[Anonymous]

Pretty much my entire life, from as early as I can remember I've been ridiculously shy and have pretty bad social anxiety.
I have had jobs before, just weekend stuff whilst at college, but I didn't really ever get any better at talking to people, you'd think after 3 years I would be able to talk to a customer without getting all flustered and mental, but no. and then my second job I got fired from for 'poor communication skills'
So, basically, I have an interview on Tuesday, it's just for bar work which basically means they're going to want me to be all loud and friendly and talkative and I just don't know how to do it. but I really need this job, so, I'm going to try anyway
I guess what I'm asking is, has anyone been in this situation? and if so, how did you deal with it? or just any tips or anything would be helpful
thanks

[shuttermagic]

Hi to feel anxious in social situations can be quite uncomfortable, I sometimes get flustered when people I don't really know ask me questions, especially if I'm not expecting it and they just come over. ahha.

I think like a lot of things practice can help, the more people you talk to in various social situations the easier they will become as they can begin to feel more predictable.

I think people can have good and bad days with anxiety, but for me its important that even if I feel like I didn't communicate as well as I could have done in a situation, I don't then give up. I will go back next time with the mind set that I will push myself to be more confident. Naturally, it doesn't always work, but you just have to keep trying with it, and try to remember the 'good' days you have, even if you just notice that you spoke a little bit more or handled a situation well, its worth remembering.

Sometimes if I start to feel anxious about a social situation I try to pause before answering a question just to give myself a tiny bit of time to relax and think properly, though in the times that I have to just get stuck in I try to take a deep breath and not think about it too much... and quite a lot of the time it turns out that the thought of it made me more anxious than the actual doing of it.

I worked one evening in a bar as a favour to a friend, and not all the members of staff were really loud or talkative. It depends what your role is, if you're pouring drinks then most of the time people will come up to you and tell you what they want, so you wont really be interacting with them for very long (you just need to be able to hear what they ask for, or if its busy then you might have to ask if someone is waiting for anything).

Hope it goes well,
xx

[advent2]

(Original post by Anonymous)
Pretty much my entire life, from as early as I can remember I've been ridiculously shy and have pretty bad social anxiety.
I have had jobs before, just weekend stuff whilst at college, but I didn't really ever get any better at talking to people, you'd think after 3 years I would be able to talk to a customer without getting all flustered and mental, but no. and then my second job I got fired from for 'poor communication skills'
So, basically, I have an interview on Tuesday, it's just for bar work which basically means they're going to want me to be all loud and friendly and talkative and I just don't know how to do it. but I really need this job, so, I'm going to try anyway
I guess what I'm asking is, has anyone been in this situation? and if so, how did you deal with it? or just any tips or anything would be helpful
thanks

Rehearse. I always visualise interviews before them and think of every possible question they could ask me and run through the answers in my head over and over. Just practice, practice, practice, it's how you get good at anything in life. The reason interviews scare so many people is because we rarely do them in comparison to other things we do in life. If you had an interview every single day, you would become brilliant at them because you would be doing them all the time and getting loads of experience.

Don't worry if you cock up because we often learn more from our mistakes and every no will take you one step closer to the yes. It's the same for communication skills, you just need practice.

My communication skills used to be very poor but I've been working in an environment for the past two-three years where I am having to interact with people every day and use my communication skills so it's only natural that they have improved.

It didn't happen overnight though, I went through a lot of mistakes and a lot of trial and error. I developed my experience through voluntary work and then that led to paid employment.

[Anonymous]

At least you don't have an excessive blushing problem like me.....