a response.” Because the communique at the speaker is finished and I don’t expect a response, “OUT” would be more appropriate, meaning “Conversation is over, I expect no response.” Though on the air you’ll often hear “Good day” which isn’t in the P/CG but I think is nicer.
I rather like the idea of having a word for “the conversation is over, I expect no response.” In daily life lol. Feels boss.
I’m a software developer. I get very agitated when I have to sit next to someone who operates their computer slowly.
I’m a software tester. I break everything I use whether I’m trying or not.
When I get in the car, I hit the blinker lever by instinct because on a forklift it puts you into forward or reverse gear.
There was a time when I looked at LCD screens I saw all the defects.
My job is to do weather observations every half an hour, or when the situation changes drastically enough to warrant an update. I used to get a bit stressed out about noticing the clock approach one of the routine times while not at work (because that’s when I haven’t been keeping an eye on the sky so oh shit now I gotta figure it out fast!), but I think I’ve gotten mostly out of that pavlovian response. Many of my colleagues say that they also get this. But the phone alarm (a manufacturer default) that goes off at that time as a reminder definitely triggers it. Luckily I’ve only heard it like once or twice outside of work.
I’ve been working in high acuity psychiatry for 10 years. I notice when doors don’t click shut behind me and if I don’t hear a solid click or an electric lock whirring sound I get the urge to check the handle, even at home / in my apartment complex. I can feel people behind me on the street if they’re closer than about 20 feet back. I don’t like sitting without a wall behind me (it was weird going back to school and explaining that my ADHD preferential seating accommodation was the back row, not the front).
Doing Uber in a very red state, I have to bite my tongue when people bring up politics. It’s turned into me not talking about it around friends who share my beliefs for the most part. And it kinda sucks, cause I really did enjoy a good debate.
There is no debate anymore, it’s just obtuse mouth hole noises
Yeah, but my income still depends on me not letting them know I’m closer to a communist than whatever they think they are.
I used to do order picking in a large warehouse. We used headphones that told you were to go. You could also give verbal commands liek “repeat”. So after a week or so I started “repeat”-ing my mom when I didn’t hear what she said.
I used to do order picking in a large warehouse. We used headphones that told you were to go.
Decades of working IT in various capacities including a lot of support roles at various levels have led me to usually suspect that anyone coming to to me saying that they can’t get something to work is doing something wrong, regardless if it’s IT or something else completely unrelated.
This is often combined with me trying to suggest possible solutions whenever someone complains or vents. This one drives my wife crazy sometimes and she’s had to teach me that sometimes she just wants emotional support and solidarity rather than possible ways to fix whatever she is venting about.
Not catching things. I worked at a leather shop with a lot of very sharp things.
I will just watch stuff fall. Even if it’s a friend tossing me my keys or something. Watch it sail thru the air and land right on the ground. Then I normally say “don’t throw shit at me” as their regular reminder that my instinct isn’t to catch things.
Also the phrase “heads up” doesn’t encourage me to catch something either. It encourages me to check the position of me feet for possible stabs.
