Now you've got the job, can you actually do it?

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After nearly 2 years of being unemployed, I was extremely lucky enough to have been offered a job, starting next Monday. It's as an administrative assistant with a nonprofit. I've been wondering about with a big grein on my face for the past week, but my relief and joy have been tinged with apprehension.

It's been like a roller coaster ride: one day I'm looking forward to getting back behind a desk again, confident I can do the job; the next I'm quaking in my boots, worried I'm going to make a hash of it and be booted out during the probationary period. During my job search, I had a good few interviews, and seemed to get my BS down to a fine art. This job looked like a really good fit for me, and I didn't have to BS, but I'm still worried that the company think I'm more skilled etc than I might be.

Another worry is that I've only ever worked for medium-sized public-sector organisations, this place is tiny (4 employees) and private sector, though it deals with public-sector issues. Has anyone any good/bad experiences of moving to or working in the private sector and/or in such a small organization?

Is this apprehension normal? For those of you lucky enough to have had job offers, how did you feel during that period between the job offer and starting work, and how did the way it turned out when you'd started the job compare to your expectations?

Magnificently normal... I always felt like my gut was going to eat itself up with anxiety. Once I got going, though, things tended to drop into place. There might be a few things new, but on balance it was minimal and I'd just ask how something was usually done. Then as I got accustomed to the job, I might change things.

Remember, you know how to do all the little steps that assemble into a big step. So though there are differences in style/systems from place to place, all the little steps are pretty much the same... phone, paperwork, meetings, schedules... you know all that.

Congrats on the job!

I don't know if it's "normal" for NTs, but I know I'm almost always that way.

If you've not been working or just go into a job you've never really done before, it's "normal" to be apprehensive of how well you will do it. After all, if you were a great case manager for 5 years and move to a new company as a case manager there, why should you question your ability? But what if you go from being a case manager to being a field supervisor? Same basic skills but different duties. Can be nerve wracking.

Being unemployed for a time seems to increase the problem because the long time out of work makes you question your ability and skill set. Interviewing is basically about selling yourself to the employer, and we all have to put an impressive image forth, but inside we question that if we really were all that good, wouldn't we have not been unemployed in the first place?

My best 2 cents is to go into the job and FOCUS on the tasks you need to do to get through the day. One day at a time. Think of nothing more than doing the job you need to do in the moment. If you focus your energy into doing the job, you'll give your best effort, and as you get more comfortable with the overall job, you'll be less stressed about it as a whole.

Congratulations on your new job!

I think apprehension is quite normal. It's one thing to think about having a job and how nice it would be and how great it is; it's quite another to actually go there every day and deal with the little bits and pieces of it that may or may not have been in the job description. There's always stuff They don't tell you, and there's always stuff that you discover once you're actually on the job. I found in my recent new position that I had certain things pegged as "aspie traps", and in fact some of them were, but there were any number of other details that were just as troublesome as the issues I had identified ahead of time.

As zer0netgain said, focus on what's in front of you. Do the next right thing, and keep doing it.

Thanks, guys, very interesting responses.

I do like the idea of 'aspie traps'. I think it might help to identify these first and think of ways to deal with them. My job will include time helping out at conferences, no doubt sitting behind a table registering visitors. I can deal with that, I'm just worried I might be too slow and hold the line up, but that's another issue...

Yes, deal with what's in front of you sounds like very sound advice. If I were to keep a sort of diagram or chart in my head with what's going on and what needs to be done, then I'd be half way there.

One thing that worries me slightly is that at the interview the lady asked me if I was a 'self starter'. What's that supposed to mean?

I suppose the main problem is that if at the interview you're asked if you have initiative, for example, you'll say 'yes' even if you're not too sure you have. That's how I feel right now, I may have said yes to one question too many!

Work starts Monday. I'll post after the first few days and let you know how it's going.

That means they pretty much show you once how something needs to be done and you figure out the rest on your own. Nobody will sit with you for a week waiting for you to learn how to do your job. Training will be limited to answering questions and showing you the few things they don't expect you to know when you show up on the first day.

When I was hired as a case manager, there wasn't much to "learn" but I got a week or so with the person who was training me to make sure I knew how to get things done. She was amazed how obsessed I was at "fixing" the office PC so it would be better structured for me to make sense of it, but I suppose that was AS rearing its head. If things weren't arranged just so, I couldn't focus on the job.

Well, it's two weeks since I started, and I have to say that, most of the time, it has been a great deal easier than I was expecting.

The organisation is tiny, and I have just 2 regular co-workers, as well as the boss who appears once or twice a week. I was anticipating the usual animosity brought on by my awkwardness, lack of social skills, etc, but for the most part my two co-workers are just fine, very accommodating.

Everything was going fine until two days ago. Our little organization, a non-profit, held a big conference at a local hotel. We three manned the registration table and were generally on hand for the members if they had any queries or requirements. Being new, I didn't really know how to deal with any of the queries, and felt frustrated whenever someone approached the table to ask me something and I had to give them a blank look and point to my co-workers.

Like alot of aspies, I tend to take any grumpiness as deeply personal, wondering what have I done to make them grumpy. It doesn't occur to me that they could just be stressed. This morning, the second and final day of the conference, there was a bit of a flap about missing name tags. I half-misheard a conversation and heard the words "...but I thought I'd given them to him". One of the girls went off in a huff, the other was rather laconic towards me. I had to see the first girl about something, and she was equally short. It turned out that the missing tags were in the bottom of the box all the time, after this, they were back to their usual friendly selves. For the rest of the day, though, I just had that sinking feeling that I was pissing them off, bumbling, mishearing requests and generally being a bumbler.

It would seem that the work is pretty straightforward, nothing very taxing at all, it's the relationships with my co-workers and my social awkwardness that seem to be making me miserable.