No contract renew

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I just feel so confused, sad, and annoyed at the same time. I had a weekend job at a furniture store. Today I got told I wasn't gonna get a contract renew. I will stop at the end of february. I asked my boss why they would end my contract. They said they could tell I was struggling to multitask at the cash register and that I often lost view of the big picture when I was doing tasks in the store.

I just feel so bad about myself now. It made me doubt my capacities. Am I intelligent enough? I am a masters university student and I can't even function in a job that is 'below my level'. This just makes me think what is wrong with me.


I needed to get it out guys. I am not good enough.

At that job, maybe. I don't know what was meant about "big picture" tasks, but that is a remark often leveled at Aspergians (I've heard it said about myself many times). It always seems to mean "Your Big Picture doesn't match OUR Big Picture, and we're in control, so you're out."

As for cash registers, they are a living nightmare for me. I don't even like to be on the working end of one. I cannot deal with socializing with a chatty customer and keeping track of money at the same time. Even if the wretched machine tells me how much change to give, I can screw it up and end up short at the end of the day.

You just need to work in a job that lends itself to your strengths. Nobody's good at everything.

A lot of Aspies have difficulties with multitasking.

As far as what the "big picture" concept is I will use an example of a Aspie whose job is to create a schedule for a commuter railroad. The Aspie might schedule trains to run every half and hour . He would figure this would be easy to understand and plan for because it is a repetitive routine. in reality this would not work at all because the amount of people using the trains varies a lot depending on the time of day. There are many more people using the trains between 6AM and 9AM when they go to work and between 4PM and 7AM when they go home from work. At 11AM not many people are using the railroad because they are in school or work. So what would happen is during hours of peak demand the there would be more commuters then space for them on the railroad. Commuter might have to wait two or 3 hours before find a train with room for them. The commuters would find another way to get to work and the railroad would lose money. The railroad would also lose money because most seats would be empty at 11AM. The employee would not have contract renewed . The next person hired to make schedules would have trains run once an hour in the middle of the day and every 10 minutes during hours of peak demand. Commuters leaving work would have to wait no more then ten minutes because there would be room for every commuter. And trains in the middle of the day would be filled.

The first person hire to create scheduled did not think of the "big picture" but just focused on making the schedule a routine. The second person hired did think about the "big picture" because he took into account how the customers use the trains and the financial needs of the company.

The funny thing is that I don´t feel like I don´t get the big picture. It just takes time to switch tasks, especially if they are new.

FWIW....

My husband lost his job over the EXACT same reason, and it was in a computer related field. The company wanted him to help people out (like a floater), and when that calmed down do his job. He just couldn't do it. Jay can't prioritize, and drop an activity. (transitions anyone? Lol..)

The more the company tried to "help", with suggestions, the more Jay unraveled until he had a huge meltdown at work.

Meltdown+co workers who threw him under the bus to get rid of him= placed on long term disability.

Jay couldn't do your job, either. His brain and temperament isn't wired like that.

He could never see the "big picture". His job was prepping him for a supervisory position, but never told him. They want to see how Jay would handle multitasking, and gave him a nervous breakdown in the process.

Sorry about your job loss. That sucks.

I understand. As part of the diagnostic process for Aspergers I took a test called BRIEF-A which measures Executive Function. There is a section of the test called "shift" . The results showed that 97% of people can do this better then I can. I am better at shifting then 2% of the population .

You just have a unique set of skills and abilities, and have now discovered that working as a cashier is not among them. I would count that newfound self-knowledge as progress.

Hang-in there and try something different. If you have not done it already, doing some career-guidance testing helped me. I really benefitted from Myers-Briggs.