is it ok to just not want a job anymore?

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I've spent the past 13 years of my life actively looking for employment, and on the rare occasions I've managed to secure anything I've not lasted long due to being overwhelmed by the social requirements. A couple of times I could tell I was on the verge of being sacked for not "playing ball" so I decided to jump first.

Over the past few years I've attempted to specialise in an area which won't limit me to customer service roles and will help me become even more financially independent in the future, but I have had absolutely no luck. It turns out this particular area of work is every bit as "customer focused" as customer service, and every single application puts primary emphasis on "excellent communication and interpersonal skills"...

But now I'm simply sick of trying. I've actually completely lost interest in the specialism I trained for and don't really want a job in that area anyore. I've had numerous employment support workers who keep giving me the whole "you're special in your own way employers just need to see what you're capable of blah blah blah" pep talk but I know that, unless you have a particularly in-demand skill, chances of being hired while having a disability are close to zero. Even non-disabled and highly qualified people are having a really tough time finding any work so what chance does someone with a disability have..?

However if I threw the towel in now I'd feel guilty for not trying, for becoming a lazy layabout who sponges off the government and society. I'm just wondering if it's acceptable, at a certain point, to go "there's nothing out there so I might as well try to enjoy unemployed life as much as possible"...

I used to apply to about 20 jobs a day when I first went on to benefits, obviously though at that time I had a cv with pretty much no experience, for the past 2 years i've been in and out of unpaid work sometimes a few months at a time. Now i've gone down to just applying for a few jobs in one day and leaving it a few weeks and applying to a few again, I took to browsing the local newspaper, seeing if there are any jobs i can do to a reasonable level before being sacked or like you said sack yourself so they don't get the satisfaction.

Only recently though, circumstances are sure to change as I stopped receiving benefits because I wasn't complying with the jobcentre's instructions (refusing to apply to a job that I clearly wasn't suitable for, not performing well at interviews etc) and more added sanctions for other issues somewhat personal.

Even though my 2 years is like nothing to how long you've been through, I feel like i'm never going to get a job, even though I volunteer keeping my cv updated.

I feel the same way, as I have a Computer Science Bachelors, and Associates in Arts, and an Associates in Science, and I have only gotten interviews for two jobs in my field. One clearly didn't work and the other, I seemed close, but then they had a change in management and now everything is on hold and in doubt. The rest were not even in my field and I didn't get those either. I'm going through DORS and they are not really helping.

I'm beginning to think I wasted my time going to college. It's clear that this market is so against Aspergers people that I am starting to think I should try being an author, and, if that fails, just go on the dole and live off my parents till they die and then live fully on the dole after that.

Even IT isn't fully safe long term anyway, as I'm 27 and you're basically "too old" once you reach 40 in IT nowadays.

Is there anything else you can try? It certainly makes sense to give up on trying the same path for so many years. There's no shame in that. Not knowing you or your situation, I couldn't say whether you should give up on all work everywhere though.

I was lured into the trap of IT also, having just started the pathway at college (high school) i deluded myself into thinking doing my hobby is the way to go, but then when I saw that I was just pretending to know what i was doing whilst at university, I was on a slow decline and my peers were way ahead of me in terms of knowledge of the subject (computer science). Some of my family are into IT, and their background is in retail so that sort of brings me down because I have much more experience in IT tech stuff than they are and retail would be something i'd rather avoid even though I have worked in retail in total of about 4 months - mixture of volunteering and work experience (you decide the difference).

Once asked, I told my parents this, "sure I can do programming, it's all just theoretical and logical" when in my mind I was telling myself, "ah man why am I lying to them, I can't even build a simple program using the correct syntax" when I should have told them the truth and said "I can't cope with the course, want to leave because there is too much social involvement, group work, presentations, and have anxiety which hits me hard even on the best of days". To this day they still believe I have a firm footing in the IT industry, when computing at this point is just a hobby and most of my time is occupied by gaming not jobseeking.

I get what you're saying even though the economy bounced back (or so they say) , it's still hard to find a job even for those who aren't disabled. Last night, when my dad and I were watching the news during dinner, there was a CBS report about how only half of 30 year old Americans are making more than their parents. Most 20-30 year olds are making even less or about the same amount in the case of our neighbor's daughter. In fact, a lot of young people aren't even moving out of their parent's homes regardless of if they're disabled or not.

In my case, I want to work, but I'm less than thrilled about working where I'm not happy. I did that before with the hospital job and eventually told myself, "never again." That being said, I stopped looking for a commuter job nearly four years ago after I submitted my last online application for the same hospital company I interned at two years prior. It was for a job way out of town (in Hampstead) and not in Baltimore City like I thought. Needless to say, I never heard back from them and realized my job prospects are very slim even before I graduated high school. So now, I'm trying to get my new website up and running and promote it and live off the ad banners. I still got a lot of work believe me, but with courage and confidence I know I can pull it off. Meanwhile, I'm earning a little money here and there online through eBay and other sites (thank God for them especially eBay). Tried transcription in the past, but realized I wasn't really good at it and eventually deleted my account from Scribie this year.

Before I digress here, I will say that when you go into the work from home arena, figure out what you're good at it. But if you gave up on finding work in the commuter world, I completely understand and I've done the same.

I went through DORS too, and all they did was take me back to where I started from. So, I asked my new counselor to close out my case as soon as possible. I realized I don't want to put roots down here in Maryland and a job will just tie me down to this place. I hate Baltimore enough as it is and I definitely am not too fond of Maryland in general (mainly because the way its been ran). I know you're a little older than I am (just turned 24 in September), but my word of advice would be if DORS isn't working out (which I hear about for many vocational rehab agencies in other states as well), give up on them. My training period expired for me so instead of reevaluating my case with my new counselor, I wrote her a letter asking for my case to be closed indefinitely. The best thing I ever did.

I would have by now because

1.) Though they did help me with getting most of the stuff ready for state job apps, we've pretty much sat on it since then.

2.) I can probably job search better than they can and find stuff better than they can.


but

1.) My mother would throw a fit, thinking I'm being "lazy" or "unhelpful".

2.) I had a fear that if I did that, they'd send word to the state and axe my Medicaid. (Probably a silly fear, but one I had thought of.)

I get what you're saying, but sometimes life is all about moving on and making a sacrifice. However, I don't think you'll lose Medicaid if you end up closing out your case with DORS. Besides, I think it would be illegal for Medicaid to unlawfully terminate your service especially if you don't make much a lot. I sent my letter to my old counselor a few months ago and haven't got a a termination letter from my Medicaid health insurance company since. Did you apply for medicaid through DORS? If so, maybe you can reapply through Maryland's new health connection (had to do so last year because of what happened when O'Malley was still governor).

DORS did things for me too, but in the end they weren't very useful. A while back, a lady I met on my internship said DORS gave her a clothing voucher check so I thought maybe I can get a clothing voucher too. When I finally emailed my counselor about it, she said they were under fiscal containment. Never asked again and went without new clothes for months. Yet, they had no problem paying for my schooling when I did go. What happened to your budget constraints? I was tired of getting nowhere.

If you don't mind asking, are you also afraid of what your mother might do? Has she threatened to kick you out if you give up on DORS or school and finding work? I personally feel like there are people out here who think one size fits all. Life is more dynamic than that. I had a sister who didn't really care for me nor had my best interests. If it wasn't what she was doing, it wasn't worth it. She did a lot of horrible things to me when we were kids (mainly abuse among other things). She only pretended to care about me, but just to save face or if she wanted something from me or my dad.

Well, what irked me about my DORS counselor was an incident that happened last summer. Last summer, I had tried to do a phone interview for this job thing. I had known there would be a family campout, where I might not even get phone service, and I, though I hadn't mention the what, of course, had said that I could do the interview phone call on some days BEFORE the campout or on some days AFTER. I had SPECIFICALLY mentioned that. So we set the phone call day to be a day BEFORE the campout. The night BEFORE the call, they say "Sorry, we had to reschedule." Well, it was the first day of the family campout that they suggested that I do the call (and as my family NEVER usually is kind enough, though perhaps they don't mean it this way, to tell me specifics on these things, so I didn't know WHEN we were leaving that day), so I said "Sorry, I told you ahead of time, either before this day or after this day." So I called back on the first day I said I was available to do it. So I called that day, and they said "Sorry, the guy is out. Call back after such and such a time." So I did. And then they said "Oh, we already did the interview and found someone else. Sorry."

So then I told the DORS job coach and she blamed ME, saying I shoulda offered to reschedule, thus showing that I was more "flexible". I said "Any company that would be that demanding of me that they would just to do things like that and expect you to roll over to be "flexible" for everything is probably not a company I'd want to work for anyway." Then, I said "What if it hadn't been a family campout? What if it was my own wedding? Should it be like

Minister: Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to....
Me: Sorry Rev, I gotta take this phone call for the job interview. (Pulls out phone)

(Note, I didn't exactly say it to her like that, but that was what I was implying.)

She replied "Yes, you SHOULD have, because you have bills to pay after the wedding."

It was at that point that I lost a LOT of respect for her. Also, her remarks, coupled with the fact that she happens to seem to get a week or more vacation every other month, plus other nice things the rest of us can only dream about, caused me to think that she doesn't live on Planet Reality.

Also, when I feared jobs with too many people having to work with or things that WOULD be impacted by my Aspiness, sometimes she'd say "You just need to take a job and try and work on it, otherwise we're going to be here a year later, still looking for a job for you."

For a while, I started privately nicknaming her Spectra, the Danny Phantom counselor that students go to to, but,instead of making them feel better, they always left feeling WORSE than before they had come. (It kinda felt that way for a while, me wondering why, when I already felt like a failure, to have to spend an hour or so a week trying to find jobs I could already find on my own except, that, while on my own, I could just say no for one reason or another if I felt it was a bad fit (Even working lots of weekends could be a problem if I was scheduled lots of Sundays and my parents and I go to church every Sunday morning and night, so if I got scheduled that time a lot, I'd be pressed to look for someone else to find a ride, as my parents couldn't take me and the local transportation that might help the disabled might not operate some of those hours.) for whatever reason, that I would always have to think an argument as to "why" I turned it down so as not to feel like I was "uncooperative" or "too picky" from the counselor having to look over my applications.

I had tried more in-field, where I WOULD make enough money to live on my own and NOT have to rely on my family, but apparently the IT industry has been able to be VERY picky during the recession, so I just kept being turned down no matter how hard I tried.

Also, the job coach wasn't much help, in that, even though I kept applying for IT jobs (many of them that were actually through staffing agencies posing as regular places) and even though most of those were NOT even calling back, whether staffing agency or not, she never bothered to point out the obvious, that maybe I should apply a bit lower. Eventually, I figured out that on my own.

Problem is, now that I have tried aiming lower later, my IT degree may be practically worthless in terms of hirability as now I'm not in the recent college grad group anymore but don't have the experience of the those who HAVE been out for three years and DO have experience.

It then occurred to me that I may be OUT of the running for IT. But I was like "I'll be da--ed if I just settle , er, permanently, for low paying, low skilled, non-creative jobs after busting my butt to get honors all the way through Jr. College and getting a Bachelors in regular college!" so I thought, maybe I can be an author, but then I began to fear that if I took these low paying jobs, that they might be the draining type that would:

1.) Still may well be a lot of hard work for little pay.
2.) May be so tiring that I'd be too worn out to do my passion for writing anymore (and the fact that my Dad mentioned that "A full time job is where your free time drops down to about zero" didn't help.

Indeed, at one point, I got to the point where I was actually so distraught, that I actually INTENTIONALLY sabotaged one of my job prospects (HyVee), fearing that if I got into retail, it would a black hole that I'd never get out of.

Believe me, I have had points where I got so low that sometimes I thought of overdosing on my meds and ending it all. And no, I couldn't have told my frustrations to my parents for a while, as I recalled times when I HAD lost my temper and said dumb things in anger and my Dad had said "If you keep up that way, I'll just have you committed!"
So, of course, not wanting that, I kept my despair to myself, which, as we all know, is the WORST way to handle it.

As for my Mother, she is concerned and has helped a lot, though more in the past than currently. In the past, she helped a lot. Not that she didn't have problems (though perhaps her problems were a result of:


1.) Having to handle an Aspergers and ADHD child by herself while my Dad worked a lot.
2.) She also had an ADHD father who liked to yell a lot, and she seems to have picked up that habit from him.

Indeed, part of the reason I did so well in school WASN'T just because I desired to succeed so hard, it was because of the extreme issue of what had happened the one time I HADN'T.

I normally did WELL on stuff, but one time, I just had a nightmare with one particular test in a reading/English class. I ended up, despite my best efforts, actually doing WORSE on the post-test than the pretest.

As punishment for, apparently, in my Mother's eyes, not doing enough, I was locked in my room all day, NOT allowed to watch my favorite show the Magic School Bus, and other things were denied me.

(Note, she wasn't extreme on everything though. One time, in fourth grade, I got a C in a class because there was just one big test that was a large part of the grade and I got a C on that, thus getting a C in the class, and, since I had B's in all the other classes, that ended up being the ONLY time in my entire K-12 that I DIDN'T make the honor roll and wasn't punished for it.)

Another time, I needed to have a bloodtest to find the right level of meds for me. When they pricked me, I was nervous, so nothing came. So they kept pricking me, and, of course, the fear of being pricked just made it worse. So, after being pricked 12 times, they got nothing. My Mother, angry at me for "being uncooperative", told me that I was NOT allowed to go see the Inspector Gadget movie in theaters, as we had been planning, and I had to wait for it to come out on video to see it.

Another time, I got locked in my room all day just because I lost recess at school and was naive enough, when asked how my day was, to tell her that fact. On that one, I whined about it to the school and they said that they didn't appreciate her punishing me like that after I had ALREADY been punished at school.

However, she did help me, especially in high school where the school was trying to jerk me around with my disability accommodations and she stood her ground and got me to be the first person with Aspegers/ADHD, that she knows of, to get into the Advance Placement courses. (She was actually so mad at the school during my freshman year that she came pretty close to pulling me and homeschooling me.)

Also, she does have like every document from like preschool through college, so that way the system has a harder time denying me stuff that I AM due under the system due to a possible loss of documentation.

Lately though, after leaving her tax preparing job (and for good reason, the owner was being pretty crooked and sometimes skirting labor laws too, and my mother had heard that some others working there had left for the same reason.) and, being over 50 anyway, she did not apply for any more jobs, and just stayed at home, eventually spending hours on Facebook, staying up to 2-4 AM, and sleeping in to 12-2 PM. (Of course, that might be PMDD to the extreme and other things she has). Also, I got to fearing, so I don't have a car and don't drive and my family has thought that I couldn't handle that with Aspergers, ADHD, etc, as I seem to get distracted too much. Anyway, her habit of being on Facebook all day and staying up and sleeping in late, has gotten me worried about how realiable she is. (Trust me, she has goofed before, though on not much major though, and made us late to things, making me doubt her reliability. What made me doubt her the most is how, when I was in 10th grade, I had zits on my face and she kept applying face cream to me to get rid of the bad achne. However, she didn't know when to NOT do it that day due to running late, etc and would say "Real quick!" and make me do it. Indeed, her antics almost got me detention and an assigned 1-unexcused absence for 3 tardies in a semester to my record (which would have cost me my plaque that I got in my senior year for 8 semesters of absolutely perfect attendance), except that, since I beat the teacher, who was running late too, to the room, he said that he WAS NOT going to mark me tardy and thus I avoided detention and the other stuff.)

Meanwhile, my NT brother, whom I outdid in regular K-12 school, but is now getting his Bachelors and on his way to being in a PT job, and all seems well for him, it's hard not to envy him as he has a girlfriend, (perhaps more than that), and has a car, can get jobs easily, and is likely to do well, while I feel like a failure. That, plus some other off hand comments he made to me while we were on summer break together, almost left me on non-speaking terms with him, though that has healed.

As if that weren't enough, my Dad, who was making enough to go out to eat like twice or so a week, was worried at one point that he might lost his job. He didn't, but to justify keeping the department, the company cut his commission, which means, starting next year, he's going to be making $18K less. And since the commission is gone and the company, that he once planned to retire from, has passed other stupid policies, he had wanted out, but soon realized that, at 54, if he left, he might never get hired again due to the age discrimination against older workers (in general, not just in his field) and that, even if he did get hired, it would, likely, be even LESS pay, seniority, vacations, etc, than he has now. So, he even thought of moving, so that's another problem: what if I get hired here but then they move? If I'm just working a crap job that only gets enough to get by, and thus need to rely on them to get transportation, I'd have to quit my job or else I'd be SOL for transportation and I'm not the type to try and call people asking for rides that I may not know that well. That was another reason that I was being pickier sometimes as I wanted to be able to be independent from my parents, but I couldn't tell Spectra that for fear of criticism.
(BTW, that fear is so reasonable, as he has said that he really doesn't like this area (not crime ridden, of course, but he doesn't think it's too friendly), doesn't like his job, and wants to live in Wisconsin with his family, and my brother is strong enough to probably live in another state independent of Mom and Dad, but I'm NOT.)

Plus, for many of these low level jobs, that might require more interaction with people than I preferred, and thus would be subpar with my decreasing focus (happened since around the middle of my university, and hasn't really gotten better since) and my lack of people skills, plus my job gap, I'd always be fearful of being laid off, canned for not being a good fit, etc and never feel whole.

This night auditor job I came across recently sounds better, but the problem is, that does mean the graveyard shift and that is supposed to be VERY bad for your health and shouldn't be done long term.

As for my mother, she sometimes has made subtle comments like "You're 27 and still at home." and "He's just a guest here. It's not his house." and things like that that make me feel less welcome and more wanting out. Also, when sometimes I lose focus when helping Mother with projects and seem spacey, she's said "You're NEVER going to do well at a job if you lose focus like this." (Nice confidence booster Mom! When I already feel down, comments like these just make me wanna throw in the towel and just live off of others the rest of my life EVEN MORE.)

Last edited by DinoMongoosePenguin on 13 Dec 2016, 1:49 am, edited 1 time in total.

Dang Wrong Planet and its security checks messing up my post formatting! Luckily, on another forum, which sometimes eats posts, I learned the habit of Copy/Pasting before posting and so did so now and thus didn't lose it due to one of those security checks. However, when I copy/pasted, I accidentally did the quoted posts twice. Sorry about that.

I at this stage. Unfortunately I have dependents, but, I am really at that stage where I could not imagine working anymore. I can relate to the OP and other posters here in many ways.

My main problems with work are the social component, being smarter than most developers (they get their backs all against the wall and feel threatened at every darn company I go to) and then of course, the requirements I have, to produce good work which include my headphones with heavy metal, my need to wear very casual clothing, and my whimsical sense of humour and artistic bent.

Doesn't matter where I go, there's always something that offends the boss... be it my way of speaking, my dedication to doing things the right way, or my absolute avoidance of office politics. Some have also had issues with what I do after hours.

Trust your instinct.
There are people that have spent 5 years at university, come out to discover they actually hate the job.

Now that you know what you don't want to do, that is the first step.
Focus on something that you are willing to do, convert a hobby into a profitable job.
Become self employed if possible.

I see what you mean. Sometimes when I'm on the bus stop, I also see people complaining about their minimal wage jobs as well. And it doesn't matter if they're on the phone or talking to someone in person. There's just a sense of negativity in the air and often times it doesn't matter if these people have a "good" full time job with benefits or a minimum wage job where they're not making much, they're still not happy. I'm trying to break that cycle and become self employed. By the end of next year, I will have my own website. No one's gonna get in the way of what I want. Not my family, not the state. No one.

i'm at the point in my life where i rather work from home then to work with the public. i've been looking for work for years only to get a job for a couple days before they tell me its not going to work out. so i gave up looking and i've been wanting to work from home since then. i don't know how i would work from home, but its better then working in retail and dealing with customers. i'm going to focus doing the things i love to do. i'm 30 this year, i need to focus on me. i don't want to work because i have to. i'm not going to be happy.

Probably.

I used to think that not only is it not ok to not want a job but I used to think even if you have a job it's not ok to not try to get a promotion.

Not long ago I thought I was being a lazy layabout for not taking night class after work or doing overtime.
Sometimes I still think that way.

I'm starting to realise that kind of thinking leads to madness.

If you're 31 and you've never held a job before it means you're able to support yourself through welfare. In that case you can still have an okayish life without employment. Think about what you are, not what you are not. Don't go crazy planning for a future that may never come. Instead, live in the moment. Learn to enjoy this very moment. Being happy is more important than employment so don't stress.

Some people will say you're leeching off welfare but no matter what you do, people will criticise you. If you get a job people will say you should have got a better one. If you get money, people will say you should get more money. If you become a millionaire people will complain you're too rich.

Since people will criticise no matter what you do, it becomes meaningless. Brush it off. If they call you a welfare queen or a benefits bum, etc, it reveals more about them than it does about you. Some people are hypercompetitive. That's their problem. Don't compete with those people. Life is not a sport.