Just Started Working In An Office...Help/Tips

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bluecountry
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15 Aug 2016, 9:43 am

I recently began a 6 month appointment in a large professional office.
I am accustomed to working from home on projects.
Right now, I am NOT tasked with any assignments, I was told by the person I shadow that in his first 6 months, he had basically all free, loose time. It is good not to be overwhelmed, but I do find at times I am anxioustious without structure.

One thing I am unsure of is taking breaks, as in how often/how long, etc. I'm used to working from home, working as long as it takes to finish an assignment. Just was curious if you had any advice or better, any "Office 101" books for AS people?



kraftiekortie
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15 Aug 2016, 9:47 am

Are they giving you ANY tasks to do? Are they having you observe someone else?

I would try to see if somebody needs help with something, if I were you. I would make an effort to seem "busy," in general.

I have worked in offices for years.

Don't mention ANYTHING about having autism or any other sort of "condition."



bluecountry
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15 Aug 2016, 10:40 am

kraftiekortie wrote:
Are they giving you ANY tasks to do? Are they having you observe someone else?

I would try to see if somebody needs help with something, if I were you. I would make an effort to seem "busy," in general.

I have worked in offices for years.

Don't mention ANYTHING about having autism or any other sort of "condition."

I have meetings to go to, where I observe, and occasionally somebody comes over to me, but no, I have no work to complete.
This is a government job...why not at some point mention AS?



kraftiekortie
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15 Aug 2016, 11:16 am

I have a government job, too.

Are you in some sort of situation where they are actively seeking "disabled" people?

If not, I wouldn't disclose. I don't think most unions are strong enough/inspired enough to defend someone in case of a wrongful firing.

Or....if your boss happens to mention Asperger's in a good light, and talks about Temple Grandin.



Scorpius14
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16 Aug 2016, 12:15 am

I worked in a government office for work experience for 2 months, first few weeks were customer service related, the rest were at a desk job. I didn't disclose but they could tell from my attitude in my first week that I didn't like dealing with people so they delegated the telephone tasks to someone else more appropriate for the job but I felt I could handle face-to-face better as long as it was with just 2 people. It was particularly easy because it was related to IT tech support and it was my background.

But enough of my history, an advice I would give is to just be yourself, if they notice anything out of the ordinary, they should give you feedback i.e. if you were in a meeting, a staff member would be tasked with assessing your activities or would be using video footage to see if you are engaging in the manner they expect of you. Or you could ask if you were doing anything wrong, personally when I was at the office I had a slightly more forgiving boss, as work experience in general gives you more freedom as opposed to a full time paid job.

I also found that I had such little workload to deal with in such large amount of time, given my IT experience my knowledge was underestimated and I completed my tasks in the space of an hour rather than the 6 hours it should have taken allegedly. Feedback suggested I should have taken the initiative to ask for more tasks when in reality I took extra trips to the toilet to drain my anxiety, early lunch's, got stuck on a task but refused help because theres some invisible barrier stopping me asking help for unknown reasons which happens outside work also.