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They try to teach this at Roses for Autism. If you want their job training you have to eat lunch with everyone else. They won't let you eat alone. They also believe that people on the spectrum can do a lot of different jobs, even some that involve social interaction, with the proper training. So they try people out with different jobs until they figure out what you can do.

They're correct in believing this. You've got to remember that it's a very broad spectrum and the highest functioning of us won't ever likely be in such a jobs program, and we do do social jobs. I've been a salesman & a bartender etc - even during my some very aspie anxious times of my life. Granted, those symptoms didn't help me at work and I'd do much better now if I went back to a job like those, but my point is, yes, it's not just their belief that people on the spectrum can do a lot of different jobs, even some that involve social interaction. It's reality that we Do.

Whilst I agree that gossiping is never a good thing to indulge in, for anyone, "keeping to oneself" just does not work. I know, because I have tried it. You end up being shunned, and seen as being weird and anti-social, and that is never what employers want when they always - always - insist that only "team players" need apply for the job advertised. What is a "group convo"? Group conversation?

Last edited by Lintar on 10 Dec 2017, 8:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Do your job better than 90% of them, but still lose it when the time comes for staff to be cut. So many "aspies" just do not understand the basic point that if an NT employer has to decide between retaining an incompetent employee who is nevertheless a social butterfly, and an expert, efficient, dedicated and punctual aspie, it will be the aspie who gets ditched. That's just reality, as it is in the workforce. It is wrong, unjust, and plain stupid, I agree, but that's the way it is.

There are experts who don't have to play the social game because they do jobs that nobody else on a staff of 100 can even guess at doing. And they would have to pay way more to get someone who could do that. Though it they had social skills they could make way more money...

There are many people who kiss the boss's butt to make up for their less than stellar job performances. It sucks that people make socializing a priority over producing quality work. Employers miss out on great employees when they just hire people that they can socialize with endlessly.

Where I work, staying focused on the job is highly valued. I was actually hired because of my serious disposition rather than in spite of it.

That is pretty awesome, Historygal. If only other employers could follow suit. It gets tiring to see people get hired based on their ability to have BS sessions with everybody. Companies need more people like you who focus on doing their jobs instead of endless socializing.

Not that we don't have our share of time wasters where I work.....I'm actually a novelty since I don't waste time socializing.

Do not work more than you need to, if you do 75% more than everyone else, you'll burn out and get used by people, and they will come to expect it.

That is not an aspie thing, it's a workplace thing to not get used up and throw away.

This is what happened to me when I worked at WalMart & some of the reason I quit. It's one thing to have a good work ethic but it's another to let yourself be taken advantage of.

It's one thing for employers' expectations to be too high, it's entirely another for someone to be lazy.

Sometimes I do a lot more work than others. I lift the heavy stuff etc. I never groan about doing more than the other guy who's getting paid more since he's been around longer. I do it because I Can & it's a good healthy workout.

Also, I know I have off days where my output is less than ideal, so I make up for it with my stellar days of really getting s**t done.

I like this thread. Probably because I reeeeeally enjoy business and work dynamics, they're fascinating. Navigating the social aspects of work are incredibly anxiety inducing but when I get them right I always feel such a huge sense of accomplishment. It's kind of like successful completion of a puzzle.

On the social thing I have some thoughts that I hope add to the discussion

The first one is to be as social as you can manage to be without seriously depleting your energy. That is, don't avoid being social completely, but don't go so far with trying to be social that you can't keep up with the social aspect or that it seriously damages your job performance. Much of what has been said about those who are more social having a better chance of sticking with the company is true, and it's actually a good thing to sacrifice job performance a little bit in order to be social (For example, spending 10-20 minutes chatting with a co-worker in some cases is actually a good thing... but spending an hour is probably a bad thing unless it's lunch.)... What you don't want to do is measure your success of mixing with the social expectations based on how social everyone else is. For me it doesn't work to try to compare myself to everyone else. I've tried to keep up before but struggled immensely, because I don't have a way to quantify how-social other people are and to benchmark that compared to my own socialness.

The other one for being social... try to find co-workers that share something you're interested in. It doesn't have to be your favorite special interest. Just anything that you're interested in. It makes chit chat waaaaay easier, or at least it does for me!

Studies actually show that people who have a work-best-friend are more engaged as employees (I believe I got that one from the book called the 5 languages of appreciation in the workplace but it might have been a different book). Even if it doesn't make you more engaged in your job, it does make you seem just social enough that you no longer seem like a complete antisocial person. Plus having a friend to offer support is great! I have a friend that I talk about things that I cant talk with my boss or employee about and he gives me good advice and perspective sometimes.

As for additional advice: treat your job like an interest. Dig in, learn it, find out the details about the job and its history and what some of the best people to do the job are doing. If there is a professional organization associated with the job type then consider asking the company to sponsor a membership to that org. I've become rather successful taking advantage of my abilities as a very focused autodidact.

I also want to point out that the amount of work that you do... if you overachieve or underachieve or do just the right amount is something that varies from job to job. In some cases people will resent you if you over-perform. In other cases over-performance will help you to stand out as a great employee. I usually watch my co-workers carefully to see if they work extra hard, or just the right amount, or not quite as much as people would think and try to match that as best as possible.

^^^I actually got fussed by a couple managers(two different jobs & this happened twice with one of em) for simply telling a coworker friend Hi & maybe another social pleasantry while passing by him & the jobs were retail. I was pretty upset after the 1st time but didn't care much the other two times since they were managers of a different department & I realized I didn't really do anything wrong.

I recently took the time to weigh out my options job-wise and made a list of jobs that were among my search, 146 to be exact, and found that 58 of those were duplicate listings or unrelated adverts/sponsored links, and 59 were unsuitable for me for reasons such as requiring a drivers license & car, medical background, personal hygiene that are unlikely to change in the future. This left me with 13 marginally suitable jobs with 4 questionable ones which might need further training or courses to get. Bearing in mind the site [Indeed] only updates me with 10 or so new jobs every day, where i'm lucky to be even suitable for one.

This gave me the conclusion that on average, my jobsearch results suggest just 17% of all jobs I look at online are suitable for me to apply for, and I always have second thoughts on applying to half of that 17%, which is as optimistic as i'll get. I did a skills health check, only to see that I have little to no marketable skills because it's been so long since i've been out of work (the only work I have undertaken has been voluntary) and this comes to no surprise that companies look down upon volunteers when it comes to advertising paid roles.

Companies expect job applicants to have a bunch of paid experience even for entry level jobs. Companies don't want to count volunteer experience as experience because it's not paid. I don't think it should matter if the experience is paid or not. Sometimes the person with five years of volunteer experience in the field is considerably more knowledgeable about the job than the person with two years of paid experience. People gotta be able to get experience somehow. Volunteering can be a good place to start.