Would aspies do better in jobs where you work.....

Page 1 of 1 [ 7 posts ] 

Azureth
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker

User avatar

Joined: 3 Mar 2013
Age: 39
Gender: Male
Posts: 67

30 Mar 2014, 3:12 pm

For the same company for x number of years and work your way up? Compared to today where it's pretty much expected people, especially those of us who are melinnials keep jumping from job to job looking for something better, in the past it was more simple. You got a degree, got a job at company x and were pretty much expected to stay there till you retired. Do you think if we still had that kind of model it would make it easier for us aspie folk?

For me at least, unlike most others my age, I would have no problem at all with it. If you were to offer me a job where I would sit in a cubicle doing computer work I would be more than happy to stay till I retire and just simply move up when offered the chance. Of course, again I know I am in the minority, but I think a lot of it has to do with my aspie traits.



Willard
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 23 Mar 2008
Age: 66
Gender: Male
Posts: 5,647

30 Mar 2014, 4:03 pm

Aspergians will do best in jobs doing something they love and believe in. We can't stay focused on something that doesn't interest us. The salary and benefits should be a secondary consideration, because if you don't love what you're doing, you won't be able to stand doing it for very long at all.

In my experience, the very idea of staying with one company for a decade is a moot point. My employers became fed up with my autistic peculiarities after about 15-18 months and fired me like clockwork, which was always fine by me, because by then the stress of trying to comply with their demands was driving me to a complete meltdown. I can't imagine how anyone with these handicaps could keep the same job for more than a few years at best.



Nepsis
Tufted Titmouse
Tufted Titmouse

User avatar

Joined: 23 Mar 2013
Gender: Male
Posts: 39

04 Apr 2014, 8:51 pm

I agree with Willard. I know in my (limited) experience so far, I have thrived when working
at something I really love, and then just shut down when doing something uninteresting/unappealing, despite it
being a promotion and higher wage.

I've now worked at two different places where I started out in a position I really liked and
I excelled at it. After about a year and a half, my boss gave me a promotion to a supervisory position, which
was quite a bump up in pay, but also totally different from the work I'd been enjoying before.
It absolutely turned me off, and I quit after three months. The same thing has happened at my current
job; I'm a manager now, but I really dislike it. I'm trying to push through though and make it work.

I wouldn't presume that such is the experience of all aspies, and it's probably just my own personality flaw;
but NT's generally seem eager to move up the hierarchical ladder for the sake of more money, whereas
I generally find that aspies may be much happier doing what they love and have a special interest in--even if
it means less income--and taking little interest in the big corporate rat race mess.



ASPartOfMe
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 25 Aug 2013
Age: 67
Gender: Male
Posts: 38,083
Location: Long Island, New York

05 Apr 2014, 11:02 pm

I agree with the OP. Back then there were other Autistic friendly factors to consider. The economy in general was a lot better. If you desired to work in a certain field and had the appropriate major or vocational training entry level opportunities were available. A lot of major companies provided several week training programs where they taught you both the job specifics and the company culture with the expectation you would stay until you retired (and once you did your pension was lucrative enough to retire) the companies had a health insurance and paid part or all of it.

That being said the autistic disadvantages such as interviews and sensory and stress buildup leading to "inappropriate" firing type behavior was there. Even if personal conflict was avoided autistics careers path could only go so far with poor management and office politics abilities. You and the employee had no knowledge of ASD. These were mitigated by the fact that HR had much less paperwork and fear to deal with then. If you were applying for an accounting position all you needed was to do was demonstrate passable people skills. While the lifetime employee model was widespread some industries like Willard's did not follow it.

My dad and granddad who I strongly suspect ASD had lifelong positions. By the 1980's this the lifelong employment was starting to breakdown and IT where I was working was leading the way. But still I remember in 1985 receiving a pay raise twice a year weighing several offers at once. I have not had steady work since 2005 I have not changed that much, they have


_________________
Professionally Identified and joined WP August 26, 2013
DSM 5: Autism Spectrum Disorder, DSM IV: Aspergers Moderate Severity.

“My autism is not a superpower. It also isn’t some kind of god-forsaken, endless fountain of suffering inflicted on my family. It’s just part of who I am as a person”. - Sara Luterman


peaceloveerin
Deinonychus
Deinonychus

User avatar

Joined: 5 Aug 2011
Age: 37
Gender: Female
Posts: 356

05 Apr 2014, 11:12 pm

I work from home as a medical transcriptionist, but the pay sucks!! Everyone has been pressuring me to go out and get a regular job, but the whole job search process and going on interviews causes me even more stress and anxiety!! I don't want to go through all of that again. I feel I'm not capable of handling a regular job because of my disability and anxiety and not knowing how to deal with people.



LostInEmulation
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 10 Feb 2008
Age: 42
Gender: Female
Posts: 2,047
Location: Ireland, dreaming of Germany

07 Apr 2014, 3:28 pm

Yep! I don't think people would have hired me in a face to face interview, but once they had the obsessed and willing to obsess about their products aspie in their company, they have acepted me and allowed me my own niche.


_________________
I am not a native speaker. Please contact me if I made grammatical mistakes in the posting above.

Penguins cannot fly because what cannot fly cannot crash!


MissDorkness
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 15 Aug 2011
Age: 48
Gender: Female
Posts: 903
Location: Missouri

08 Apr 2014, 1:55 pm

I know I got really lucky landing my last job. It was a position with an overwhelming amount of detail and had a weird cross-section of needing to be both self-directed and able to take orders (a personality I don't see very often). I took it because I needed the health insurance (I have Myasthenia Gravis and had been without medical care for years, got tired of being accused by my bosses of coming into work inebriated when I didn't even drink, just because I couldn't afford a doctor and daily meds), it was petrifying, though.
After I got used to it all (thanks to my mentor, the Engineer that referred me to the job because I was in church youth group with his two youngest kids), I found it hard to contemplate leaving.
Apparently, I am a 'high change' person (took a test in college) and need to do new things to stay engaged, so I would take on new roles at work and grow resentful of the same boring stuff I was expected do when I was hired. But, there was no where for me to go 'up', and I don't really want to be a manager anyway, I want to do the work, not manage those who do it.

I have been tempted more than a few times to work for a consulting company, getting to do implementations and trouble-shooting, etc, which is my favorite stuff... but, I have had a family to support so could not give up the security of that role.
Finally found a local role with similar security doing more system administration than grunt work.
I did worry, while applying for new jobs for years and years and years, that I wasn't taken seriously since I'd only had one professional job. I think freelancing helped even out my resume.

Now, even though I do not think that I want to be a leader, anytime I get into something, I always become a defacto manager, but, I think it is only because no one else cares enough about details, and I always point them out or make sure things get done.
Another test I took in college indicates that I make a good leader because I make decisions based upon facts rather than emotional reactions. Most people consider that a flaw, not a strong point. ;)