Archived Is it unprofessional to talk about mental health on the Sales floor?

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Far from newbie said:
OKThen, best of luck to you if you would like to follow the advice of someone who decides to work for Target....
I just don’t understand the value of sharing every problem/ailment with total strangers that frankly don’t care.
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Well Cheryl, I don't understand bottling everything up and being ashamed for some normal as hell problems. That's just how it be sometimes.
 
WalksforMiles said:
  1. People don’t care.
  2. They’re more likely to spread gossip about you.
  3. Leadership sees you as a liability and less of a worker.
  4. They won’t help you.
  5. You’ll just end up hating the work environment even more.
  6. They’ll get tired of listening to you talk about your issues.
This is based on my personal experience at my store, so take it with a grain of salt.
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Re-read above.
 
Far from newbie said:
OKThen, best of luck to you if you would like to follow the advice of someone who decides to work for Target....
I just don’t understand the value of sharing every problem/ailment with total strangers that frankly don’t care.
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Why is it more of a problem at Target than administrative/office work places? I've been in several office environments, that sort of information was always not just appropriate but helpful for the office as a whole. Last workplace, knowing each others' issues helped us all to work within everyone else's limitations so jointly we all were very productive. Four of us, two had bipolar disorder, one had major depression, one had anxiety disorder.

Hell, if hearing about menopause and menstrual periods making one sick is considered appropriate talk in offices, pretty sure that discussing a mental health issue that can affect productivity is even more appropriate in a work environment like Target.
 
I respond very well to anyone who shares specifics as to how to work with them better. Someone says, I get anxious if you do this or that...thank you for telling me.

If you want to make excuses as to why you had a tantrum, then, nope...I probably will nod and vow to not be around you or make sure not to interact.

If you are at ease, know what helps, then terrific.

Otherwise, you may need to ask yourself if someone wants to hear about your personal struggles. We all have them. For many of us, work is a place where we gratefully set those aside.

But if there's something reasonable that I can do, sure...share.
 
Real conversations I heard at a job I worked at:

"A week? A week? I haven't had sex in a month! You're still marinating. I'm bone dry down there, it's powder. A week ain't a long time."

"Yeah, she said she hasn't ever given a guy a blow job. I'm going to go by 7-11 and get her an ice cream pop to practice on."

And those are all right but something in the spirit of:

"Yeah, my brain is an adrenaline junkie, gotta always be hyped up, that's why my face looks like I spent waaaaaay too long in the tanning bed."

is less appropriate?
 
I just hope all the naysayers never complain that their back hurts or their foot's sore or that they have a headache. Talking about their health which potentially affects their ability to work might make others uncomfortable.
 
Aredhel said:
It can be exploited by the wrong people.
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So can non-brain physical issues. Like making financial transactions and legal contracts when blind, how do you know what you're being charged or change returned or what's really in that legal document. But no one calls those folks weak, so mental illness ≠ weak.
 
I have epilepsy.
I talk about my epilepsy because most people are woefully ignorant on the subject.
If someone wants to try to use it against me, they can fucking try.

This is something I've lived with all my life and I've run into too many cases of stupidity causing me problems.
Like the time a woman shoved a hairbrush in my mouth during a seizure to keep me from swallowing my tongue.
We cannot swallow our tongues during a seizure.
To understand why, stick out your tongue, then reach in your mouth and grab the small fold of mucous membrane that runs from the floor of your mouth to the underside of your tongue.
This is called the frenulum linguæ and it’s what keeps you from swallowing your tongue.

She thought she was helping me with that hairbrush, which I promptly chewed to pieces.
I was spitting out bits of acrylic for the next couple of hours.
Sometimes after the seizure is over and the person is lying on their back, if they have been producing a lot of spit and snot it might be hard for them to breath.
ASK THEM if they want to roll over on their side.

Then help if they need it. Secondly, do not hold us down.
We are very likely to hurt you and we will feel really bad about it. If you are strong enough to keep us from moving you will hurt us horribly.
If you can, clear the area so we don’t slam into things that would be nice, otherwise let things take their course.

I am happy to share this information on the floor with coworkers or total strangers.
Especially if it means somebody with epilepsy won't have to chew up a hairbrush.
 
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Tessa120 said:
But look at the flip side. If you have an injured arm and that affects your performance some but not enough to not hold your job, you're likely going to need help from your co-workers. If you have diabetes, there will likely be times where you need coverage to step off-stage. If you have hearing loss, you're going to need to let people know so that they know to speak louder around you.
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Yes, but you can say "I hurt my elbow and can't lift stuff" without having to get into the details of exactly what was injured or what you're doing to treat it or "I have diabetes and need to pop off the floor a couple extra times." without getting into details of your insulin regimen and dosages. The general info is helpful (but ultimately unnecessary) for helping me understand how best to assist you. The latter is none of my business. As I said: "However, if someone mentions something about their mental health struggles and you mention you've had some issues and are getting help, including meds, as a form of support for your TM, I wouldn't consider that unprofessional. It's people being people, with other people." My point wasn't that you should never say anything about mental or other health issues, just that one should be cognizant of how much of your personal information you're sharing in a public space, as sharing too much information can be detrimental to you and be more than the people around you are really interested in hearing (which is why it can be seen as unprofessional).
 
Aredhel said:
Wow just what I said when I was your age. 😉 And you’ll hear the same when you’re my age.
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I absolutely will. That's how the process works. I fully support the next generation. My role when I get into old age is to do what I can to set up the future for them, not try and push whatever backwards beliefs I'll have at the time.
 
I was diagnosed about a quarter century ago as a young adult, the diagnosing doctor believes it started around puberty. I have been on probably about 20 medications, many were dismal failures. The ones that worked have caused side effects ranging from significant weight gain to hair loss to permanent memory loss to messed up heart electrical rhythms to toxicity hallucinations. I recently had to skip a single dose because of air travel and puked my guts up for 48 hours after. I've got so many scars from cutting that every time I count I get a different number, but it's somewhere around 40-50, and my suicide attempt was so close to successful I was in the hospital around three days.

I have earned the right to openly call myself crazy and laugh at my own brain dysfunction. I have earned the right to tell the truth about my scars when asked, not a socially polite lie. I have earned the right to laugh, because the alternative is to cry. I have earned the right to talk about it so people know what's going on when the demon in my head breaks out of his box and takes over and goes hog wild. And that is what the opening post said, make jokes about the symptoms in order to feel calmer and in control.

And people can deal with it. I gotta hear about their personal stuff. They can hear me be genuine about myself, they can be prepared if they are first responder to my brain getting sick.
 
Depends on what symptoms of what mental illness or what side effects of medication you're talking about.

For example, if you're on the sales floor, don't talk about "hey my medication causes me to have explosive diarrhea" or "so my depression was so bad last night that I was thinking of killing myself".
 
oath2order said:
For example, if you're on the sales floor, don't talk about "hey my medication causes me to have explosive diarrhea" or "so my depression was so bad last night that I was thinking of killing myself".
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I'd agree with you on the first example, but not on the second. If someone is experiencing suicidal thoughts, professionalism be damned. I know this was likely meant to be largely facetious, but I've heard too many stories of people saying things like that and not being taken seriously, with tragic results, to endorse treating suicidal thoughts in the same category as other discussions of physical or mental health issues.
 
Tessa120 said:
I was diagnosed about a quarter century ago as a young adult, the diagnosing doctor believes it started around puberty. I have been on probably about 20 medications, many were dismal failures. The ones that worked have caused side effects ranging from significant weight gain to hair loss to permanent memory loss to messed up heart electrical rhythms to toxicity hallucinations. I recently had to skip a single dose because of air travel and puked my guts up for 48 hours after. I've got so many scars from cutting that every time I count I get a different number, but it's somewhere around 40-50, and my suicide attempt was so close to successful I was in the hospital around three days.

I have earned the right to openly call myself crazy and laugh at my own brain dysfunction. I have earned the right to tell the truth about my scars when asked, not a socially polite lie. I have earned the right to laugh, because the alternative is to cry. I have earned the right to talk about it so people know what's going on when the demon in my head breaks out of his box and takes over and goes hog wild. And that is what the opening post said, make jokes about the symptoms in order to feel calmer and in control.

And people can deal with it. I gotta hear their personal stuff. They can hear me be genuine about myself, they can be prepared if they are first responder to my brain getting sick.
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Most people are uneasy if not alarmed about talk of poor mental health. You want to be accepted. I get that. But due to the nature of the problem it will be off putting at best. Careless talk on the floor could have unexpected outcomes.
 
I am afraid to talk about it. I feel like they would think I am just trying to make excuses. I only mentioned that I had been "very stressed out recently" once to one of my TLs and I feel like they understood. Still not sure if completely opening up to some of my leaders would help me that much.
 
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