Ever been accused of being lazy or a 'bludger'?

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Have you ever been accused of being lazy by a NT person?

I've been hard-working and career-obsessed all my life. Over the years I've had to do jobs that a lot of my friends and family would never dream of doing.

But some people I know have insinuated that I have been lazy because I was unemployed or only employed part-time.

Sometimes they even manage to convince me that I am lazy...but then I remember all the times I've been employed in jobs I loved and I was always the first one in the office in the morning and the last one to leave at night. I put everything else on hold for my job, even if it was a short-term assignment.

Is is normal to be accused of being lazy as an Aspie, and if so, could laziness simply be the misconstruing of burnout or the consequence of years of bad work situations affecting one's emotional stability in future work situations?

When I was younger, I used to be called "lazy" all the time. And I really wasn't lazy then.

Nowadays, I'm rarely called "lazy"---but I am, in fact, rather lazy.

Never heard the term "bludger"--is it an Aussie term?

plenty of NTs called me hard working.

a swim coach told me i was "lazy" for not joining a swim club over the summer. age 16. but it cost too much $$ & the coach did not really know me. and he did not care if i joined either.

my precious lil "dad" called me "lazy."

when i was young, especially 12-21, i was a workaholic.

after flunking out Structural Engineering 4th undergrad year, got lazy.

I too have been marginalized as being lazy or a "dole bludger" because I was unemployed for a long time.
I remember taking on those attitudes, until a counselor told me I had had every justification for it. I had a lot of problems, and no one could be expected to be on top of everything with that going on.
Since then I've learned to cut myself some slack for my shortcomings / limitations, and oddly, the more I do that the more people agree with me ! It's like if I "own" it and say actually, no, it's not that I'm "lazy," it's because I've had more to deal with in the past few years than most people deal with in a lifetime, the more people can understand and concur. Bizarre.

I too have been marginalized as being lazy or a "dole bludger" because I was unemployed for a long time.
I remember taking on those attitudes, until a counselor told me I had had every justification for it. I had a lot of problems, and no one could be expected to be on top of everything with that going on.
Since then I've learned to cut myself some slack for my shortcomings / limitations, and oddly, the more I do that the more people agree with me ! It's like if I "own" it and say actually, no, it's not that I'm "lazy," it's because I've had more to deal with in the past few years than most people deal with in a lifetime, the more people can understand and concur. Bizarre.
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when i was 20, i thought that working for the military was meaningful and had a purpose. and wanted the belonging. went to an Air Force ROTC orientation. the Captain had the nerve to tell me that "students that take six years to graduate are undisciplined." and ROTC does/did not take undisciplined students.

however, he got a BS and MS from State in Criminal Justice.

at the time, i was going into the 3rd year of a BS in Structural Engineering at ucsd.

some schools require more "discipline" than others.

some academic subjects require more "discipline" than others.

if you really wanna twiddle your thumbs, it is also correct, that the high school, closest to where i lived in 9-12 grade, had only 3% students labelled "proficient" at math. and i went to a public school.

in other words, the precious lil Captain did not tell me i was "lazy" in so many words. but "undisciplined" sounded close enough.

effort, efficiency, product

he made it sound like i was lazy

but whatever

it's b/c the product was not sufficient. he assumed that meant the effort was not sufficient. he did not consider maybe i was just inefficient.

likewise he did not fathom that i had an undiagnosed developmental disability, clinical depression.

but whatever. maybe it's better i did not join ROTC.

the military's policy was Don't Ask Don't Tell, until just recently.

and besides even if he were to have taken me, MEPS might've rejected my worthless corpse.

or maybe i would've gotten PTSD. or physically injured. maybe someone would've raped me.

the military, allegedly, contains a lot of racism, sexism, homophobia. granted, that can't be measured quantitatively. and granted i never enlisted or joined. (fine).

but plenty of articles claim a lot of discrimination in the military.

oh well

whatever





lemmie just passive aggressively proceed on my undisciplined "life"




maybe if i were "disciplined", i would've majored in Criminal Justice at SDSU, just like that big egoed, self-important, judgmental precious lil "person"

All. The. Time.

My relatives consider me to be a lazy SOB for accepting SSDI. THEY didn't have to put up with 95% of the BS I put up with while I was still working (like the 96 hour workweek, since I was working 2 other Part Time Jobs). My sister-in-law recently bawled me out for not finding work (she and her husband were the couple that realized I'm ASD and got tested and diagnosed for it at the age of 54, 6 years ago.). Now I'm being called a liar and a lazy SOB by her, since she's now working 3 jobs and 70+ hours per week, and trying to raise and cure their 2 youngest children. (They've bought into DAN as well as A$, as well as being antivaxxers. They refuse to listen to reason, unless it comes out of the mouth of Donald Trump.). She doesn't realize that I've made 3 different attempts with PA Voc. Rehab., and each time it ended in disaster. Besides, I'll be 60 in a little over a month. There is no HR manager in their right mind that will even hire me, because of my age and my health.

And people wonder why I don't get along with my relatives.

"She doesn't realize that I've made 3 different attempts with PA Voc. Rehab., and each time it ended in disaster."
if she keeps bothering you about work, then telling her could be an option. and tell her what kind of disaster in detail.



"There is no HR manager in their right mind that will even hire me, because of my age and my health."
not all HR managers are in the right minds.

the most recent HR manager had the nerve to ask me if my sister was autistic. when i told her i was autistic. her natural, immediate, subconscious response was to make this totally grossed out face. as if i were to have told her that i got convicted for raping babies. and then she told me that i was talking slowly on the answering machine, and that showed that i could not function.

and then she hired me, after telling me i could not function.

seriously, that was, by far, the most emotionally disturbing job interview i have ever had. and i got plenty of job interviews. and only got hired a couple times.

then the third day she had the nerve to fire me. she told me that the woman told her that i learned too slowly and you are working with peoples' money so you can't make mistakes.

seriously wonder what kind of exotic mental illnesses she had.

she told me she wanted to make sure i did not have any learning disabilities.

an MBA does not give her the legal right to diagnose learning disabilities.

and besides, autism ain't a learning disability.

autism is a developmental disability.

seriously she had a big ego and made me wanna puke.

I hope you have an attorney versed in both labor and disability law that will work with you on a contingency basis. That company needs a clue-by-four aimed at their heads.
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lawyers charge about 500 dollars per billable hour. some lawsuits take 2 years. in the united states, anyone can sue anyone for anything. and the plaintiff ain't guaranteed to win the lawsuit. merely having the moral (or legal) high road does not guarantee a success.

the job interview was in an empty room with the door closed. nobody else was in it besides her and me.

and i did not take a tape recording. it would have been illegal to take a tape recording.

thus, if i were to have taken out a civil lawsuit against them, then what? she could've denied it ever happened. and who would believe me? ain't got no physical evidence or witnesses. besides, it was an accounting company. she was a middle aged woman, with an MBA and 30 some years work experience. (rolls eyes). while i am what, a nobody? nothing.

I was always told I was "lazy" and "didn't apply myself" when it came to learning math because I had a legit learning disability and where I'm from, people think "learning disabilities" are an excuse made up to allow today's generation of children to be lazy and not have to learn. Supposedly, if I could memorize everything there was to know about meerkats and animals, then I should be able to learn and memorize everything there is to know about mathematics.

I don't think anyone has ever called me lazy regarding employment. But yes I would think it is normal to be accused of being lazy because our brains work different and we don't handle as much stuff as an NT would like with stress. I don't think people realize how much work and energy you put into to work hard and it's still not good enough for them because they can do more. I have noticed online people seem to toss this term around at anyone including at other NTs because they are not following their standards of how they should be living on welfare. I mean going to school and not working is counted as laziness for some people because they are not working full time or even working part time and going to school part time can be counted as lazy or working part time and going to school full time. Like am not willing to walk eight miles to work so some might call me lazy for that because some people are willing to walk that far but honestly if I walked that far, my legs would give out and I would be able to barely move. But maybe some people's legs can handle it because they have train themselves to walk and their bodies are used to walking that many miles a day because they have trained. Heck even being forgetful counts as laziness for some people or not doing something in someone's time frame or not following someone's standards. It seems like you can still be hard working and still be counted as being lazy.

That makes me so angry. It should be illegal to talk to people like that, seriously.

In once went and saw an unemployment consultant and when she found out I'm on the autism spectrum, she asked if I was a whiz with computers. When I said I was average, she kept staring at me with this weird, squinty expression and kept saying stuff like, "Are you suuuure?" with this weird smile on her face. I wanted to slap her for her presumption but instead I told her I was more of a lit geek than a computer geek, and that made her shut up about it.

We are not disabled. If anything, our difficulties with people have made us into more decent human beings.
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illegal does not mean immoral. what is legal in one state is illegal in a different state. what is legal in one year is illegal in a different year.

"should", "can", and "will" are all different things.

some laws are specific. for example, the speed limit specifies a quantity. it ain't subject to interpretation or opinion.

some laws are vague. for example, "reckless driving", and "child abuse". it does not specify quantities. one officer might label something as child abuse, while another officer does not label it as child abuse.

besides, what if it were illegal to talk to someone like that, then what? it is also illegal to take a tape recording without written consent. besides, who is going to believe me over her?

what she did, that is illegal, though was ask questions abut the applicant's disability. she had the nerve to ask if my sister was autistic.

but seriously, though. it ain't illegal to be judgmental self-important simpleton. the other things she said and did were legal.

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according to the books that i have read, a disproportionate number of autistics are good at math and computers. and a disproportionate number of autistics work as software engineers.

however, plenty of autistics are not good at math and computers.

and some neurotypicals are good at math and computers. some neurotypicals are bad a math and computers.

so what.

i am just one autist.

yeah i am pretty bad at computers. in junior high school, sixth grade. started out taking Computers as the elective. but then the school phoned my house and asked if i wanted to take Gifted and Talented Education instead. my precious lil "parents" said yes. so took Gate. which i regret doing. read To Kill a Mockingbird, A Separate Peace, Dragonwings, As You Like It.

those were really good books, but could've read them without a class.

computer science is so much more useful. in daily life, at school, and in work. especially nowadays.

in high school, took ROP Web Page Design. html and javascript. and ROP computers. Word, Excel, PowerPoint. counted as computer literacy.

in college, took Mechanical Engineering 9: C++. took SolidWorks and Cosmos (computer aided drafting). and MatLab. math laboratory. that was it for computers though. classmates were much better at computers than me. especially in Structural Engineering. but whatever.

you can't change the past.

in community college, took QuickBooks, Access, Integrated Accounting. and Excel II.

but those were all community college classes. without prereqs. in other words, anyone could take the class.

so seriously i am bad at computers.

better at math. got 710 out of 800 on SAT I: Math. 800 the highest. in undergrad, took up to Math 20e: Vector Analysis. flunked that class 3x.

autism is listed in the Diagnostic Statistical Manual. autism's official classification is a developmental disability. just like Down Syndrome.

there is no objective method of measuring how "decent" someone is. nor can you separate causation vs correlation. what makes someone a "decent" person.

does autism offer strengths that neurotypicals do not usually have as much of? yes.

but that don't mean autism ain't a disability.

it's terminology. i know. euphemism. word choice.

connotation vs denotation

My mom called me lazy ALOT when I wasn't working. I'm 34 & I only worked about 3 years. I have disabilities besides Aspergers that really limit me with employment & my parents don't understand em too well. They thought I wasn't trying to find a job when I was applying for most any job I thought I might could do. I got good reviews when I was working & management & my supervisors really liked me. My mom also called me lazy when I was in skewl cuz my grades were really bad & I didn't study. My grades were bad cuz of my dyslexia & I didn't learn from studying. I did homework but I needed time to wind down when I got home because skewl really stressed me out & having my mom on my back stressed me out even more. Thankfully I moved in with my girlfriend when I turned 29 so my parents haven't been on my back much. I haven't looked for a job cuz I needed alot of time to adjust & then my girlfriend kinda didn't want me to. She's disabled too & has problems with anxiety & depression along with other things & doesn't like being home alone for more than a couple hours. She thinks there might be a way I could get paid for being her caretaker(I am classified as her life-in-aid for her Section 8 housing voucher) but she's slow at getting around to things cuz of her issues. I do have Social Security Disability thou so I do have some income but I'm really worried about what's going to happen to it soon.