Can social anxiety disguise itself as "laziness" at work?

wait, why does “lazy” even come up?

Picture Monday morning stand-up. Your manager is tossing tasks around like candy. When your name pops up, you freeze. You nod, but your head is screaming, “What if I mess it up? What if everyone sees me typing the wrong thing? What if they think I’m dumb?”

Fast-forward three hours and you’re scrolling through Slack channels you’ll never post in, pretending to “research.” From the outside it looks like slacking off. Inside it’s a whirlpool of sweaty-palmed overthinking.

That mismatch - quiet panic on the inside, zero visible output on the outside - is how social anxiety can pass for laziness. Nobody can read your pulse rate, they only see the empty Jira ticket.

the mechanics: how anxiety stalls the engine

1. Mental lag

Anxiety hijacks working memory. Simple tasks feel like solving a Rubik’s Cube blindfolded. You start, get overwhelmed, tab-hop, restart. Output tanks.

2. Perfection paralysis

Drafting one email turns into a 40-tab research expedition because you fear sounding unprofessional. The quest for the “right” sentence eats the entire afternoon.

3. Avoidance that hides in plain sight

• Skipping meetings “because my camera isn’t working.”

• Volunteering for back-of-house tasks to dodge live demos.

• Waiting until 4:55 pm to ask a clarifying question so no one can answer till tomorrow.

Each move looks like procrastination. It’s really threat management.

spotting the difference (self-check & manager-check)

Self-check

- Do you feel guilt or self-loathing after an unproductive day?

- Does your heart spike at the thought of asking a question publicly?

- When you finally submit work, do you reread it 10 times fearing judgment?

Manager-check

- Does the employee light up in 1-on-1 chats but vanish in group calls?

- Are delays clustered around collaboration tasks rather than solo work?

- Is quality solid when they finally ship? Lag + quality often screams anxiety, not apathy.

If most answers lean yes, you’re likely staring at anxiety wearing a “lazy” hoodie.

mini-moves to break the loop

These are small, boring, doable. No life makeovers required.

• The two-sentence ask

Text a coworker: “Got 5 mins to sanity-check my approach?” Low-stakes, fast feedback, kills perfection paralysis early.

• Micro-timers

15-minute focus bursts with a phone alarm. Promise yourself you can panic-scroll TikTok after the beep. Often you won’t even want to.

• Template stash

Save successful past emails, Slack posts, pull-request messages. Copy-edit instead of reinventing the wheel while anxious.

• Camera-off practice reps

Record yourself explaining the feature on Loom. Watch, cringe, tweak. When the real meeting hits, muscle memory carries you.

• Anxiety buddy pact

Pair with a coworker who has similar jitters. Trade quick check-ins: “I’ll hit ‘send’ if you hit ‘submit.’ Go?” Mutual push beats solo dread.

opening up without the icky feeling

You don’t have to dump your entire life story in the team channel. Try layers:

1. Need-based honesty

“Group presentations take me longer because I get pretty nervous. Can I send rough slides a day early so you can peek first?”

2. Data over drama

“It takes me ~2 hours to write a client email unless I get a quick thumbs-up on the outline. If we slot a 5-minute review right after stand-up, I can ship same morning.” Managers speak calendar, not feelings. Give them a calendar fix.

3. Boundaries that still stretch you

Ask for one camera-off meeting per week, not all of them. You’ll get relief without full retreat.

wrap-up: you’re not broken, the radar is

Lazy is a surface judgment. Social anxiety is underground machinery. When people don’t see the gears, they label the shell. Switch the narrative by:

- catching the anxious moments early,

- using tiny tools that keep work moving,

- letting trusted teammates in on the struggle (just enough to get support).

Do that and you’ll watch the “lazy” sticker peel right off. And yeah, your output will rise, but the real win is walking into Monday stand-up without the secret dread. That feeling? Chef’s kiss.