Why does working with someone else give me anxiety?

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My job is at a custom cabinet shop, I am (usually) the only wood finisher. I stain and lacquer every piece of wood by myself.

Sometimes, when the workload is particularly large, my supervisor will assign the other new guy (who has actually been here longer than me) to help. However, even if there is a lot to do, I'd really prefer to do it all myself.

For one thing, I usually do think I can get it done before the deadline by myself, and I don't think I really need help most of the time. But either way, I hate having help, even if I am pretty sure the person helping me knows what they are doing, at least enough to not do anything stupid.

I've noticed that having someone else around while I'm working makes me either go very slowly, or go too fast. And I feel like I need to watch them, because I worry that they are going to bump the rack and knock it over somehow (which isn't really possible to begin with), and all the finished wood will get destroyed. Or I imagine other terrible things happening. I actually see it happening in my head, and it freaks me out. When I'm alone this doesn't happen.

Part of it is that I want things done a certain way (how to sand it, spray it etc.) and I hate having someone else around because I know I can't communicate exactly how I want it (nor does it make a huge difference, I just like it that way, which means they probably wouldn't care to do it my way anyway).

But in general I have always hated working with partners. Maybe it's just too much unpredictability. I don't know. Is this normal?

Edit: one example of something that bothers the hell out of me but doesn't really matter, is I want them in a particular order. I always organize the wood by what kind of piece it is, and then by size (first length, then width). And I feel like yelling at him when he takes them out of the order I had them in. I don't, but it makes me mad.

I'm actually impressed; you've seemed to have learned your job well.

I can understand your feelings; I don't like working with a partner, either.

It's hard for me to offer a solution, because I'm not there.

In general, though, I would, in a nice way, tell your partner how you like the wood placed (in a certain way). Ask how HE likes his wood placed. You could both compromise that way.

You could also, nicely, state that you need space to work.

I think, for individual wood pieces that need lacquering, you have to do each individual one yourselves.

Thanks I never would have suspected I'd be good at this, because with every job I've had up to this point, I started out ok, but my performance would plummet due to stress, and if I hadn't quit when I did I'm sure every place would have eventually fired me. But somehow with this job I'm really good at it. The supervisor and my boss have even gone out of their way to compliment my work. I hope that means I'll get a raise soon.

But anyway... back to the thing about working with others. Ever since my partner was fired I've been putting out more than both of us did combined. Partially because since he was in charge, I would constantly get lost on what I should be doing. Since he didn't give me direct instructions I often didn't know what he wanted me to do, and I would spend a lot of time trying to figure it out.

We would also sometimes argue about how we wanted to do things (and he has OCD, so you can imagine how that might have gone ). I tried to only press the matter if I felt it was a legitimate concern, but he usually still wouldn't believe my reasoning (even though the supervisor later confirmed I was right several times). I'm not necessarily really happy he lost his job, but it has made mine a lot easier.

The guy who helps now, though, is somewhat the opposite of him. He seems too relaxed for me to feel comfortable. He carries things with one hand (this bothers me because he does it with freshly sprayed pieces), doesn't set them down gently, knocks dust from the higher racks onto pieces below... He just doesn't seem very careful. In the past he actually messed some stuff up too (that was months ago, but still).

I don't know how to bring this up when he does these things, I've tried to tell him why he shouldn't do it that way, but either I wasn't clear or he doesn't care. And I'm pretty sure he just doesn't care. To be fair he's never actually caused something bad to happen with me... yet. It feels inevitable.

I guess that's another motivation for me to get everything done in a timely manner. Though today I would have been just fine without him, I guess he just didn't have anything to do. Ugh. I don't know if I really have any options if that's why the supervisor told him to help me, he has to have some work to do.

I find myself hoping they don't hire another sprayer. Unless he is experienced (or at least intelligent) enough that I won't have to teach him so much, but also will listen to me. Somehow that doesn't seem likely.