I got fired for trying too hard

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As an Aspie recognized as an Industrial Engineering Technologist literally with a "Kaizen," tattoo on my inner left wrist (continuous process improvement, or literally "good change.") I always work this way, too.

But I understand why the others would have been annoyed. It's classic, "Tell me how I'm measured and I'll show you how I'll behave," stuff. They're being paid by the hour and the expectation is that it takes them 4 days to complete, so, they want to have work and get paid for 4 days work. Now, if they were getting paid $x per 100 envelopes or something, regardless of the time it took, then they'd be open to your suggestions of how to do things as fast as possible, bang the whole job out in 2 days, collect their money, and move on.

My Aspiest uncle had this problem working in a mine once. They asked him to have his crew level a pile of dirt. He assessed the situation and decided to use a big water hose to hydro-blast it. (before hydro-blasting was even a thing) They levelled that pile in a day and he went to his boss and asked what was next. The boss looked at him, looked at the completed work, and then said "That was supposed to take you guys all week! Now I have no choice but to lay you all off because I have no other work for you." My uncle's response was "Nobody told me that! Why didn't anybody tell me??" His lesson learned was that he should always ask when it needs to be done by.. and if they say, well, there's nothing else to do, so make it take 'til the end of the week.. then do that - they're doing you a favour giving you busy work to do to collect a paycheque so they don't have to get rid of you as they'll have more actual productive work to do shortly. Also, it's often cheaper to pay someone to do f**k all for a week than it is to get rid of them and then hire and train new people.. so, sometimes you just have to accept that there's actually business value in giving people busy work like sweeping the same floor all week, or wandering around being a "safety inspector," or whatever do-nothing role they come up with just to keep you on payroll.

Sometimes you have to acknowledge that there's more to a work situation than doing things as fast as possible and then just roll with it even if it goes against your instincts. It'll serve you better in the long run as you'll make more friends for it and get along with people at work better, be offered more jobs/promotions etc etc.

OP just got hired. Unless he has 20 years experience and specifically ask to stream line the company, why should the boss be thrilled he went rogue the first day "helping with improvement"? OP is being trained. He has no experience. Whether the busboy/dishwasher is f*****g off at his job, OP should have gotten someone and said, "We need more pitchers". Maybe putting water pitchers on that shelf is a health code violation.

My husband almost lost his job over something similar. HE thought he knew all what was going on with an situation at work. In reality, he knew about a 10th of it. It was a management decision that was decided four levels up above his own manager. My husband made the changes, and it FUBARed. His supervisor, the department manager and three other people wanted his head. It really really screwed things up. My husband thought he was being efficient and helping. He only saw the surface problem. He had no information on the whole back store.

My husband has a tendency to hyper focus, and not see the big picture. Maybe that is what OP did. Not enough water pitchers, and did something that was a health code violation.

Talking weirdness with the workers, not asking how to rectify a situation, and dumping he has Aspergers on top off all the other stuff, I'm not surprised he was broom.

A NT could have done the same thing, they would have been gone too. I've worked with NTs who overshared info I really didn't need to know. Who thought they were Steve Jobs brillant and messed stuff up for everyone. In a lab I worked in, the a CO laser gets destroyed because, "Someone knew better", causing $$$$$$$ worth of damage.

Sometimes doing first, and ask forgiveness later in a job will just get you fired.

OP still has hope. It seems like they'd use him as a temp.

There is nothing wrong with being a go getter and thinking outside the box. Run the idea by someone before hopping in with both feet. If the job doesn't appreciate your brilliance, cut bait and go somewhere else. The fastest firings are where someone just does it, and the boss finds out. At least at the places I've worked.

Last edited by Tawaki on 26 Aug 2018, 4:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.

No. Hell will freeze over before they call him for a shift. The manager said this Only as a socially acceptable little white lie as the nicest way of saying "Please leave & never come back." Managers are human, too, and don't like delivering bad news. So, they'll say things like this to make the sting of firing someone feel less hurtful for both the person being fired and themselves. The OP will never receive a call for a temp shift. Ever.

When I had my 3 month review at a sporting goods store I got a low star in one area because I kept asking the mangers things instead of taking the initiative & just doing things on my own.

That's because the answer is.. it depends. It depends on the situation. Managers expect that people intuitively know which things they should just go ahead and get done, and which things they should ask and see if they should do. Knowing the difference is difficult for many on the spectrum as these are "common sense," social "hive mind," things that NT's are tapped into & most of us are not.

I looked up and found out more about taking the initiative.

https://www.thriveyard.com/17-tips-on-h ... e-at-work/

This is very good information and number 6 is especially pertinent to you. This provides such excellent insight because it provides concrete examples. I think this is what Tawaki was trying to tell you as well as goldfish. Listen to them and read all of this especially and I repeat especially number 6.

I will relay my story. I was with an organization called worktec (they shutdown b/c they were violating a rule themselves and didn't know it) but I was stuffing envelopes as well and I decided to change the process because the new way seemed faster. I thought I was taking the initiative but I was dead wrong. I didn't understand why. She said that I needed to do it the way they told me to do it and that the way they told me to do it was the most efficient way. I tried to tell her that I was trying to take the initiative b/c it seemed faster. But, based upon this article and others I've read I misunderstood what it meant. I thought it meant to charge in and do without being asked.

In this this situation, I should have continued the way they instructed me to do it even if I found a more efficient way and talked to her or one of the supervisors first. And, I should have made sure I had my own data to back it up by either collecting this data on my own time or asking them if I could do a study to determine if my way of doing the envelopes was faster or not. This was the more appropriate response and this was one appropriate way to take initiative. They would have said yes to stuffing the envelopes my way, yes to doing the study or no get your ass back to work(not in those terms though).

The issue is we're on the autism spectrum so we don't intuitively pick up these things like NTs. We can't or have difficulty connecting with their social network.

I once had the following situaion:
- My boss came to me with a sheet. She said: "Please copy this 300 times." I did so.
- Later on: "Also copy this 300 times, please." I did so, too.
- Later on: "And this 300 times, please." I did so, too.
Three same tasks only with three different originals. What is the final goal?
- She came back. "Okay... We have 3 piles of sheets. Make sets, please. If everything is alright, there must be 300 sets as the final result."
I: "Okay, I will do so... but... why didn't you give me a set and ask me to copy that 300 times? A part of the task could have been done by the copying machine instead of me."

She is generally very smart, but why didn't she think this through?

This is a very useful link, but at my workplace there is no space for that. I sometimes discuss this with my closest co-workers and with higher bosses and the principal (I have a very good work relation with them). But my employer, not my principal, is only interested in my autism diagnosis and how much money he can get from the state and it's important to him that I have a learning disorder. More responsibilities would cause more stress, but I wonder: is that really true or is that a vile excuse?

I can give some suggestions but first I am not in the position to change the system and there is no space to advance. That would mean I would cost the school more: no longer money from the state (to encourage hiring employees with a handicap) but the salary costs would increase.

On the other hand I want to learn their less efficient system because I think there are rules, and they must be followed.

You're right.. there could be autistic learning value in it. Going with their less efficient system seems counterintuitive to you, but it is their social norm, and so going along with it is learning to go along with the social norms of the group you're in - and there's some value to that.

The funniest part is that the rules at schools are not always enforced in the right way. Some co-workers fail to enforce them. The students abuse that fact, and that lead to an incident.

During lessons smartphones may not be used, but that hasn't been enforced strictly enough. A teacher was snapping too harshly and got filmed. That movie has bern uploaded to YouTube.

I tend to criticise co-workers for not enforcing, but that is not my job. It's their bosses'.

My boss asked me a while ago to keep track on the tea in the personnel room. Of course I did, but I also looked at the reason for her to ask this. Then I thought: "I should not only keep track on the tea, but also on the soup, coffee, sugar, cream, and other stuff that my co-workers may need."

With a psychologist I talked about a cognition test (but my team manager and I forced him to arrange a test, because he refused at first instance). I also talked about my work attitude. He said: "Not only keeping track on the tea, but keeping track on other things is autistic." Of course, he can call anything what I do, autistic, because I, with ASD, do this...

I do not think many people read to the end about his parents. I hope he recorded everything he did (which is an excellent plan), because he obviously has great skills and is able to do more than his parents say. He was under their thumb. He should record, maybe take lots of before and after photos of the things he is able to do at home, so he has important evidence that he should not have his rights taken away. I think this is the most serious part of his post.

Really, I think he did brilliantly at trying to turn his situation around, at least he tried hard, and I really admire him for that. I hope he got away from his controlling parents, they sound awful.

I hope the OP is OK.

Agree

Hi, climategeek. I feel for you. I have a similar bad record w work, and am exactly twice your age, albeit formally undiagnosed until last year. Suspicious 5 years before that.

A couple of things: you use the word 'predict' a lot, and your mother is a terribly destructive force in your life. From what you present here, she seems almost entirely driven by stereotypes and the limited amount of information they provide about spectrum folks' abilities.

In fact, I daresay that the sum of your interactions with her and certain other authority figures has so shaped your thinking that you 'predict' negative outcomes when 'assuming ' them would be more correct. The firings and failures you discuss here are an excellent example of 'self fulfilling prophecy ' at work. You've become so conditioned to expect the worst that you not only expect the worst to happen, you unconsciously set in motion behaviors and events that make it so.

GET AWAY FROM YOUR MOTHER. Sorry to shout, but the cost of free room and board is deleterious to all aspects of your life. She is the source code of your predictions. I know that you will need counseling to do this, and I hope you have someone in place to provide it. If not, get to googling low cost or free programs that include it. If you dont have disability/SSDI, get it. If this means remaining with your mother until your supports are arranged, ease up on yourself. You're making a mighty effort to individuals. I suspect you can find a bunch of free games in public libraries. At 27, you seem equipped to make the break.

Luck to you. I'll be following your progress. Also: damn, your mother needs some 3ducation. Looks like you've been badly mismanaged.