#no backup

I'm the third most senior seamstress in the entire company (the most senior works at the main warehouse and the second most is a store manager, so I'm the most senior ground-level seamstress). One of our other stores hired a new seamstress and there are some things she's having trouble with.

Well, her manager called to ask me if I could call in the next day she works and explain "everything" to her.

And...I just...no no no no no. I can't do phones. I can't talk on phones. I can't deal with the emotions. I can barely understand facial expressions on a good day. On the phone...people yell on the phone. All the time. I can't be in the room if my parents get a call from one of their out-of-state kids because they do that pseudo-yell Boomers do when they're on a long-distance call. I can't do the awkward silences, the static noise, having to hold the damn receiver, any of it! So I had a minor freakout, but I managed to tell her I could communicate via email and we'd see what we can do.

So she sends the email, which had a completely unclear question on it, and I answered as best as I could. I explained the situation, apologized for the way I reacted on the phone, and explained I have autism and verbal communication is difficult for me. Gave her my cell phone number and said I could answer texts but not calls.

Sounds like everything was settled, right?

She replied. Apologized for calling without emailing first. And then...and then..."The seamstress won't be back until Monday, we'll talk about it and call you then".

I just...I just...I literally just said I couldn't do phone calls? I just said verbal communication is difficult?

Someone's going to say "oh but phone calls are so much easier" and just not for me, okay?

The last day and a half has just been big, teary-eyed torture for me and I hope everyone enjoyed being helped by the seamstress who couldn't stop crying because I have literally no advocate in this store. My manager is back on Monday and I'm going to ask if she can talk to this other manager if they do call because that's kind of her job maybe?

Okay. I needed to get that out or I was gonna think about it all night. and if I put it on facebook I'd get half sad-face reacts and half "have you been to the doctor yet because you know you can't diagnose autism yourself I went on webMD once and thought I had tuberculosis and it turned out to be an allergy to magnolia blossoms because that's totally the same thing as recognizing a pattern of thoughts and behaviors since childhood."