Continually fired

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I've had jobs continually from the age of 19 (I am 41 now). I always do well at interviews and my skills, when tested, are always in the top of the range. I have education and experience. But I have no legitimate references, and always have to fake my resume to avoid listing jobs for which actual references could be checked. Why? Because all my jobs only lasted from 3 months to a couple of years, and I was "let go" or fired from every one of them that wasn't temporary to begin with. I've held well over a dozen full-time permanent positions in a lot of different industries.

Here's what happens: For two to four months, everything goes great. I get compliments on how quickly I learn new things and how hard I work. And then something which I've come to call The Change happens. During "The Change", people begin to find fault with me and criticize me for very minor things. They become increasingly impatient with me, for unknown reasons. They begin to get rude and dismissive of me, and the bullying begins. The talking behind my back begins. The getting called into the boss's office for formal reprimands begins, though the errors I'm being reprimanded for are impossibly minor ones that everyone else makes too.

Usually, but not always, there is one person in the office who takes my side and agrees that I am being treated unfairly, which suggests to me that it isn't my minor technical errors at work that are really being reprimanded. Mysterious conversations ensue, involving the boss and my manager telling me that they don't know "whether I really want to work there" and my needing the job so badly that I promise to do anything, work overtime, work through every lunch and break, come in on weekends, anything, to continue working there. I work longer hours and harder than anyone else, never taking lunch, and check and re-check everything I do, because by then I'm paranoid about making minor errors even such as typos. My customers or clients always love me because I go an extra ten miles to be helpful and useful to them, and I try to do the same thing for my co-workers.

But no matter what I do or how intensely I scrutinize myself and obey the rules, my manager or boss always increasingly has a worse and worse opinion of me. I can see it in their faces, they are furious with me, their words are terse and hateful. And then I'm always either fired or "let go" - downsized, usually, or laid off. The reason given is always a fake reason. "The Change" always wins. And more recently I've realized that it will always win, so there is no use continuing to try. I am no longer going to put myself through this cruel and fixed script. I just can't take "The Change" anymore, I can't take trying harder and harder and always making enemies of the people I'm trying so hard to please. I am not going to ever work again on the grounds that having a job is psychologically abusive.

I am sorry to hear about your difficult experiences. I find that I change, when I'm in a job too long; when it isn't new, it isn't as exciting, and I have a difficult time keeping my focus. But, that is my story, not yours, and this thread is your story.

Have you thought about being self-employed, or doing something that does not have direct interaction with co-workers? What are your skills?

Maybe your hard work and extra effort is making your co-workers look bad? Your co-workers may think you are trying to steal their customers. In certain settings, Aspies can do way more work than NTs--this can make them envious. A better approach for something that is just a job may be to study your co-workers, and do no more than average. People don't want to see the bar set unreasonably high--your hard work may be setting a "bad" example.

I hated this, especially with phricken UNIONS
god i hate unions the no good bossy idiots are
not stuffing my pockets the BOSS is stuffing
my pockets, no dang union is going to tell me
what to do unless they are PAYING me.

I even took a 'scab' jobn once because I hate
unions so much, god it felt good to have 2 armed
guards escort me to work, AND got paid to
do it as well.

I've run into this a number of times. Part of the problem is that because you do show how "fantastic" you are in your interview and testing, you automatically are held to a higher standard. You are expected to meet all expectations at a higher level than the average person already on the job. Then your lack of social skills as well as being noted as the new "smart" person being hired means that you get people automatically needing to cause drama because you might make them look bad. You do your job and they find fault and bring it to the attention of the managers instead of talking to you because they want to get you in trouble so they don't look bad. You work harder and longer to compensate, they see you still excelling beyond what they are doing and making them look bad, they push farther to get you out and after a certain number of complaints you are seen as a disruption to the workplace and you are summarily dismissed for whatever paperwork reason they can throw at you... been there, done that.

This is a constant issue with normal offices/office politics, something I refuse to work in ever again.

I work for myself now. I got a certification in technical writing, do freelance gigs for internet news and article pages, edit people's college term papers, write novels on the side, and make enough to make ends meet. I will never again work in a normal workplace because the politics are horrendous and anyone who can't blend in and force themselves to just be the same boring slow person that just slacks gets isolated. I've seen it over and over again with my friends...they've all had to learn how to slack and blend in with the other folks or start working for themselves.

The short of this is: People don't like competence or excellence; they like similarity to themselves, stupid, shallow, and mundane.

Ive probably been fired a few times, but i dont remember. I know for a fact i've walked off the job many times, becasue it was just so damn frustraiting.

I had the same experience, and I'm as lost as you are. I wonder sometimes if it is literally a case of it's not enough to be right, someone has to be wrong, and it's just easy to pin the hate (cos it's gotta go somewhere, thermodynamically) onto the new guy. The existing pecking order needs to be maintained etc. Darkmysticdream said it best.
And in that sense, yes, self employment. Absolutely definitely. It's not that hard, actually, you just need to push it hard for the first year setting yourself up. One trick I learnt is that if you're enrolled in a course you can get access to lots of computer programs for students; anything to do web development through to AutoCAD etc- I promise not to start going on about AutoCAD ;-D
And finding clients, I just had a little speech prewritten, and I cold-called people. I'm lucky cos i had skills that are sought after so it didn't take much. I was mobile- I did house sitting- so I didn't have to pay rent. Now I'm happily set up and no, I will never go back into a normal workplace ever again.
Good luck!!

I've experienced the same sort of scenario in the past. I lucked out and found an office where they seem to like me (I've been there for more than 5 years now and actually managed to get a promotion). My family always jokes that I've "found my people".

It sounds cheesy, and I know you've been at it for longer than I have, but I'm sure your people are out there too!

I've had things like this happen at every job I ever did; no matter how nice, friendly, hard-working, helpful, etc I was, eventually I'd become an outsider, and it was only a matter of time before I got forced out, told I "just wasn't fitting in," or made the butt of some sort of scheme. The best one was where they told me that they had hired someone to assist me, and that I was supposed to be training her, and then a couple of weeks later they revealed, with no hint of shame, that this had been a lie, that she had been brought in to replace and manage me, and that instead of customer service they were going to have me do cold-call telemarketing full time, which was a huge step backwards and about the grimmest job you can do in an office setting. They were stunned that I didn't cheerfully fall into line with this, as if the normal rules of humanity were so far from applying to me that I shouldn't object to anything that was done to me.

The hard lesson is that the idea that by working harder you'll be better thought of is totally wrong. The reality is that unless you've got great personal charm you don't DARE outperform others, because they hate and resent you for it; couple that with Aspieness, which makes them inclined to turn against you no matter what you do, and the monstrous ways normally decent people will treat those who have never been anything but nice to them make perfect, if appalling, sense.

If I had it to do again, I'd focus on being average, as BTDT suggested; it would only delay the inevitable, but every day on the job is $ in the bank, and I'd know to start looking for a new job when things started going south rather than trying desperately to make it better.

I disagree with the "working too hard is threatening people" theory. I think it's simply a case of gelling (or not gelling) with one's colleagues.

I generally display a blazay approach to the job but in fact, i work extremely hard. I think this is the key - i'm very good at pretending not to care when i really do

Hi MollyTroubletail, sorry to hear you're having a bad time. I agree with BTDT, it sounds like your co-workers could just be mad with you because in their eyes you're making them look worse. I've found that once people have made up their minds not to like you they'll look for absolutely anything to pin onto you to justify their feelings and if they can't find anything obviously negative, they'll go for something obviously positive "they're trying too hard on purpose to make us look bad".

I've thought about this a lot and I think the reason they react like this is because we bring out their insecurities about themselves and their own shortcomings and, because we don't pick up on all the subtle little jibes that they usually dole out to one another to get a reaction, they have to go for something major.

I guess people just don't like it if you don't quite "fit in" because it makes them think about what "fitting in" actually involves.

I've also stopped working now because I can't face going through similar experiences again but I'm determined to find something else to do that will make me happy. I hope you do too!

It sounds like jealousy they are experiencing so they feel the need to bully you just because they feel inferior.

I wondered why I always worked better with just
one boss and NO dangbusted stupidbutt co workers.

He was an older gent in his 50s and he was one
of the BEST bosses I EVER had, I did my repair
work just like he asked me to, fixed vcrs and tvs
and tape recorders and he came back to test them
and they worked and he said
"Now why the hell can't every joe out there
do an honest days work like you? And you think
you are handicapped?"

I had a good job until he died, it would have
been a good life.

Have you looked into either vocational rehab, or placement services? I'm only 28, but I have the same problem with lack of stable job history. Placement services aren't gonna be able to do much for me because I don't have much education or skills, but vocab rehab is doing a lot for me. At one of my jobs, looking through the insurance packet, they had something called 'workplace coaches' to help you get along better in the workplace.

People sometimes interpret people who are shy as being arrogant. This, in addition to your skills, could really piss off one person and start the downard slope.

Good luck, I'm very happy with my life if it wasn't for my work issues.

I am self-employed. Office politics are completely ridiculous and I never want to be on the inside again.

Its my inability to handle change very well is the reason I was laid off from a job I worked at for nine years. I have been laid off since Oct. 09. I have been thinking about going on disability. I have a tendency to work at jobs for as long as possible because I have a hard time with job interviewes. I even worked at a resteraunt where I was made fun of for 9 years straight without quiting because no one else would hire me so I was stuck. I was so stressed out from that job it gave me high blood pressure wich caused my heart to become enlarged and my kidneys to become damaged. Not to mention being around all those chicken wings and french fries that I dipped in blue cheese for free evryday helped me pack on the pounds.