Bright Lights, People and Noise

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Is the big trifecta at work that leaves me mentally drained and near sensory overload at the end of the day.
All I want to do when I get home is sit in front of the computer, and I'm supposed to be getting into shape to try out for the police academy.


I work in a supermarket, and so all three are nearly constant.
I could deal with one, two or even all three if I was allowed to 'tune out' and not have to interact with tons of people. That is, if I didn't have to consciously put on an 'act' like smiling, saying hi to customers, and trying to make small talk. This takes a lot of processing power, because I have to 'get it right' or I look odd and customers end up thinking I'm rude.

The problem is, I am somewhat sensitive to light, and I see tons of visual detail from even a small area (say, a penny on the ground.) So it doesn't help there is tons of brilliant colors on isles of boxes. I am not too bad with sound, but the sea of customers who I'm not allowed to ignore more then makes up for the rest of it.

If I'm there for more then 4 hours, I become too tired to feel anything and my voice starts going 'flat.'

Is this common, and can anything be done about it?

You sound exactly like me when I started as a cashier.

I've worked in the grocery business as an aspie for nearly 6 years now, the first 5 as a cashier, and the last a supervisor. The cashiering part wasn't so bad since I have a fairly high tolerance for sensory input, but god help you if you bothered me in the break room when I needed my hard-earned alone time. Honestly, if you can't handle the sensory input of a grocery store, there's not much to help you as a cashier. I only stayed in cashiering for so long because my older brother worked in the same store and I had a manager who worked with my deficiencies.

But, you might be able to transfer to a job on the night crew and skip the whole searching-for-a-new-job debacle.

I could never work in a grocery store or department store. I always feel drained when I come out of them. The light affects me the most. Walmart is a nightmare. I work in an office right now and they have "white noise". It's the sound of a speaker turned up loud without the radio tuned in. It's their way of creating "privacy", though you can still hear everything. At times, it makes me downright nauseous and I have to put headphones on.