Are repetitive tasks easy for you?
elderwanda
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Joined: 17 Nov 2008
Age: 53
Gender: Female
Posts: 1,534
Location: San Francisco Bay Area
First my usual disclaimer: I'm not diagnosed with AS, but I suspect I'm mildly on the spectrum and/or have ADD. I have enough traits of both that I cannot consider myself NT.
I love repetitive tasks, and it's nice to be able to admit that. I've had a variety of jobs, ranging from making pizzas to refueling B-52s while flying (although technically I never completed the training for that, being ridiculously ill-suited for such a job). I tend to be very unsure of myself and anxious when there are too many variables. Too often, in jobs, I know basically what I'm meant to be doing, but something unusual comes up and I'm not sure how to deal with it. In my experience, if I take the initiative to solve a problem on my own, then I get in trouble for doing the wrong thing, but if I ask for help, then I get in trouble for "not taking the initiative." Consequently, I've dreaded every moment of every job.
The exception is when I have a repetitive task. I had a desk job for a few years in the Air Force, and I really hated it most of the time. However, there were a few things that I had to do each day, which I liked. One of them was removing the carbon paper from a large stack of computer printouts. It took quite a while, but there was a rhythm to it, and it was just physical enough and mindless enough to be relaxing. Years later, when I worked in a pizza restaurant (which is what six years of military service qualified me for), I enjoyed folding the boxes. They come as flat pieces of cardboard, and when things were slow, we'd fold a bunch of them.
The one thing I didn't like about those kinds of tasks was that if someone else was doing it alongside me, they'd want to carry on a chat session about how dull it was. It's clearly socially unacceptable to enjoy that kind of thing. If you say that you enjoy it, that's like saying you are too stupid to do anything more challenging. Well, supposedly I'm more intelligent than most (so I've been told), but for the reasons I mentioned in my opening paragraph, I don't like "challenges" in work situations. Leave the challenges for hobbies, where there is no one to write me up for not living up to some weird standard.
I hate repetitive tasks.
Using the word 'hate' is even to light to describe the feelings I have with repetitive/boring tasks.
To the guy some post above me: I can't believe somebody with ADD (inattentive or hyperactive) likes repetitive tasks.
Sometimes when we have accounting exer. that are very boring, and we already did 1000x times. I start sweating while doing the exer. , my concentration starts escaping, I become crazy.
Tollorin
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Joined: 14 Jun 2009
Age: 39
Gender: Male
Posts: 3,178
Location: Sherbrooke, Québec, Canada
Using the word 'hate' is even to light to describe the feelings I have with repetitive/boring tasks.
To the guy some post above me: I can't believe somebody with ADD (inattentive or hyperactive) likes repetitive tasks.
Sometimes when we have accounting exer. that are very boring, and we already did 1000x times. I start sweating while doing the exer. , my concentration starts escaping, I become crazy.
About the same. (Except for sweating...)
I enjoy performing repetitive tasks up to the point where I feel I've perfected the pattern, then I lose all interest and my performance drops despite my ability to do it properly.
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Chances are, if you're offended by something I said, it was an attempt at humour.
Personally I can't stand repetition.. I would get bored out of my brain doing the same thing over and over. Whilst learning new things can be difficult sometimes I much prefer it.
In between jobs years ago I tried my hand at a couple of those types of jobs and quite frankly I found it a horrible experience. One job was potting plants at which I only lasted a day and the other was on a production line at an asparagus packing warehouse which I lasted for about two hours. Really not for me.. Too easy and way too uninteresting.
I haven't officially been diagnosed with anything, and in the 1970s, they hadn't defined Asperger's Syndrome as yet, (I'm 44 y.o.) but I was diagnosed with being atypical, although they couldn't quite put their finger on it. My mother has said a number of times that she thinks that I have Asperger's but would like to get an "official diagnosis" of that.
As it would happen, I was helping out at church with a perogi sale. (Perogi are the Slavic version of a dumpling, made with potatoes, but come in different varieties like sour cream, cheese, sauerkraut, etc..) I was packing them in boxes and it hit me how much I really enjoyed packing them in boxes! It was so relaxing, and I didn't have to deal with the public, and I could just focus. I had thought that I wished I could get paid for doing a repetitive task like this, which is how I stumbled on to this website.
When I was a cart boy, (my first job), I enjoyed the repetitive task of collecting carts, but was whining about the whole meaning and purpose to my job...(I had fantasies of a science career). Now I could probably do it and have no problem. If I could work at just packing things in boxes all day, or some sort of other repetitive task, I think I would be very satisfied at my job.
Yes... and I get better and better at these tasks... and, many many "tasks" can end up... repetitive. Like games, or driving the same route day after day, or making hamburgers.
Tasks that become unbearable for me are super simple tasks that you don't really get better at. I can't now come up with a task I really hated, but... when I became self employed, having employees, an "open" schedule, that was the best.
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Everything is falling.
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