People were so smug about me not finding work

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Before the virus, people were so smug about me not getting work.

NT people, generally idiot ones, saying it's easy.

They would just say 'well if you had better people skills you'd have a job'. Or just call me lazy for not having work.

I didn't get work. It made me ill. I ended up on disability.

I still had people online pushing me to get a job in something like waiting tables or serving fast food. Even though most low paid employers binned my applications. Even though I was on ESA Support Tier, not ESA Job Seeker's or JSA. ESA Support level means you're not able to work.

I went through uni and MA and still got rejected. Why? Cos I'm aspie and even when I mask to the point it makes me ill, it still isn't enough and they see through it.

Well... turns out you need more than 'people skills'. You need to be able to adapt to whatever environment you find yourself in. But if I say that then I sound like the heartless one... Because heaven forfend an aspie is blunt about something the way that some other people get away with being...

I'm not even talking about actual people skills btw. My mum has actual people skills. She has high empathy and cares about her employees and the kids she works with. I'm talking about being fake and sleazy and good body language for an NT and putting on an act. That used to be the only way to get through an interview.

I have those actual people skills. I was the one person who stopped a widower from crying and being upset and waived his dead wife's fees. That is far more important than making small talk.

I hope after all this is over, there are more jobs for young aspies and people start to value more than just supposed 'people skills'. I hope intelligent young aspie candidates, and NTs who might be a bit shy or whatever, get hired. And I hope that if they don't, people will not be so smug as to say nonsense like 'getting a job is easy'. It isn't. Not if you're autistic in a people skills obsessed world.

I strongly dislike anyone that acts like it's easy to get a job. Screw those people. And I get the impression a lot of them just get hired because of 'who they know.'

I too always struggle to get something even with my best masking skills (I guess they still just see me as peculiar ) and following all of the interview 'rules'.

The whole process is terrible and highly discriminatory against people who don't fit into the mold of stock-photo-esque employees. I really hope to be the person doing the hiring one day, so that I can hire people based on their capabilities and not stupid things like eye contact or how friendly they seem.

It's never easy.

It's only easy if your own particular skillset happens to match up with what is required at that particular time.

Or (like you said) if you know someone who knows someone etc and they all like you. Which either requires family/family friends to be in your field, family/family friends to own a business or you to network like an NT.

My mum deliberately hires aspies. Not based on the equal opps form. Just if someone has 'bad eye contact', 'bad body language' etc, she emails them for a bit and looks at their CVs. To see if they also have autistic strengths to compensate for it.

My mum's NT but gets on better with aspies. She knows from me and her spouse/ex spouse that there are strengths that come along with being autistic, not just weaknesses.

It's so great to know there are people like your mum out there!

I know the feeling... I only got my current job because the employment office sent me to this place as an unpaid trainee... they actually said that they weren't hiring, but I took the short unpaid job anyway so that my resume would look better. Once my month was up, they asked me to stay for another two. I did, and once that was up, they asked if I wanted to work for them for real. And I did. I'm still there.

I think one of the reasons my parents were so frustrated about me not getting a job was that when they were my age, getting a job really was easy; there was a shortage of workforce here. Could this be the case with the people around you as well? Maybe they're a bit behind their times.

It's inherent to the system

The world contains a lot more extrovert jobs than introvert jobs. Introvert jobs usually STEM or trades. Extrovert jobs just require two forms of ID

It's survival of the fittest

Phone interview

Job interview, try to sit around making awkward conversation

Office politics

Talk talk talk

"Actions speak louder than words"

"Silence is golden"

"Loose lips sink ships"

"A picture worth a thousand words"

It is not "discrimination"

American Disability Act requires "reasonable accommodation". Better than nothing, but not specific enough. Anyone could correctly say that anything is unreasonable

"Reasonable" does not mean they have to read a book about autism

"Reasonable" certainly doesn't mean they have to hire you

Saying that job interviews are "discrimination" is like saying, grocery stores discriminate against large customers. In that, all things equal, large people waste more cash on groceries than small people.

Don't NTs have an excellent skill of putting themselves in other people's shoes, as stated so articulately on every autism-related site?